Android square video record with post proccessing - android

I to allow users in my app to record video and then post process it. Basically all I need is to video to be square (low res, something about 400x400) and when recording is done then allow user to modify brightness/contrast.
I did some research on that and found ffmpeg library which can do that. But I'm not sure if I am ok with its licensing. When I use ffmpeg do I have to release my app sources as well? My app will be free to download and use but I am not comfortable with its releasing sources.
Also about that square recording - as I am supporting API 14, android doesn't let me adjust resolution directly. There are 2 ways I think of:
Record video file in 640x480, then resize/crop and after that allow user to do post processing. - totally need ffmpeg for that
Capture CameraPreviewFrames - crop them as they go and render them into mp4 video, and after video is rendered then allow user to post process it further - need ffmpeg for that as well.
My question is then - may I use ffmpeg without any worries about licensing etc?
Or is there any other library which allows me to do above and is open to use?
Thanks very much

I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. You should consult your lawyer for real legal advice.
FFmpeg is LGPL. You should read the license; it's somewhat more readable than most legalese.
The LGPL differs from the GPL in that you are not required to distribute your source code so long as you do not incorporate FFmpeg source code into your project. To achieve this, you must use FFmpeg as a so-called dynamic link library (e.g., .so, .dylib, .framework, .dll, etc). This is the default configuration.
If you modify the FFmpeg source, you must make it available.
You must also comply with the copyright license/patent license restrictions of all codecs you compile with FFmpeg. These are possible to distinguish by the FFmpeg configure options, e.g. --enable-gpl. If you use this configure option, for example, you are agreeing to distribute your source code as well as the FFmpeg source code, subject to the requirements of that codec's license(s). (In the case of x264, I believe there is a commercial license as well as the GPL.)
Straight from the horse's mouth: http://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html
Especially check the checklist.

For API 11+, you can use the stagefright framework to encode your video to mp4, you don't need ffmpeg for this.
OTOH, there are quite a few ports of ffmpeg to Android, some even install a separate service whose sole purpose is to provide ffmpeg support for any app on the device. Using such approach you definitely do not violate any SW licenses.

Related

Android video remove chroma key background

I have checked this question.
It is very similar:
I want to record a video with android camera.
After that with a library remove the background, which is with chroma key.
First I think I should use android NDK in order to escape from SDK memory limitation and use the whole memory.
The length of the video is short, a few seconds so maybe is able to handle it.
I would prefer to use an SDK implementation and set the android:largeHeap="true" , because of mismatching the .so files architecture.
Any library suggestion for SDK or NDK please.
IMO you should prefer NDK based solution, since video processing is a CPU-consuming operation and java code won't give you a better performance. Moreover, the most popular and reliable media-processing libraries are often written in C or C++.
I'd recommend you to take a look at FFmpeg. It offers reach abilities to cope with multimedia. chromakey filter may help you to remove green background (or whatever color you want). Then you can use another video as new background, if needed. See blend filter docs.
Filters are a nice and powerful concept. They may be used both via ffmpeg tool command line or via libavfilter API. For the former case you should find ffmpeg binary compiled for android and run it with traditional Runtime.exec(). For the latter case - you need to write native code, that creates proper filter graph and performs processing. This code must be linked against FFmpeg libraries.

How to use android/google software decoder at app level

I have a video that currently in Android uses the hardware accelerated decoder. Is there any way that I can customize it to use the android software decoder at the app layer? If so, how do I go about it? Is there another way to do this?
Try taking a look at ffmpeg for software video decoding. Also, see this article relating to ffmpeg and Android.
Also, this post contains further information regarding this topic of encoding for Android.

