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PS3 Web Browser Discussion - big upgrade rumoured for long time, but no concrete news

The browser definitely needs an upgrade, but I am really hoping that this just coincides with a firmware overhaul or efficiency increase. I remember reading that to increase the longevity of the generation, the firmware will be getting a major overhaul. Hope that's true. There are so many little things that are still wrong that have not been addressed it makes my mind boggle.

Some examples:
The speed of the XMB - why do the icons and text have to "load"? What is it loading? Why aren't the icons (and title text data) cached into the console via the firmware updates? The only thing that realistically should make sense that "loads" is the Friends tab. Nothing else. Inexcusable that it has to take 3-6 seconds or more to load a few simple lines when going through tabs.
Profile and trophy checking - When you try to compare stats with a friend, then back out before it completely loads (which is 3 minutes+), you will be literally frozen for about that time (3 minutes+) before it finally goes "back"

I'd like an answer to the XMB loading thing, otherwise I will chalk it off as poor programming/prioritizing as I have.
 

Clott

Member
That browser has saved me a few times. The few times my PC broke, it would be broken for months at a time and then I would use the PS# almost as my home PC.
 

MultiCore

Member
jetsetfluken said:
I'd like an answer to the XMB loading thing, otherwise I will chalk it off as poor programming/prioritizing as I have.

I don't write the PS3 OS or anything, so take this for what it's worth.

When you change columns on the XMB, it does a directory scan, looks for files of the current type (Games, Videos, Music, Pictures, ect.), flags the desired types, then loads any appropriate thumbnail or preview.

If you have a lot of PS Store games, for instance, the games tab will take a while to load while all those animated icons are loaded. Currently(as far as I can tell), is does a fresh scan every time you change types. The type of caching you describe would require some sort of 'refresh on (event)' scheme, or even possible a manual refresh option.

Try putting an SSD in your PS3, if the load times bother you so much. As it stands, a 5400 RMP drive is very likely the limiting factor.

*shrug*
 
Edit: Later in the thread it's discovered that Sony is using Openmax IL and OpenVG with AVM+ (Flash video). AVM+ was released as open source for non-commercial use by Adobe. With Feb 2012 and Openmax 1.2, Gstreamer 1.0 it's possible to support GST-OpenMax on the PS3. OpenVG is like a subset of Cairo and Openmax IL is like a Gstreamer core, both functionally similar.

Massa said:
The PS3 doesn't use either Gstreamer or Linux kernel 2.6.
I believe it does. Edit: Collabora got a PS3 Development kit late 2007. The PS3 blu-Ray, DVD player and PS3 OS, each have their own Font and language selection which indicates they are separate -independent programs/streams. At least by 2008-9, in preparation for the coming webkit for WebGL games, Gstreamer was integrated into the PS3 and used for IPTV in September of 2010 with the Marlin ultraviolet DRM gstreamer player. Gstreamer/Fluendo owners are also the developers of Gstreamer or hired programers to develop gstreamer and some of the plugins. They own the rights to gstreamer and can/do provide code to OEM that does not require LGPL disclosure.

2004 Sony looking at Gstreamer for television camera

Gstreamer DRM announced 2005
The eventual addition of DRM support will be as a "separate helper library using special plugins," according to a December 7 post from GStreamer developer Christian Schaller to the Planet GStreamer blog, as well as to his own blog. The intention, he wrote, will be to enable playback of both DRMed and non-DRMed content, and will be in clear view of both programmers and end users, unlike the Sony-distributed software that caused an uproar late last year.

Speculation on DRM aware Gstreamer

Gstreamer DRM player of choice for Linux and PS3 (Marlin DRM) 2009
Marlin Developer Community started in 2005 by Intertrust, Panasonic,
Philips, Samsung, and Sony.

