JMStudio User's Guide

   
   

JMF Documentation


This guide describes how to use JMStudio. JMStudio is a stand alone Java application that uses the JMF 2.0 API to play, capture, transcode, and write media data. JMStudio also uses the JMF RTP APIs to receive and transmit media streams across the network.

Get the source for JMStudio
 

Contents
Getting Started

Before you can run JMStudio, you must have JMF 2.1.1 installed. For information about setting up JMF, see the Setup pages.

Running JMStudio

JMStudio.bat
java JMStudio

When JMStudio is launched, just the menu is visible:

Opening a new JMStudio Window

New Window

Exiting JMStudio

Exit

Menu Summary

File | New Window Ctrl+N Launches a new instance of the JMStudio application.
File | Open File Ctrl+O Opens a file for playback.
File | Open URL Ctrl+U Opens a URL or MediaLocator for playback.
File | Open RTP Session Ctrl+R Opens an RTP receive/playback session.
File | Capture Ctrl+P Opens a dialog from which you can select a capture device and begin capturing data.
File | Recent URLs   Opens a menu from which you can select a URL from a list of URLs recently accessed by JMStudio.
File | Close Ctrl+W Closes the current Player or Processor.
File | Export Ctrl+E Opens a dialog from which you can transcode and save media data.
File | Transmit Ctrl+T Opens a dialog from which you can transmit media data over the network.
File | Exit   Terminates the application.
Player | Auto Play   Toggles the auto play state of the current Player or Processor. When auto play is enabled, the player begins presenting the media stream automatically.
Player | Auto Loop   Toggles the auto loop state of the current Player or Processor. When auto loop is enabled, the player automatically replays the media stream when the end of media is reached.
Player | Maintain Aspect Ratio   Maintains the aspect ratio of the video window when the JMStudio window is resized.
Player | Full Screen Ctrl+F Expands the JMStudio window to fill the entire screen. Click anywhere to restore the JMStudio window to its original size.
Player | Snap Shot Ctrl+S Takes a snap shot of the current video frame being displayed.
Player | Plug-In Viewer Ctrl+V Opens a window that displays the media processing flow.
Player | Capture Controls   Enables you to control capture parameters.
Help | About JMStudio Ctrl+H Displays an about box that contains the version number and copyright information for JMStudio.

Playing Media Data with JMStudio

JMStudio lets you play media streams from a variety of sources--files, URLs, or RTP transmissions.

Playing a File

  1. Select Open File from the File menu.  The Open File dialog is displayed:



  2.  

  3. In the Open File dialog, select the file you want to play and click OK.

  4.  

     

    A JMF Player for the selected file is created. If Auto Play is enabled, the player is started and presentation of the selected media file begins automatically.

    If the format of the file is not supported by JMF, an error message is displayed.

Playing Media from a URL or MediaLocator

  1. Select Open URL from the File menu. The Open URL dialog is displayed:



  2.  

  3. In the Open URL dialog, enter the URL or MediaLocator you want to play, for example http://greatmedia.ibm.com/clip1.mov.

  4.  
  5. Click Open.


  6. If the URL exists, and its format is supported by JMF, a JMF Player for this URL is created and started. If the URL cannot be found or the format is not supported by JMF, an error message is displayed. Supported protocols for the JMF 2.1.1 implementation include HTTP, FTP, and FILE.

Open URL
  1. Select Open URL from the File menu.

  2.  
  3. In the Open URL dialog, enter the media locator that identifies the RTP source from which you want to receive the RTP stream. For example, rtp://mediastreams.ibm.com:49150/audio/1. (See RTP Media Locator for a description of an RTP-specific media locator.)

  4.  
  5. Click Open.
Receiving and Presenting RTP Streams

The Open URL command is also used to capture media data. For more information, see Capturing Media Data with JMStudio.

Replaying a Previous File or URL

Visited URLs

Receiving and Playing RTP Streams

  1. Select Open RTP Session from the File menu. The Open RTP Session dialog is displayed:



  2.  

  3. In the Open RTP Session dialog, enter the session address in the Address field (eg. 129.144.251.181), enter the port no. in the Port field (eg. 23450) and select a TTL (Time To Live). This constitutes the address of the transmitting source (or multicast address if its a multicast transmission). You can read more about RTP session addresses in the Programmer's Guide.

  4.  

     

    The format of an RTP Media Locator is: rtp://address:port[:ssrc]/content-type/[ttl] where:

    address The IP address of the RTP session
    port The port of the RTP session. 
    ssrc SSRC Identifier of the source from which data is to be received.  If ssrc is not specified, the first stream detected by the RTP Session Manager will be selected as a stream for the DataSource. 
    ttl Time to Live of the RTP session. 
    content-type A string defining the data content type. e.g. video, audio, motion, text, etc. The RTP media handler (Player) will be created for this specific media type.

