Develop Reference

How to add a seekbar to a video played using vlcj in Java Swing?

I’ve trimmed down the code to only the relevant parts and posted it below. The code works fine. The video plays when you run it but it doesn’t have a seekbar.
public class Screen {
//JFrmae
private JFrame frame;
// Panel which I add the canvas to
private JPanel pVid = new JPanel();
// Canvas
Canvas canvas = new Canvas();
// Embedded Media Player
EmbeddedMediaPlayer emp;
/**
* Create the application.
*/
public Screen() {
initialize();
}
/**
* Initialize the contents of the frame.
*/
private void initialize() {
//Frame
frame = new JFrame();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setVisible(true);
//Adding the panel to the frame
frame.getContentPane().add(pVid);
//Adding the canvas to the panel
pVid.add(canvas);
//Setting canvas size
canvas.setSize(715, 402);
//Loading the VLC native library
NativeLibrary.addSearchPath(RuntimeUtil.getLibVlcLibraryName(), "lib");
Native.loadLibrary(RuntimeUtil.getLibVlcLibraryName(), LibVlc.class);
//Initializing the media player
MediaPlayerFactory mpf = new MediaPlayerFactory();
//Misc
emp = mpf.newEmbeddedMediaPlayer(new Win32FullScreenStrategy(frame));
emp.setVideoSurface(mpf.newVideoSurface(canvas));
//Video file name and playing
String file = "video.mp4";
emp.prepareMedia(file);
emp.play();
//pack method
frame.pack();
}
/**
* Launch the application.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
try {
Screen window = new Screen();
window.frame.setVisible(true);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
});
}
}
I’ve looked for an answer online for the last 4 days. Finally I decided to ask here. The official website for vlcj has pictures of a vlcj player they’ve made. There is a seekbar in those pictures. Link to the webpage which has the pics: http://capricasoftware.co.uk/#/projects/vlcj
They have a number of useful tutorials there but they don’t have any instructions for adding the seekbar.
Then I tried downloading their vlcj-player project from their GitHub page. It showed an error because it couldn’t resolve the “com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList” which is supposed to be imported. (At the moment I’m reading about ImmutableList and stuff and see if there’s a way to fix it.) Since I couldn’t figure that out yet, I looked for a class named seekbar or the like in their project. I couldn’t find any.
I also searched elsewhere online for the answer but I just couldn’t find it. I’d really appreciate any help. Thank you.
Edit:
(This edit is in response to the suggestion given to me by #caprica. Read their comment to this question and my reply to that in the comment to understand what I'm talking about here in this edit. I think it'll be useful for others in the future.)
All right, there must have been some problem with my Eclipse or computer. (I’ll type out how I fixed it at the end of this comment.) It’s working now. I’ll type out what I did step by step so that may be it’ll be useful to others in the future to download and install the project.
Download the project.
Import it as a Maven project. (Import > Maven > Existing Maven Project)
Now in Eclipse right click the imported project and select Run As > Maven Install
And that’s it. Now you can just run the project normally. If you don’t know how to run the project, do it like this. Right click the project and select Run As > Java Application and then Select VlcjPlayer – uk.co.caprica.vlcplayer.
Alternatively you can open the class where the main method is and run it. VlcjPlayer class is where the main method is located. The class is in the package uk.co.caprica.vlcplayer.
The problem I faced was that somehow all the necessary files didn’t get downloaded when I ran it as Maven Install. But it worked fine in another computer. Since I knew where the files are downloaded to, I just copied the folder from that PC and put it in the same place in my PC. The folder name is ‘repository’. It’s location is C:\Users\User Name\ .m2. Perhaps Eclipse in this PC has some problem. I’ll reinstall it later to avoid problems in the future.
And this may be useful, the VLC that’s installed in this PC is 64 bit. Not sure if that makes a difference but mentioning it just in case.
Now that the app is working fine I will see the code and see how the seekbar is made. Thanks a lot #caprica for telling me that I should import it as a Maven project. :)

The Basic Controls tutorial shows the essential approach: Add a panel of buttons to the frame and give each button an ActionListener that invokes the relevant media player command. As an example, this notional Rewind button would "skip backwards 10 seconds (-10,000 milliseconds)."
JPanel controlsPane = new JPanel();
JButton rewindButton = new JButton("Rewind");
rewindButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
mediaPlayerComponent.getMediaPlayer().skip(-10000);
}
});
controlsPane.add(rewindButton);
frame.add(controlsPane, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
The software design is up to you, but you should at least be aware of
JToolBar, seen here and here.
Action, seen here and cited here.
Timer, seen here as a way to repeat an Action.

