GSVideo GStreamer Video Library for Processing: Cure for Live Video Ills?

Using video in Processing is, sadly, really painful. You can do absolutely wonderful things once it’s working — pixel-by-pixel manipulations that are hard to do elsewhere, and easily-coded OpenGL manipulations that should help generate powerful eye candy. But the list of issues runs something like this:

  • Windows doesn’t support capture without the addition of the buggy WinVDIG, which often doesn’t work properly.
  • Linux doesn’t support anything.
  • Capture is slow on Mac, and sometimes doesn’t work.
  • QuickTime updates regularly hose the whole setup.
  • Important QuickTime features aren’t supported.
  • Playback is slow.
  • Playback often crashes.
  • Things just don’t work, and you don’t know why.

Now, granted, for simple sketches and experimentation, the library often will work. Or at least, it works except when it doesn’t — and you can read about how often it doesn’t in the reference.

Fortunately, I think the situation could be — and soon will be — very, very different.

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