     
  5. After you enter the RTP session address and port, click the Open button. JMStudio creates an RTP Session Manager for the specified RTP media location.
StatisticsClose RTP Session
  • Clicking Close RTP Session closes the RTP Session Manager.

  •  
  • Clicking the Statistics button opens a Participant List window that displays information about the RTP session participants. This window contains another Statistics button that displays a window that displays the RTP session statistics.
presentation controls

For more information about sending and receiving RTP streams with JMF 2.1.1, see "Receiving and Presenting RTP Media Streams" in the Java Media Framework API guide.

Controlling a Media Presentation

While media data is being played, the following controls are available:

Play Starts presentation of the media data. If the presentation was paused, playback resumes from the point at which it was paused.
Pause Pauses presentation of the media data.  The Play button will resume playback from the point at which it was paused.
Step Back / Forward Steps back or forward by one frame. If either button is kept pressed, the action automatically repeats at the rate of two frames per second.
Seek Sets the media to a new playback position. You seek by dragging the Seek slider or clicking within the Seek bar. When the media is playing, the seek does not take effect until the mouse button is released. When the media is paused, dragging the Seek slider will cause the video to be continually updated.
Mute Mutes the audio. The presentation (including video, if applicable) continues while the audio is muted.  Clicking the Mute button mutes the audio, clicking it again resumes normal audio playback.
Volume Right-clicking on the Mute button pops up a volume slider. This sets the volume level. You can drag the volume slider to increase or decrease the volume. Dragging to the right increases the volume. In some situations, the volume slider is unavailable.
Information Displays the media properties, which contains information about the media being played, including the JMF version, URL name, duration, bit rate, video encoding, window size, frame rate, audio encoding, and audio quality.
Zoom Right-clicking on the video window displays a menu from which you can set the image scale. Available options are 1:2 (half size), 1:1 (normal size), 2:1 (double size) and 4:1 (quadruple size).
Rate Right-clicking on the Information button displays a menu from which you can set the media playback rate. The rate can be set to any value from 1/4 of the normal speed up to 8 times the normal speed.
Auto Loop Enabling Auto Loop in the Player menu causes the media to play continuously, restarting each time it reaches the end of the media. Selecting the auto replay option repeatedly toggles the replay setting on and off.

Closing the Current Player

Close

Saving a Media Stream to a File

JMStudio enables you to transcode a media stream and write it to a file. Transcoding is the process of converting a media stream or some of its tracks from one media format to another.  To transcode and save a media file, URL, or captured media stream with JMStudio:

  1. Open the source ( File | Open File or File | Open URL) .

  2.  
  3. Select Export from the File menu. The Export dialog is displayed:



  4.  

  5. In the Export dialog, set the encoding parameters for each track that you want to include in the output file.

  6.  
  7. To exclude a track, disable the Enable Track checkbox.

  8.  
  9. Once you've specified the encoding parameters for each track you want to write, click Save. The Save As File dialog is displayed.



     


  10.  
  11. In the Save as File dialog, enter the name of the file in which you want to save the transcoded media data.

  12.  
  13. Click OK to write the media file.
Transmitting a Media Stream

You can use the JMStudio Transmit command to transcode a media stream and transmit it across the network using RTP.

  1. Select Transmit from the File menu. The Transmit wizard is displayed:



  2.  
     

  3. Select the source location of the media. You can select a File or a Capture source.

  4.  
  5. Click on Next to go to the RTP format page and set the formats of the Audio/Video tracks to be transmitted. You can disable any tracks that you do not want to transmit.



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  7. Click on Next to go to the RTP parameters page. Enter the session address, port, and TTL for each track that you want to transmit.



  8.  

  9. Click on Finish to start the transmission. Click on Back if you want to change the settings on the previous pages.

  10.  

     

 
Capturing Media Data

JMF supports media capture through special DataSources called Capture DataSources.  To capture media with JMStudio:

Previewing Captured Media Data

  1. Select Capture from the File menu. The Select Capture Device dialog is displayed:



  2.  

  3. Select the capture device from which you want to preview incoming media data and the format in which you want to capture the media.
  4. Click OK to begin capturing the media.
Using the Plug-In Viewer

The JMStudio includes a viewer that displays a graphical overview of a Processor's tracks and plug-ins. This graph enables you to monitor of the media flow during playback, capturing, or transcoding.

To open the Plug-In Viewer for the media currently being presented, select Plug-In Viewer from the Player menu. This opens the Plug-In Viewer window, which displays the plug-ins currently loaded and the connections between them:

To open the Plug-In Viewer for a transcoding processor:

  1. Click the info button to open the Processor's information dialog.

  2.  
  3. Select the Misc tab.

  4.  
  5. Select the Plug-In Viewer.
End of Media

To view the parameters of the Buffers that are passed between the plug-ins, position the mouse over the small boxes to the left or to the right of the plug-in. The Buffer parameters, including format and length, are displayed at the bottom of the Plug-In Viewer window.