All right, guys. I’ve figured out how to do it. I’m not sure how it was done in the official Vlcj project but I’ve figured out my own simple way by learning from the official project.
It just takes a few lines of code. It’s very simple.
These are the steps you have to follow:
Create a JSlider.
To the JSlider, add a mouseMotionListener (‘mouseDragged’ to be exact).
Inside that put in the code which would update the video position based on
the change in the JSlider.
Create a Timer.
Put the code inside it to set the value of the JSlider based on the position
of the video.
And that’s it!
This is the code. It comes inside the initialize() method which you can see in the code I’ve given in the question. (And of course you'll also have to create the JSlider and add it to the panel. I haven't shown the code since it's simple.)
js.addMouseMotionListener(new MouseMotionAdapter() {
#Override
public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) {
if (js.getValue() / 100 < 1) {
emp.setPosition((float) js.getValue() / 100);
}
}
});
Timer timer = new Timer(100, new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
js.setValue(Math.round(emp.getPosition() * 100));
}
});
timer.start();
Some explanation.
The value you get when you use emp.getPosition always seems to be in decimals. It’s something like 0.1334344 at the start of the video and it’s something like 0.998988 at the end. But the value of JSlider is in int. From 0 to 100. So in the mouseMotionListener added to the JSlider I’ve converted the int value of the JSlider to float by dividing it by 100.
And in the action listener inside the timer I’ve multiplied the value of the video position by 100 and then rounded it off to make it an int value. So that value can be set in the JSlider to make it move in sync with the video.
I’m sure the code is rudimentary and there could be some best practices which I may not have followed. Sorry about that but I’m just getting into java by learning the stuff which I find interesting. Those who are good at java and have used such code in an actual project can comment below with how it can be improved.

How do I get a VLC Media Player in Java without a Displayable Component?

I'm working with the VLCJ Bindings and have finally been able to get several roadblocks. Now I am here.
I have no need (at this time), nor desire for, a visible Media Player component (the EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent). All I need (for now) is to play Audio Files.
I have the following method in place to handle that for me:
public static void Play(File AudioFile){
if (!LibVLCLoader.Loaded) LibVLCLoader.loadLibVLC();
EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent EMPC = new EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent();
if (EMPC.getMediaPlayer().prepareMedia(AudioFile.getAbsolutePath())){
EMPC.getMediaPlayer().addMediaPlayerEventListener(new MediaPlayerEventAdapter(){
#Override public void subItemFinished(MediaPlayer p, int i){
EMPC.release(true);
}
});
Platform.runLater(() -> EMPC.getMediaPlayer().play());
}
}
But I keep getting this exception:
Exception in thread "JavaFX Application Thread" java.lang.IllegalStateException: The video surface component must be displayable
Which I understand. It makes sense. But I don't NEED it visible. I just need the sound. How can I make that happen?

EmbeddedMediaPlayer is only for the case where you want to literally embed a video surface inside your application.
If you just need audio, there's an AudioMediaPlayerComponent for expressly this purpose.
To create such a component, simply:
AudioMediaPlayerComponent audioMediaPlayerComponent =
new AudioMediaPlayerComponent();
You can subclass it, for example to customise behaviour and easily implement event handlers.
Using the so-called "component" media players gives you a slightly nicer/easier API than using the non-"component" media players that are created via the MediaPlayerFactory.
This works just fine if your media is an audio file.
If your media is actually video, but you only want to play the audio track, then even if you use the AudioMediaPlayerComponent by default VLC will open a video window. In this case you still need to actually disable the video output - the simplest way to do this is to tell VLC to use vcodec=dummy.
I really don't agree with tricks like creating a window and moving it off-screen, or sizing it down to 1x1, it's just not necessary.
In the code posted in the original question there is an unrelated problem. The EMPC and EMP variable will go out-of-scope when the Play() method terminates, making the media player eligible for garbage collection. What will happen is that some random time later your application will likely crash because the native hooks that vlcj uses will call back into a Java object that no longer exists. You need to keep your media player references alive via hard references.

Okay so it turns out you can create your own MediaPlayer object outside of the EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent like so:
public static void Play(File AudioFile){
if (!LibVLCLoader.Loaded) LibVLCLoader.loadLibVLC();
MediaPlayerFactory MPF = new MediaPlayerFactory(
"--video-title=vlcj video output",
"--no-snapshot-preview",
"--quiet",
"--quiet-synchro",
"--sub-filter=logo:marq",
"--intf=dummy"
);
EmbeddedMediaPlayer EMP = MPF.newEmbeddedMediaPlayer();
if (EMP.prepareMedia(AudioFile.getAbsolutePath())){
EMP.addMediaPlayerEventListener(new MediaPlayerEventAdapter(){
#Override public void subItemFinished(MediaPlayer p, int i){
EMP.release();
MPF.release();
}
});
Platform.runLater(() -> EMP.play());
} else{
EMP.release();
MPF.release();
}
}