FFmpeg vs Vitamio

I am thinking about making app on videos in android. I came to know that there are 2 famous libraries, FFMPEG and Vitamio.
I just want to know that can i do simple video functions like playing the video, grabbing a frame, converting video to mp3 with both the libraries? What are their pros and cons?
Thanks in advance.
Vitamio is much easier to use. It is just like the default MediaPlayer in Android but with some fancy capabilities. At the same time it can't do everything you want. As I understand it just plays video.
FFmpeg is not as simple. It is quite a powerful library that requires some thoughtful native coding in C. I'm sure you can do whatever you need with it, but it will cost you lots of efforts.
So I can recommend you to use either default Android's or Vitamio's MediaPlayer for playing video. And implement some specific features with the help of FFmpeg.
Old question, but since I'm working on this very problem and I found a lot of outdated information, I think it might be worth an answer anyway.
Vitamio is acually based on ffmpeg which makes the "Vitamio vs ffmpeg" question moot:
What's Vitamio, on the Vitamio website
The Media Formats paragraph cites:
Vitamio used FFmpeg as the demuxers and main decoders, many audio and video codecs are packed into Vitamio beside the default media format built in Android platform, some of them are listed below.
the "used" instead of "uses" looks like a typo (the site is choke full of them...).
Therefore the tip of the scale would point toward Vitaminio, it seems, as it's very easy to use. However...
Vitamio is a derivative work of ffmpeg for android, with an unspecified license (it's spelled quite clearly on the site that individuals can use the library for their own apps freely, though. That part was probably added after the answer by Marcus Wolschon)
ffmpeg for android is a derivative work of ffmpeg (more than that, actually: it's a port) and it's released under the LGPL v3 to abide it's contractual terms with ffmpeg (it actually does), relaying the same obligations to the user in a viral way (attribution, making the source of the library used for the compilation available, etc etc)
ffmpeg (the original work) is released under a dual license: a very liberal GPL (of no consequence in this discussion) and LGPL (the one picked by ffmpeg for android)
What follows is strictly my biased personal opinion, not a statement about the facts
This leads me to think that unless the company selling Vitamio has some agreement with both the author of ffmpeg android and ffmpeg, that we know nothing about, Vitamio is violating the copyright of ffmpeg for android (and therefore ffmpeg) hard.
The fact that the Vitamio's website has a lot of broken links, a grammatically challenged documentation, and not all legal information required for an educated choice, doesn't exactly plays in its favor, if I had to make my mind between considering them a high profile company or some individual trying to live off the back of the ffmpeg team's work...
This leads me to the following considerations:
from a practical standpoint, Vitamio might or might not be the best choice as it should be easy to integrate in your project (I say it should, as I didn't manage to do it yet, and I have quite some experience as an android developer under my belt...). The conditional is due, as the software is based on ffmpeg for android, which already makes an effort for easy Android integration.
from a legal standpoint, the situation is even more shadier, the options are:
turn a blind eye. The company behind Vitamio says that the product is fine and it's free to use (more than that actually: it sells the library), so if there is a licensing issue, it's their issue: as developers we have a semi-legitimate reason to bother to a point, as we would be as cheated as the people behind ffmpeg (I'm not very convinced about this whole argument myself...).
golf for honesty and shun Vitamio, adopting ffmpeg for android instead, which might mean more homework during the integration, both to replicate MediaPlayer and to abide to the LGPL terms, but guarantees a clear conscience
I didn't my mind yet, but I'll probably opt for "2"
Hope this helps
UPDATE It looks like that Vitamio is (at least partially) complying with the terms of the LGPL license, as they are publishing the source code required to build their product:
ffmpeg for Vitamio on GitHub
I don't have the time to find out if this is all that's required for complying with the original ffmpeg license (I'm skeptic), and how that influences the previous considerations (sorry).
You can't use Vitamio in any project because it has no license.
Without a LICENSE file or any other mention what rights you are granted you are granted to rights to use it at all.
See here: http://vitamio.org/topics/93?locale=en

Android - FFmpeg Alternative to get video frames. (Due to licensing)

Scenario:
I am working on a Android project where in one particular openGL page, I display videos.
FFmpeg is used to obtain frames from videos(as openGL does not support video as texture) and I am using the frames to obtain a video effect.
I am using pre-compiled FFmpeg binaries in the project.
I was not aware of the level of legal implications of using the FFmpeg library.
My superior brought this to my notice FFmpeg legal reference
Problem:
I am no legal expert, so only thing that I understood is that using FFmpeg in a comercial free app (but service needs to be paid for) is going to get me and my company into trouble :(
In no way the source or any part of the source of the project can be released.(The client is very strict about this.)
Questions?
1) Is there any alternative to FFmpeg (which uses Apache or MIT license) that I can use to obtain video frames?
2) In openGL, getting the video frames and looping through - Is it the only way of playing a video? Is there any alternate method to achieve this functionality?
IANAL, but LGPL means that if you compile and use ffmpeg as shared library (.so file) or standalone executable, then you are fine - even in closed source application that you sell for money.

How do I use Android OpenCORE codecs using JNI?

I want to use the codecs in Android from my application. For now I just want to use the H.264 codec for testing, unless the mp3 or aac codecs provide functions for sending the audio to the device's speaker in which case I would prefer one of those.
I have the NDK installed along with Cygwin, GNU Make, and GNU Awk. I can't figure out what I need to do from here though. I'm downloading the entire OpenCORE tree right now but I don't even know how to build it or make Eclipse plugin know it needs to include the files.
An example or a tutorial would be much appreciated.
EDIT:
It looks like I can use JNI like P/Invoke which would mean I don't have to build the OpenCORE libraries myself. However, I can't find any documentation on the names of the libraries I need to load.
I'm also confused as to how to do it. I'm looking at http://www.koushikdutta.com/2009/01/jni-in-android-and-foreword-of-why-jni.html and I don't understand what the purpose of writing a library to access a library is. Couldn't you just use something like System.loadLibrary("opencore.so")?
You cannot build opencore seperately. It has to be built with whole source code. What are you trying to acheive. If you just want to play a video/audio, use VideoView or MediaPlayer object.
Build the Android source and use the headers and the static library from it. This will propel you straight to the zone of unsupported APIs.

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