Marlin is used for content distribution and protection DRM in:
– Japanese national IPTV deployment (IPTV-ES specification)
– Sony PlayStation Network, PS3, PSP, TVs, and other devices
– SyncTV catch up TV service

Gstreamer player with DRM HTML5 & H.264 adaptive streaming for Linux, Apple, Windows, Android (coming), Maemo, MeeGO

SNAP Sony developer platform. All 2011 TV, Blu-Ray, PS3, NGP

stack1.jpg


Gstreamer-Cairo SVG-Pango (International Fonts)


.......Collabora..........Gstreamer..........Fluendo
........Projects................|....................Codecs
.............................Marlin DRM
...................................|
Intertrust, Panasonic, Sony, Philips, Samsung

There is a partnership based around D-Bus and Gstreamer (See above)

Gstreamer 2 parallel Gstreamer branches, DRM aware for OEM and open source. Only the open source branch is listed and requires disclosure. Edit: Looks like DRM is in the player outside of the Gstreamer core. Blu-ray and DVD player for instance are separate from both the Gstreamer core and IP stream player and possible DLNA (DLNA needs confirmation).

Collabora does Gstreamer consulting and develops Open Source projects sponsored by Intel and Nokia among others. http://www.collabora.co.uk/ The partners are involved with webkit and Gstreamer. See Projects: Telepathy, GStreamer, D-Bus, Webkit, Farstream, libnice, PiTiVi, PulseAudi.

Fluendo provides proprietary Codec plugins for Gstreamer (for a fee)



PS3 CellOS derived from Linux or freeBSD? We still don't know!

http://www.celinux.org/elc2007/sessions.html

Presenters: Hiroyuki Machida, Takao Shinohara, Akira Tsukamoto, Kuniyasu Suzaki
Companies: Sony, Sony, SCEI, AIST
Title: SPE-assisted User Level Device Driver on Cell Processor
Description:
Cell broadband engine is a heterogeneous multi-core processor which consists of a Power PC element, (PPE) and Synergic Processor Elements (SPEs). SPEs can be used to achieve better performance. This paper proposes utilizing SPEs from user space to accelerate kernel services. Our solution allows kernel services to access to SPEs easily. We’ll show evaluation of the concept, using modified compressed loop device driver, CLOOP, to utilize SPE. We’ll also discuss possible other kernel services to be accelerated by SPEs.
Hiroyuki Machida is a senior manager of Sony Corp. He has been leading a Cell/PS3 Linux team in Sony Corporation and working with Linux team in Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. He also has worked to enhance Linux for embedded system and is one of the very early members of the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum. Prior to working on Linux, he had worked for MIPS based UNIX workstation, especially for X window system and toolchain.
The above has Sony investing time in PS3 linux; other OS or CellOS Linux?

Wiki quote
The native operating system of the PlayStation 3 is called CellOS, which is believed to be a branch from the FreeBSD project.[1] The 3D computer graphics API software used in the PlayStation 3 is LibGCM and PSGL, based on OpenGL ES and Nvidia's CG.[2]
Applications running under PS3 CellOS do not act like Linux or Unix applications in that they are huge and only run one at a time. This leads to speculation that there are few CellOS tools and applications have within themselves what they need rather than called from the OS pool of tools as needed. We can conclude that whatever the OS cell is derived from was paired down to essentials. The reason; GNU Linux paired down to free and clean room code or some other reasons like limited memory or security. All of these would support Sony writing clean room code!

1) All Sony 2011 networked platforms (TVs and Blu-ray players) are Linux and are properly disclosed on-line.

2) We have work on Cell optimizing Linux kernel services and Sony uses Linux in their embedded platforms.

3) The Cell OS appears to have very limited functionality which might support Sony Linux paired down to clean room code. Clean room code written by Sony does not have to be disclosed.

In any case it's a POSIX OS compatible with a Linux 2.6 like kernel and as long as libc is similar to glibc all is well.
 
MultiCore said:
I don't write the PS3 OS or anything, so take this for what it's worth.

When you change columns on the XMB, it does a directory scan, looks for files of the current type (Games, Videos, Music, Pictures, ect.), flags the desired types, then loads any appropriate thumbnail or preview.

If you have a lot of PS Store games, for instance, the games tab will take a while to load while all those animated icons are loaded. Currently(as far as I can tell), is does a fresh scan every time you change types. The type of caching you describe would require some sort of 'refresh on (event)' scheme, or even possible a manual refresh option.

