====== oggZmax - free A/V codecs for MaxMSP/Jitter ======
~~NOTOC~~
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oggZmax (pronounce ogg-see-max) is a collection of four [[http://cycling74.com/products/maxmspjitter/|Max]] externals for Audio/Video streaming using the free Codecs [[wp>Theora]] for video, [[wp>Vorbis]] for Audio in an [[wp>ogg]] container available in terms of the [[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt|Gnu Public License]].

''[oggrx~]'' and ''[jit.ffdec]'' actually use [[http://ffmpeg.org|ffmpeg]] as decoder and support a variety of codecs, formats and protocols. It is possible to read files from disk, access HTTP and RTP sources.

''[oggtx~]'' and ''[jit.oggenc]'' are the counterpart using [[http://www.xiph.org/|xiph]]'s libraries to encode and transmit A/V to an [[http://icecast.org|icecast]] streaming server.
===== Features =====

  * play Ogg/Vorbis encoded audio streams and files in mono or stereo.
  * play Ogg/Theroa encoded video streams and files.
  * play various other codecs and formats (FLAC, mpeg, speex, flv,..; avi, mov, matroska, wma, vob,..)
  * encode and stream Ogg/Vorbis audio in mono or stereo.
  * encode and stream Ogg/Therora video.
  * connect to [[http://icecast.org|icecast]] and [[http://www.peercast.org|peercast]] servers.
  * variable bitrate encoding (VBR) based on quality or bitrate settings.
  * absolute bitrate encoding (ABR).
  * resampling - receive and stream at any desired sample rate, regardless what sample rate Max/MSP is running at.
  * add Meta-information to streams. 

===== Download & Installation =====

oggZmax is available as binary for Max OSX 10.5, 10.6 both i386 and PPC and tested with Max5.1.3:

  * [[http://theartcollider.org/software/oggZmax-v0.6-i386.zip|oggZmax-v0.6-i386.zip]] (intel)
  * [[http://theartcollider.org/software/oggZmax-v0.6-ppc.zip|oggZmax-v0.6-ppc.zip]] (ppc)
  * [[http://theartcollider.org/software/oggZmax-v0.4.zip|oggZmax-v0.4.zip]] (universal)

Example patches and install information are available with the oggZmax package; more information can be found in [[http://wiki.citu.fr/inout/maxmsp|TheArtCollider Wiki]].

The source-code is available from:
  * %%git://rg42.org/maxmsp%%
  * http://rg42.org/gitweb/?p=maxmsp.git;a=snapshot;sf=tgz
===== Further Information =====

I've written these externals in the first 5 days of my 30 days trial period of MaxMSP to satisfy various request from artists for [[http://theartcollider.org|TheArtCollider]] project. 

Developing and maintaing Max externals does not require a license - however testing does. So In order to maintain the code I'm relying in you: licensed users. And of couse this software is open-source so there's nobody to stop you improving it yourself. [[:www:contact|Drop me a line]] if you have questions, suggestions or patches.

In the future I'm planning to merge audio-decoding into the jit objects as to provide a synchronized stream of A/V data and break the stereo limit by adding support for multi-channel audio. However I currently lack motivation and time to do so.

Personally I'm a fan of [[http://puredata.info|Pd]] - the successor and open-source version os Max which includes native support for ogg streaming and I highly recommend to do the switch, trading off Max's nice GUI with the freedom and flexibility provided by Pd. After all that's what [[http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/|Miller Puckette]] - the original author of MaxMSP - did.

FWIW: [[http://www.nullmedium.de/dev/oggpro/|oggPro]] is a similar - alas commercial version - for audio streaming with MaxMSP. 
 


{{tag>floss video audio}}