While it is possible to play video on the iPhone and other comparable mobile devices that video always takes over in full screen mode. I intend to make a video player (without sound for now) that will work on any platform without going fullscreen, needing users to click play, or depending on the use of animated gifs.
This will be accomplished with a combination of server side processing technology and client side ajax. A video will be placed on a unix based webserver and then split into individual images using a script for MEncoder (part of the MPlayer system). These images will be delivered to the page via ajax calls to allow them to then be quickly displayed in sequence to simulate video play.
So the steps are:
- place video on webserver
- split video into individual images
- load images dynamically to page
- quickly display the images on timed intervals
This results is video play that can happen in a standard div element and then be further manipulated. The later goal is playing this video on a 3d surface or in a stretched or skewed manner.
The images need to conform to a timecode to look like continuous video rather than having fluctuating speed. To accomplish this the client side code needs to keep up with time passed versus images loaded and when a redraw interval comes display the most appropriate image, then abandon any loading of an image that playback has passed.