Try putting an SSD in your PS3, if the load times bother you so much. As it stands, a 5400 RMP drive is very likely the limiting factor.

*shrug*

Hm, that may be the case. Either way, it is just sluggish and I believe can be alleviated completely under the current PS3 hardware limitations. It would need, as you said, some kind of refresh that updates the cache in that specific icon/area, but this shouldn't be too hard - when something is updated or edited, it flags to update just that when you browse to that tab the next time. Minimal loading. As for the PSN games video icons (and Video tab animated icons), those can be cached - they don't change at all.

As long as this gen seems to be running, I just may upgrade to a SSD later on, since the prices are dropping. Not sure it will speed it up that much though. I currently use a 500gb 7200 rpm (is the default drive still 5400? lol).
Either way, let's hope this kind of stuff is really speedy and instant when PS4 comes around.
 

Massa

Member
jeff_rigby said:
Can you cite? This needs to be locked down.

Quoting the GPL license, version 2.0:

You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

Linux is GPL v2.0, Gstreamer is LGPL which includes near identical terms. Sony doesn't do any of that, so they've either been violating the license unsuspiciously for the past 5 years or they just don't use these components.

Also keep in mind that hosting the sources at a random Sony domain doesn't qualify. They'd have to make that offer available to each individual PS3 owner either through the software manuals or at the very least the "About" section of the PS3 (which is where they actually credit the open source pieces they use).

Edit: on your edit, Sony Snap doesn't seem to have anything to do with SCE and seems to be an initiative from Sony Electronics. It was also killed shortly after being announced anyway, as Sony is now rumored to launch Android tables and such, while SCE will continue with its own proprietary in-house tools.
 

obonicus

Member
Massa said:
Linux is GPL v2.0, Gstreamer is LGPL which includes near identical terms. Sony doesn't do any of that, so they've either been violating the license unsuspiciously for the past 5 years or they just don't use these components.

LGPL is way more lenient than GPL.
 

Massa

Member
obonicus said:
LGPL is way more lenient than GPL.

Sure, but not when it comes to what my post was referring in the GPL V2. When I said "near identical terms" I meant specifically for the clause I quoted in my post.

For instance, from LGPL v2:
You must give prominent notice with each copy of the work that the Library is used in it and that the Library and its use are covered by this License. You must supply a copy of this License.
 
MultiCore said:
I don't write the PS3 OS or anything, so take this for what it's worth.

When you change columns on the XMB, it does a directory scan, looks for files of the current type (Games, Videos, Music, Pictures, ect.), flags the desired types, then loads any appropriate thumbnail or preview.

If you have a lot of PS Store games, for instance, the games tab will take a while to load while all those animated icons are loaded. Currently(as far as I can tell), is does a fresh scan every time you change types. The type of caching you describe would require some sort of 'refresh on (event)' scheme, or even possible a manual refresh option.

Try putting an SSD in your PS3, if the load times bother you so much. As it stands, a 5400 RMP drive is very likely the limiting factor.

*shrug*

Yeah, but that sort of thing should start caching immediately. The "XMB" on my XBR TV loads faster than that.
 

androvsky

Member
Sometime about 2007 Sony updated the individual codec plugins for Gstreamer to use SPUs.

Where do you see that? You linked to a bunch of plugins, but nothing that says anything about SPU support (dvdspu doesn't count, it refers to something else). If Gstreamer had SPU support, then it would've come in super-handy with OtherOS. Really would've changed things a lot, as we could've had a media center app that supported 1080p h.264 and everything else close to the PS3's launch. Since Gstreamer is LGPL, you should be able to find SPU includes in the sources.... and Sony would've had to disclose the fact they're using Gstreamer in the about section like Massa said, and they'd have to give out the source to their highly-optimized h.264 decoding libraries.


By the way, I remembered where I read that the PS3 used a commercial Unix variant; it turned out to be a hilariously uninformed post by demonhades. Still, AIX is likely, maybe vxworks, basically anything that doesn't require them to disclose that they're using it and post source code changes. It's hard to imagine Sony getting through all the jailbreak and key leak changes without having to touch the kernel or USB drivers at all.

