GCodeIn 2011

Google Code In

This page is about gathering ideas for the VideoLAN project for acceptance in the Google Code In 2011-2012 program.

VideoLAN has been part of Google Summer of Code in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

x264 is also participating in Videolan's Code-In.

Ideas for VideoLAN

Warning

This is a temporary page for listing ideas for Google Code-in tasks.

The final tasks will be moved to melange, when needed.

libav

avconv Video Tutorial

Category: Documentation
Description: avconv had been recently introduced and new and old users of ffmpeg might enjoy having some walkthrough to a number of common tasks.

Outcome: Prepare a video with a short tutorial for one of the following tasks:

• Transcode to h264/aac/mov
  
• Transcode to vp8/vorbis/webm
  
• Transcode to h264/speex/flv
  
• Live streaming from a video source (webcam/screen capture) to a remote server (rtmp, rtsp)
  

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Help document filter usage

Category: Documentation
Description: A list of filters is nice, but actual examples would help a lot
Outcome: You'll provide 5 different examples involving filters
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Live-streaming from libav

Category: Documentation
Description: Lots of sites let you broadcast yourself, but sometimes getting there can be a challenge- help improve this
Outcome: Produce a guide showing how to do live-streaming to a video site of your choice
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Create a new preset

Category: Documentation
Description: libav has a fine set of presets, but they're limited in scope- other codecs could certainly benefit from some nice presets
Outcome: Create a new preset that gets accepted into libav
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Practical examples on capturing from devices

Category: Documentation
Description: There's many devices that avconv can capture from, but not all are well documented- some only have a mention or two and no examples
Outcome: At least five new examples on capturing from devices will be created
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Document metadata tags and their usage

Category: Documentation
Description: There are huge number of metadata tags spread across many standards, and libav supports many of them. Documentation on them is sparse, and is mostly contained in the source code
Outcome: At least one metadata format will be documented fully with examples
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Fuzzing MPEG2 files

Category: Quality Assurance
Description:
Outcome: Fuzz at least 10 MPEG2 files and file bug reports for crashes w/samples
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Fuzzing H264 files

Category: Quality Assurance
Description:
Outcome: Fuzz at least 10 H264 files and file bugreports for crashes w/samples
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Fuzzing MPEG4 (Divx/Xvid) files

Category: Quality Assurance
Description:
Outcome: Fuzz at least 10 MPEG4 files and file bug reports on crashes w/samples
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Fuzzing MJPEG files

Category: Quality Assurance
Description:
Outcome: Fuzz at least 10 MJPEG files and file bugreports on crashers w/samples
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Fuzzing other codecs

Category: Quality Assurance
Description: Other codecs that aren't as mainstream definitely could use some fuzztesting to shake out problems and possible security threats
Outcome: Fuzz at least 10 files for your chosen codec and file bugreports on crashers w/samples
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Fuzzing existing crashers

Category: Quality Assurance
Description: A wide range of projects use libav, and some of them maintain bugtrackers or forums which contain records of crashing files
It would be nice to know if those files still crash libav, and if fuzzing them creates a new crash
Outcome: Test 10 open reports of crashing files from a libav-using project to see if it still crashes on the latest libav, and then fuzz test those files, filing bugreports on any crashes found
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Common problems with no documented solution

Category: Research
Description: Anyone who has spent some time on mailing lists or IRC channels starts to see the same questions pop up time and again
The most frequent of these usually get put in an FAQ, or some other easily-accessible place Outcome: Document an issue that seems to pop up regularly without getting answered and find an answer for it
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Find a new video codec

Category: Research
Description: There are hundreds of video codecs in existence, and many of them are known and documented
For as many as are known, there's undoubtedly still more out there waiting to be found and written about
Outcome: Find a video file that does not play in current libav, and provide information on it, containing at the least:

• Video codec name
  
• How to identify this type (usually a fourcc, a certain file header or a unusual/unique file extension)
  
• Samples with descriptions of what they depict and codec features used in them if known
  
• Links to the original decoder and encoder
  

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Find a new audio codec

Category: Research
Description: There are a large number of audio codecs out there, and just like video codecs, many of them are known and documented
Undoubtedly though, there are still more out there that are not yet known or documented
Outcome: Find a currently unknown audio codec and provide information about it so it can be eventually supported
This information should include the following:

• Audio codec name
  
• How to identify this type (twoCC, a file header or a distinctive file extension usually)
  
• Samples, ideally made from lossless source and details on any features used if known
  

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VideoLAN Communication

Wiki Orphans and Double tracking

Category: Documentation
Description: The wiki has way too many orphaned pages and double redirected pages, they should be linked by other pages or marked for deletion, and redirects should be fixed
Outcome: A better wiki with less orphaned pages or redirects
Difficulty: easy
Tools: a wiki account
Time: 4hours
Mentor: xtophe

Wiki short pages tracking

Category: Documentation
Description: The wiki has too many short pages, they should be improved, marked for deletion or merged with other pages
Outcome: A better wiki with less short pages
Difficulty: easy
Tools: a wiki account
Time: 4hours
Mentor: xtophe

Update wiki guides

Category: Documentation
Description: Not all of the guides on the wiki have been updated for newer versions of VLC
Update one for the latest released version of VLC
Outcome: A working guide for the latest release of VLC
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Create a guide on capturing video from capture cards

Category: Documentation
Description: A guide to capturing video from video capture cards
One for hardware-encoder cards, and one for non-hardware encoder cards would be great
Outcome: A guide with screenshots for one type of video capture card
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VideoLAN flyer/poster