JFrame Icon Resolution

I'm quite new to working with java GUIs. To start me up, I had a look into JFrame. While playing around with it, I used the setIconImage() method to set the logo of my JFrame. However, when I run the file, the logo resolution gets reduced so much that I can barely recognise it. Here's my current code and the dimensions of my image is 1280 x 1280 (I have tried reducing it down to 100 x 100 but it still returned the same results.):
#SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class GUIManager extends JFrame{
public void openGUI(String value){
if(value.equalsIgnoreCase("startMenu")){
GUIManager manager = new GUIManager();
ImageIcon logo = new
ImageIcon(ResourcesLoader.class.getResource("Logo.png"));
manager.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
manager.setVisible(true);
manager.setResizable(false);
manager.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
manager.setSize(300, 500);
manager.setBackground(Color.WHITE);
manager.setTitle("FileLocker");
manager.setIconImage(logo.getImage());
} //value check
} //openGUI
} //GUIManager

The answer is given Before go to following link
Sizes of frame icons used in Swing
Which icon sizes to use with a JFrame's setIconImages() method?

Animated Splash Screen on Netbeans Platform app

Our maven/Netbeans platform application uses a custom image on startup, by replacing
Nbm-branding > core.jar > org.netbeans.core.startup > splash.gif
I tried making it an animated .gif, but only the first frame is displayed.
How would one possibly go about implementing an animated splash screen, maybe by running some JavaFX window animations?
I've seen another other SO question, but it wasn't really answered - please notice I'm asking about how to integrate a custom splash screen with my Netbeans Platform application, and not how to actually build it.

Surprisingly enough, I found out how to plug in a custom splash screen based on this post about user authentication and authorization.
Basically, one needs to write another start-up class, instead of the platform's default:
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
public class CustomStartup {
private static final String NB_MAIN_CLASS = "org.netbeans.core.startup.Main";
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
// do whatever you need here (e.g. show a custom login form)
System.out.println("Hello world! I am a custom startup class");
JWindow splash = initSplash();
// once you're done with that, hand control back to NetBeans
ClassLoader classloader = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader();
Class<?> mainClass = Class.forName(NB_MAIN_CLASS, true, classloader);
Object mainObject = mainClass.newInstance();
Method mainMethod = mainClass.getDeclaredMethod("main", new Class[]{String[].class});
mainMethod.invoke(mainObject, (Object) args);
splash.setVisible(false);
}
}
In that class, one can create a JavaFX stage, embed it into a JWindow, and show it:
public JWindow initSplash(){
JWindow window = new JWindow();
final JFXPanel fxPanel = new JFXPanel();
window.add(fxPanel);
window.setVisible(true);
window.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
Platform.runLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
Scene scene = new Scene(new CustomFxSplash(), 475, 300, true);
fxPanel.setScene(scene);
}
}
return window;
}
Other things to remember are:
Suppress the original NetBeans splash screen by running your app with the --nosplash parameter.
Call your custom initialization class by running your app with the -J-Dnetbeans.mainclass=com.package.splash.CustomStartup parameter
As the link suggests this custom class has to be on the platform's initialization classpath, meaning inside the platform/core folder.

The current version of the NetBeans class that is responsible for rendering the splash screen can be viewed online here: org.netbeans.core.startup.
The culprit code that prevents the gif from animating is this line (line 546)
graphics.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
In order for the gif to animate the ImageObserver will have to be specified instead of being set to null and then repaint must be called when imageUpdate() is called on the ImageObserver.
An example of displaying an animated gif can be viewed here: Relationship Between Animated Gif and Image Observer
So as far as I can see you will either have to change the above NetBeans platform code and rebuild it for your application or you will have to create your own splash screen from scratch to use instead of the NetBeans one.
Hope you find this useful!

What is the best method to capture images from a live video device for use by a Java-based application?