I don't write the PS3 OS or anything, so take this for what it's worth.

When you change columns on the XMB, it does a directory scan, looks for files of the current type (Games, Videos, Music, Pictures, ect.), flags the desired types, then loads any appropriate thumbnail or preview.

If you have a lot of PS Store games, for instance, the games tab will take a while to load while all those animated icons are loaded. Currently(as far as I can tell), is does a fresh scan every time you change types. The type of caching you describe would require some sort of 'refresh on (event)' scheme, or even possible a manual refresh option.

Try putting an SSD in your PS3, if the load times bother you so much. As it stands, a 5400 RMP drive is very likely the limiting factor.

*shrug*
The least Sony could do is cache the icons that never change. Hitting in-game XMB and having to wait five seconds or more just to see the "Quit" icon is nuts. I know memory is precious when a game is running, but a few static icons shouldn't take up that much space (or take that long to load).
 

MrPliskin

Banned
androvsky said:
The least Sony could do is cache the icons that never change. Hitting in-game XMB and having to wait five seconds or more just to see the "Quit" icon is nuts. I know memory is precious when a game is running, but a few static icons shouldn't take up that much space (or take that long to load).

Pro-tip: Just hold the power button for a few seconds, it's much faster, and you don't have to deal with the XMB nonsense.
 

Vitet

Member
MultiCore said:
I don't write the PS3 OS or anything, so take this for what it's worth.

When you change columns on the XMB, it does a directory scan, looks for files of the current type (Games, Videos, Music, Pictures, ect.), flags the desired types, then loads any appropriate thumbnail or preview.

If you have a lot of PS Store games, for instance, the games tab will take a while to load while all those animated icons are loaded. Currently(as far as I can tell), is does a fresh scan every time you change types. The type of caching you describe would require some sort of 'refresh on (event)' scheme, or even possible a manual refresh option.

Try putting an SSD in your PS3, if the load times bother you so much. As it stands, a 5400 RMP drive is very likely the limiting factor.

*shrug*

You can refresh every time, but only update new items: if a item in cache exists, just display the cache version. Just like windows photo folders work
 

Kyoufu

Member
MrPliskin said:
Pro-tip: Just hold the power button for a few seconds, it's much faster, and you don't have to deal with the XMB nonsense.

I hold the home button, avoiding the XMB from loading.
 

androvsky

Member
MrPliskin said:
Pro-tip: Just hold the power button for a few seconds, it's much faster, and you don't have to deal with the XMB nonsense.

Yeah, I'm doing that more now (err, holding the PS button, not the power one), but it always annoyed me. Same thing if I want to check my trophies while in a game.
 

Utako

Banned
I feel Sony and XMB is kind of like Apple and iOS.

Sony built a very tailor-made experience, and have had massive UX and tech problems extending it with new features.
 
Massa said:
Sure, but not when it comes to what my post was referring in the GPL V2. When I said "near identical terms" I meant specifically for the clause I quoted in my post.

For instance, from LGPL v2:

There are two issues here, Linux and Gstreamer

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html GNU/Linux totally free Linux. The lack of applications for the PS3 may be due to the kernel being a CE version missing many of the libraries that are LGPL or GPL.

Edit: Some of the source code for present day LGPL and GPL Linux and other code have their roots in public funded (university and teaching) projects which are public domain. Programmers have taken that code and added features sometimes including code from other public funded and other GPL and LGPL licensed sources.

The Snap developer program is GNUstep also and is on-hold not broken.

It is my belief that Sony purchased the rights to use Gstreamer. And codecs https://www.fluendo.com/business/introduction/

They modified the codec plugins to use the SPUs and were not required to post the changes.

Why would they spend the money to do this for the PS3 but not for TVs where they can use the software for free? Guess because of the Cell optimizations for codecs and GPU- shader were secrets worth protecting. Edit: Or more likely since the TV and Blu-ray do not have a way to save the DRM protected content, DRM aware (costs money) Gstreamer not required, they use the open source version.

