[AG-TECH] (Announce) VP 0.7 - a replacement for vic

[Markus Buchhorn]

Hi all

VP has been updated to version 0.7. 

VP is a tool designed to replace vic on the AG display machine (in the first instance) and on desktops, to make AG display management a lot easier, and the user interface a lot friendlier. 

VP is available at

http://if.anu.edu.au/SW/VP.html

VP has the following main features:
 - site grouping, site management, display management
 - smooth (any size) display scaling in opengl (on hardware)
 - ports to Linux and Windows 
     (and a backport to FreeBSD and MacOSX is coming)
 - a capture application is coming
 - early DV capability on top of h.261, and more codecs to come.
 - it's a drop-in replacement for vic on AG2 displays

 - and a long roadmap of features to scale performance and functionality, including several audio features, integration with other tools we are working on, as well as a (network) remote miniature console

version 0.7 adds:
 - grid layout for site tiles (all video tiles equal size) 
      - added to 0.6's prioritised layout
 - DV decoding on Windows and Linux (no mmx on Win32 yet, to come)
 - rtcp name (or cname) information is displayed on site-tile
 - librtp builds as a DLL on Windows
 - generates outbound rtcp data (very minimal, sdes and blank rr)
 - autoconf compilation on Linux (very early...)

We're looking for people to help test it, suggest ideas, comment/critique, and contribute code. Some people have already expressed interest in developing enhancements, such as more/better codecs, as well as associated projects. We had nearly 100 sites download VP-0.6 and got some very nice feedback, so hopefully more will come. See the above web site for installation and running information.

Please try it out and let us know!

Cheers,
	Markus

Markus Buchhorn, ANU Internet Futures Group,       |Ph: +61 2 61258810
Markus.Buchhorn at anu.edu.au, mail: Bldg #108 CS&IT  |Fx: +61 2 61259805
Australian National University, Canberra 0200 Aust.|Mob: 0417 281429