Geofront - TexMPEG video decoder

TexMPEG is an advanced MPEG2 software decoder for IRIX and Linux systems, able to utilize multiple CPUs and able to play several MPEG files simultaneously (see picture).

A simple OpenGL demo, 150 lines

It fits perfectly as an MPEG2 player for all applications where it is neccessary to retain control over the video output, such as:

3D applications with movie textures:

2 MPEG videos in OpenPerformer
TexMPEG has also been tested to play several synchronized MPEG files. We have succeeded in playing three MPEG2 videos at 1024x768 in the mentioned VR theatre, and to keep them synchronized during the playback process.
This is highly useful in e.g. panoramic MPEG players:

Synchronized playback of 3 MPEG2 movie views, 1024x768, on an SGI Onyx3
Users of the MPEG Z/Alpha format (video with depth data) are provided with a decoder:

Playing MPEG Z/Alpha
For Virtual Reality theatre users it could be interesting to know that TexMPEG is one of the first MPEG players for video files that cover the whole field of view (160 degrees) and still can keep the full framerate.
TexMPEG has for example been tested with an MPEG file that was encoded at a resolution of 2160 x 576 with 25 frames per second. This movie could be played at full framerate on an Onyx3400 (16 x R10000 500 MHz) under the usage of 6 CPU threads.

Screenshot of a hi-res MPEG at 2160x576, 25 fps

The movie is actually a texture in a 3D application

Documentation

For an overview of the software's inner workings, please read Gernot Ziegler's diploma thesis on this subject.

You can also take a look at the Presentation Paper in the MPEG Z/Alpha section (to the left).

The developer documentation has been assembled from the Doxygen style comments in the sourcecode.

Support

TexMPEG is starting to age, but could be remodeled to new architectures if there is sufficient interest from new users/developers. If you run Linux and own an NVidia graphics card, then we can instead offer you the source code a nice tool called ff3d which is able to stream video textures from any video format, and which is based on ffplay and thus comparably easy to understand. Please contact us for further information.

Availability

TexMPEG is OpenSource software, and is thus freely available. However, future development (and debugging) and the implementation of features are dependent on available time. We therefore kindly ask you to consider assisting with development and/or documentation time to advance this project if you use this software in a production environment (both academic and commercial). Please contact Geofront for more information.

ViewCVS: Visit http://cvs.lysator.liu.se/viewcvs/viewcvs.cgi/?cvsroot=aquamarijn

Download over CVS:
Anonymous access possible.
Use :pserver:anonymous@cvs.lysator.liu.se:/cvsroot/aquamarijn as CVSROOT and press enter when asked for a password. Then, run "cvs checkout texmpeg".

More info on CVS: CVS-Manual Further, you will require the following libraries:

Lib/developing with Linux tar IRIX tar

LibPNG 1.2.3 1.2.4

LibMAD 0.14.2 0.14.2

OpenPerformer (only for test apps) 2.5.1 2.4

libao2 (audio output) included in source package included in source package

libac3 (AC3 decoder) included in source package included in source package

pthreads included in all dists included

libmpeg2 (MPEG2 video codec) 0.3.1 0.3.1 (?)