Video Playback Libraries

Introduction

Several libraries are available for embedding video playback within Lazarus applications. These range from simple to complex.

Libraries

Library

Source

Platforms

Notes

DSPack

http://code.google.com/p/dspack/ http://github.com/TheBlackSheep/DSPack-Lazarus

Windows only

DirectShow library. Although the DSPack can be simple to use, this offers complex low level functionality as well. Video Playback is dependent upon correct Codecs being installed on the end-user system.

A tutorial on DSPack use for Delphi, which also applied to fpc, can be found at http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/directshow/page01.htm.

Full documentation on the DirectShow API is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd375454(v=vs.85).aspx

A more up to date version of DSPack, that compiles against FPC 2.7.1, is available with the CodeTyphon installation.

libvlc

Included with FPC 2.7.1 as an optional package

Any platform supported by VLC

Currently only available in FPC Trunk Video Playback is dependent upon VLC being installed on the end-user system.

PasLibVLC

http://prog.olsztyn.pl/paslibvlc/

Any platform supported by VLC

A mature package that also installs under various Delphi's. Video Playback is dependent upon VLC being installed on the end-user system.

FFmpeg

https://www.ffmpeg.org

Any platform supported by FFmpeg

Old FPC headers are available with the FFmpeg source code. Assorted open source applications have improved these headers over the years, but there appears to be no maintainer for these updated headers. New FPC headers are https://github.com/DJMaster/ffmpeg-fpc. Read http://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html before distributing FFmpeg.

FFVCL

http://www.delphiffmpeg.com/downloads/

Any platform supported by FFmpeg

FFVCL provides commerical native FFmpeg components, including an encoder and player, for Delphi. The headers are free to download and reportedly work with FPC.

SDL

https://www.libsdl.org/

Officially supports Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Support for other platforms may be found in the source code.

SDL 2.0 is distributed under the zlib license. This license allows you to use SDL freely in any software.

TMPlayerControl

Lazarus-CCR

X/GTK2 & Windows

Simple to use. mplayer can be easily bundled with your application, however mplayer uses FFmpeg and the legal licensing warning at http://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html could also apply.

It is recommended that the end-user install mplayer on their system instead of it being distributed with your application.

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd757708(v=vs.85).aspx Video for Windows]

Windows 16bit or 32bit

The SysRec application demostrates capturing and playing video streams from TV cards and webcams under Windows the VFW API. Video for Windows (VFW) was created for Win 3.1, and though deprecated in favour of DirectShow, is still available under modern 32bit Windows.

See also

• Forum Topic http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?topic=16797.0 for a discussion on the DSPack ported by TheBlackSheep
• Forum Topic http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,22038.msg129568.html#msg129568 for a discussion on the current state of the FFmpeg headers.
• UltraStar Deluxe for an open source application with updated FFmpeg headers
• LazActiveX for an example of how to embed VLC using ActiveX
• TMPlayerControl for details on how to use TMplayerControl library to embed mplayer
• Multimedia Programming
• SysRec for an example of using Video For Windows (deprecated precursor to DirectShow - created for Win 3.1, but is still available under current 32bit Window OS's)
• Free Pascal Meets SDL website
• Metal Framework - macOS
• macOS Video Player - Using the macOS AVKit Framework

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From the Free Pascal wiki, page "Video Playback Libraries", as it stood on 2022-02-13 after a change by Trev, out of the wiki's dump of 2024-05-26. Copyright stays with the author who wrote it, according to the old wiki's Licensing page. If you have concerns about this material, message the admin.