I am looking into an image processing problem for semi-real time detection of certain scenarios. My goal is to have the live video arrive as Motion JPEG frames in my Java code somehow.
I am familiar with the Java Media Framework and, sadly, I think we can consider that an effectively dead API. I am also familiar with Axis boxes and, while I really like their solution, I would appreciate any critical feedback on my specific points of interest.
This is how I define "best" for the purpose of this discussion:
Latency - if I'm controlling the camera using this video stream, I would like to keep my round-trip latency at less than 100 milliseconds if possible. That's measured as the time between my control input to the time when I see the visible change. EDIT some time later: another thing to keep in mind is that camera control is likely to be a combination of manual and automatic (event triggers). We need to see those pictures right away, even if the high quality feed is archived separately.
Cost - free / open source is better than not free.
Adjustable codec parameters - I need to be able to tune the codec for certain situations. Sometimes a high-speed low-resolution stream is actually easier to process.
"Integration" with Java - how much trouble is it to hook this solution to my code? Am I sending packets over a socket? Hitting URLs? Installing Direct3D / JNI combinations?
Windows / Linux / both? - I would prefer an operating system agnostic solution because I have to deliver to several flavors of OS but there may be a solution that is optimal for one but not the other.
NOTE: I am aware of other image / video capture codecs and that is not the focus of this question. I am specifically not interested in streaming APIs (e.g., MPEG4) due to the loss of frame accuracy. However, if there is a solution to my question that delivers another frame-accurate data stream, please chime in.
Follow-up to this question: at this point, I am strongly inclined to buy appliances such as the Axis video encoders rather than trying to capture the video in software or on the PC directly. However, if someone has alternatives, I'd love to hear them.

This JavaCV implementation works fine.
CODE:
import com.googlecode.javacv.OpenCVFrameGrabber;
import com.googlecode.javacv.cpp.opencv_core.IplImage;
import static com.googlecode.javacv.cpp.opencv_highgui.*;
public class CaptureImage {
private static void captureFrame() {
// 0-default camera, 1 - next...so on
final OpenCVFrameGrabber grabber = new OpenCVFrameGrabber(0);
try {
grabber.start();
IplImage img = grabber.grab();
if (img != null) {
cvSaveImage("capture.jpg", img);
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
captureFrame();
}
}
There is also post on viewing live video from Camera .And configuration for JavaCV :
I think this will meet your requirements.

FMJ can definitely capture video and turn it into MJPEG frames.

Regarding the dead-ness of JMF, are you aware of the FMJ implementation? I don't know whether it qualifies as the "best" solution, but it's probably worth adding to the discussion.

Below is shown a very simple implementation using Marvin Framework. Using Marvin you can add real time video processing easily.
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import marvin.gui.MarvinImagePanel;
import marvin.image.MarvinImage;
import marvin.video.MarvinJavaCVAdapter;
import marvin.video.MarvinVideoInterface;
public class SimpleVideoTest extends JFrame implements Runnable{
private MarvinVideoInterface videoAdapter;
private MarvinImage image;
private MarvinImagePanel videoPanel;
public SimpleVideoTest(){
super("Simple Video Test");
// Create the VideoAdapter and connect to the camera
videoAdapter = new MarvinJavaCVAdapter();
videoAdapter.connect(0);
// Create VideoPanel
videoPanel = new MarvinImagePanel();
add(videoPanel);
// Start the thread for requesting the video frames
new Thread(this).start();
setSize(800,600);
setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SimpleVideoTest t = new SimpleVideoTest();
t.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
}
#Override
public void run() {
while(true){
// Request a video frame and set into the VideoPanel
image = videoAdapter.getFrame();
videoPanel.setImage(image);
}
}
}
Another example applying multiple algorithms for real time video processing.

This is my JavaCV implementation with high resolution video output and no noticeable drop in the frame-rate than other solutions (only when my webcam refocuses do I notice a slight drop, only for a moment though).
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import com.googlecode.javacv.CanvasFrame;
import com.googlecode.javacv.OpenCVFrameGrabber;
import com.googlecode.javacv.OpenCVFrameRecorder;
import com.googlecode.javacv.cpp.opencv_core.IplImage;
public class Webcam implements Runnable {
IplImage image;
static CanvasFrame frame = new CanvasFrame("Web Cam");
public static boolean running = false;
public Webcam()
{
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
}
#Override
public void run()
{
try
{
grabber.setImageWidth(800);
grabber.setImageHeight(600);
grabber.start();
while (running)
{
IplImage cvimg = grabber.grab();
BufferedImage image;
if (cvimg != null)
{
// opencv_core.cvFlip(cvimg, cvimg, 1); // mirror
// show image on window
image = cvimg.getBufferedImage();
frame.showImage(image);
}
}
grabber.stop();
frame.dispose();
} catch (Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void main(String... args)
{
Webcam webcam = new Webcam();
webcam.start();
}
public void start()
{
new Thread(this).start();
running = true;
}
public void stop()
{
running = false;
}
}

Have you ever looked at Processing.org? It's basically a simplified application framework for developing "artsy" applications and physical computing platforms, but it's based on Java and you can dig down to the "real" Java underneath.
The reason it came to mind is that there are several video libraries for Processing which are basically Java components (at least I think they are - the site has all the technical information you might need). There is a tutorial on using the Processing libraries and tools in the Eclipse IDE. There are also numerous examples on video capture and processing.
Even if you can't use the libraries directly, Processing is a great language/environment for working out algorithms. There are several great examples of image and video capture and real-time processing there.