Category: Outreach
Description: The VideoLAN project needs a flyer for promotional matters
Outcome: A cool A5-sized flyer presenting VideoLAN
Difficulty: medium
Tools: Image-Editing software
Time: 3days
Mentor: Jean-Paul Saman

VideoLAN Forum improvements

Category: Research and Outreach
Description: The VideoLAN forums have many shortcomings, especially regarding spam and "Solved topics"
We need research on solutions and advise us how we can improve the forums
Outcome: small report on ideas, advice and solution
Difficulty: medium
Tools: Browser and Text editor
Time: 3days
Mentor: VLC_help

VideoLAN PHP webpage for file uploading for bugreports

Category: Code
Description: The VideoLAN project needs a small WebPage in PHP to be able to upload the files for the bugreports
As some of those files are big, some progression bar should be done in Javascript too
Outcome: a working deployed PHP script
Difficulty: hard
Tools: PHP development environment
Time: 5days
Mentor: etix

VLC

Create VLC videos for training

Category: Training
Description: Creation of youtube Videos of screencasts of VLC usage
This task can be divided in chunks of 5 videos
Outcome: VLC Youtube channels
Difficulty: easy
Tools: VLC, screencast recorders
Time: 2 days
Mentor: linkfanel

VLC documentation illustration

Category: Documentation
Description: Creation of VLC screenshots and small diagrams to improve the VLC documentation on the wiki
Outcome: VLC illustrations on the documentation
Difficulty: easy
Tools: VLC, Image Editing software
Time: 5 days
Mentor: Rémi Duraffort

VLC users survey creation

Category: Outreach
Description: Creation of a survey for VLC users, about their usage of VLC, that we will put on the website
Outcome: Survey ready to be sent to the VLC users
Difficulty: medium
Tools: text editor and web browser
Time: 5 days
Mentor: jb

VLC fullscreen controller redesign

Category: User Interface
Description: Find ideas to improve and redesign the fullscreen controller of the VLC version on Windows/Linux
Outcome: Sketchs and ideas for the fullscreen controller
Difficulty: medium
Tools: web browser and image editor
Time: 5 days
Mentor: jb

Help out your language's translation

Category: Translation
Description: Help translate more of VLC into your language
Outcome: Add at least 5% more translations
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VLC volume controller redesign

Category: User Interface
Description: Find ideas to improve and redesign the volume controller of the VLC version on Windows/Linux
Outcome: Sketchs and ideas for the volume controller
Difficulty: hard
Tools: web browser and image editor
Time: 3 weeks
Mentor: jb

VLC Lyrics extension

Category: Code
Description: Creation of one extension in lua that can be able to fetch and display Lyrics from one website API
Outcome: Working Lua Lyrics extension script
Difficulty: hard
Tools: text editor and VLC
Time: 10 days
Mentor: jpeg

VLC Songkick extension

Category: Code
Description: Creating one extension in lua that can be able to fetch and display Lyrics from Songkick API
Outcome: Working Lua Songkick extension script
Difficulty: hard
Tools: text editor and VLC
Time: 10 days
Mentor: jpeg

VLC webplugin testpages

Category: Code
Description: This task is about updating the Html/CSS/JS scripting test pages for the Webplugins.
Outcome: Usable pages for testing the VLC webplugins
Difficulty: hard
Tools: text editor and a browser
Time: 10 days
Mentor: Jean-Paul Saman

VLC warnings cleanup

Category: Code
Description: This has for objective to delete a lot of warnings in C and C++ code when doing VLC compilation for Linux and Windows.
Outcome: Less warnings in C and C++ code
Difficulty: hard
Tools: text editor and compilation toolchain
Time: 10 days
Mentor: Rémi Duraffort

libVLC Qt example media player

Category: Code
Description: Creating a small example of how to create a media player based on libVLC and Qt on Windows/Linux.
Outcome: a cool media player to demonstrate the libVLC API in Qt
Difficulty: hard
Tools: complete compilation toolchain
Time: 15 days
Mentor: pdherbemont

libVLC Gtk example media player

Category: Code
Description: Creating a small example of how to create a media player based on libVLC and Gtk on Windows/Linux.
Outcome: a cool media player to demonstrate the libVLC API in Gtk
Difficulty: hard
Tools: complete compilation toolchain
Time: 15 days
Mentor: pdherbemont

libVLC wxWidgets example media player

Category: Code
Description: Creating a small example of how to create a media player based on libVLC and wxWidgets on Windows/Linux.
Outcome: a cool media player to demonstrate the libVLC API in wxWidgets
Difficulty: hard
Tools: complete compilation toolchain
Time: 15 days
Mentor: pdherbemont

VLMC

Create VLMC videos for training

Category: Training
Description: Creation of youtube Videos of screencasts of VLMC usage
This task can be divided in chunks of 3 videos
Outcome: VLMC Youtube channels
Difficulty: easy
Tools: VLMC, screencasting tools
Time: 3 days
Mentor: etix

VLMC UI testing

Category: Quality Assurance
Description: Testing VLMC Interface and testing all dialogs and options to find bugs
Outcome: Bugreports
Difficulty: easy
Tools: VLMC
Time: 3 days
Mentor: Hugo

VLMC files testing

Category: Quality Assurance
Description: Testing VLMC for Windows or Linux with many file formats
Outcome: Bug reports on the forum that don't work
Difficulty: medium
Tools: VLMC, mediainfo, Windows/Linux
Time: 7 days
Mentor: Hugo

Contact

For ANY question, contact jb or xtophe

IRC channel: #videolan or irc://irc.freenode.net