Logitech MSN Webcam Codec Reverse-Engineered 255
Alexis Boulva writes "Tonight, Ole André Vadla Ravnås of the Farsight project (LGPL), which 'is an audio/video conferencing framework specifically designed for Instant Messengers' for the GNU Linux operating system, finished coding a release candidate of libmimic, 'an open source video encoding/decoding library for Mimic V2.x-encoded content (fourCC: ML20), which is the encoding used by MSN Messenger
for webcam conversations.' Ole, on the libmimic site, remarks that 'It should be noted that reverse-engineering for interoperability is 100%
legal here in Norway (and in most European countries).' Looks like the Free/Open Source Software movement is very close to closing up one of the most noticeable software gaps remaining from its glorious efforts."
video conf between windows and Linux ??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Reverse Engineered From The Disassembly (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice, gotta give the guy props for that.
That is not a trivial undertaking at all.
I tip my hat to ya.
Pete
Why not use ichat/AIM's video protocol? (Score:5, Interesting)
> close to closing up one of the most noticeable software gaps
> remaining from its glorious efforts
Why not use ichat/AIMs video protocol. It's a fully open standard, described completely on Apple's developer site. All there ready to go.
Or is it more important to chase what Windows does, rather than what Works?
Just how many video codecs do we need? (Score:5, Interesting)
patents? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Legality in US? (Score:2, Interesting)
it is trivial actually (Score:1, Interesting)
If you can't read ASM then your chances of reverse engineering any IA32 program are slim to none.
Study it for a bit, it is really not as hard as you think. The quality of dissemblers has gotten to the point where they can easily show you the outside calls, params, and windows hooks.
Don't glorify it just because you can't program in anything but C++ and Java.
Real men can program ASM!
Re:Why not use ichat/AIM's video protocol? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Just how many video codecs do we need? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Wonderful! (Score:5, Interesting)
access to young 18+ sluts on webcam
Yeah, sure, that's funnay and all, but for anyone with friends, significant others, family distant from them, this is a godsend. I use Linux every day at work, and at home, but I used to have to boot into Windows at home every weekend so that I could actually SEE my girlfriend.
You see, I live in France, while my now-ex lived in the U.S. On the upside, I'm now dating a French girl, but I'd still like to be able to see my mother, and my sister and brother-in-law. This way, I don't have to boot into Windows at all... (And even when if I ever have to, I'd prefer GAIM on Windows any day over MSN, which is so limiting)
Bounty! (Score:5, Interesting)
I am currently working for a company that spends prohibitive amounts of money on videoconferencing. Not because they are stupid but rather because there are no "enterprise" quality videoconferencing products out there at an affordable price. By "enterprise" quality, I mean that the device needs to have the following:
1) PTZ Camera [google.com] (PTZ = pan, tilt, zoom)
2) Complete control from remote control (including PTZ)
3) H.320, H.323 and SIP
4) Massive profit
Currently, we are paying about $50,000 USD for a dual plasma installation. While I realize that the 42" plasmas are a reasonable portion of the cost ($10,000), the rest is just a PC with a camera and some software. We don't even do any advanced multi-party capabilities - just connect to a bridge and let it do the work. It would be real nice if some bright spark would enter this market and offer something at a reasonable price (but still at huge profit).
Re:Wonderful! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just how many video codecs do we need? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sure, until MSN 7 comes out of beta (Score:2, Interesting)
If they continue forcing users to upgrade all the time, they would lose users to other services, like Jabber, ICQ, AOL and YahooIM, due to frustration.
ICQ's networks still work with older versions of the client. I'm currently using 2003b.
Re:Look! It's a Windows user! (Score:2, Interesting)