So we will never see the source code to OpenGL (Cell version) and Sony won't comply with the LGPL Gstreamer license to use it free because that would require they disclose the changes they have made both in codec and/or DRM. .

opensource_webkit
opensource
Linux OSS technical information

For Sony 2011 TVs http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/TV/NSX-24GT1.html

cairo-1.8.6.tgz
dfb_base.tgz
dfb_fusion.tgz
directfb_modules.zip
e2fsprogs-1.41.0.tar.gz
exceptionmonitor.tgz
gcc-4.1.2.tar.bz2
glib-2.12.13.tar.bz2
glib-2.16.6.tgz
glibc-2.7.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-bad-0.10.10.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-base-0.10.22.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-good-0.10.14.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-qtdemux.tgz
gstreamer-0.10.22.tar.bz2
 

Cornbread78

Member
see seeing all this, does anyone else have a problem syncing trophies? It's starts to load then gets stuck between 10-15 percent. Same thing when I try to compare trophies with a friends...
 

Willy Wanka

my god this avatar owns
If a new browser meant better stability for stuff like 4oD and the STV player then I'd love it. It doesn't have to be Chrome, just something functional that doesn't freeze your hardware every 20 minutes.
 

androvsky

Member
jeff_rigby said:
There are two issues here, Linux and Gstreamer

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html GNU/Linux totally free Linux. The lack of applications for the PS3 may be due to the kernel being a CE version missing many of the libraries that are LGPL or GPL.

The linux kernel itself is GPL, and a pretty hardcore GPL that, as far as I know, no one can buy an exception for. That website you linked just refers to distributions with all GPL software, the linux kernel itself is still GPL. And I still don't see Sony listed. If you were to strip the linux kernel of everything that is GPL, you wouldn't have much at all.

If Sony is using an open source kernel, it'd be a BSD, like Apple with OSX. No requirements to post source changes, unrestricted commercial use, the whole nine yards... except they'd still have to give credit where credit is due, and they don't list a BSD kernel in their about section on the PS3.

They're probably using a custom AIX built by IBM; IBM designed the Cell, IBM makes commercial operating systems... it'd make sense.

The Snap developer program is GNUstep also and is on-hold not broken.

It is my belief that Sony purchased the rights to use Gstreamer. They wrote the codec plugins using the SPUs and were not required to post the changes.
What's the point of buying the rights to a GPL app if all the real work is going to done by Sony anyway? Compared to writing a bunch of SPU-optimized codecs from scratch, the other things that Gstreamer does are trivial.

Yes, reiserfs and cdrecord were somewhat infamous for selling commercial licenses of open-source software, but those were more of the exception than the rule. And even then, it was generally known that they were selling licenses.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
jetsetfluken said:
Profile and trophy checking - When you try to compare stats with a friend, then back out before it completely loads (which is 3 minutes+), you will be literally frozen for about that time (3 minutes+) before it finally goes "back"

What? Comparing trophies or checking a friend's profile usually takes no more than 10-15 seconds to load for me. Sometimes a little more, but never ever anything close to a minute. So I don't know what to tell you, sounds like your network settings are not what they should be.

On the other hand, I have heard people complaining about terrible download speeds from the PS Store, which is also something I haven't experienced. I routinely get speeds of about 2 MB/s from there (on a 25 Mbps - 3.125 MB/s - connection), which is perfectly fine to me. So maybe your PSN connection quality really depends a lot on where you live.

BTW,
awesome avatar! Oh, if there only was an LBA3... ; ;

And yeah, a new browser is really necessary. Just throw together a half-decent Webkit one, it would be a huge improvement over the current piece of trash.
 

MikeTyson

Banned
Cornbread78 said:
see seeing all this, does anyone else have a problem syncing trophies? It's starts to load then gets stuck between 10-15 percent. Same thing when I try to compare trophies with a friends...
That happened to me, and when Id click on my profile to change my color code or just view my profile - had to let it load/sync for a good 40min - seems fine now.
 

androvsky

Member
RoadHazard said:
What? Comparing trophies or checking a friend's profile usually takes no more than 10-15 seconds to load for me. Sometimes a little more, but never ever anything close to a minute. So I don't know what to tell you, sounds like your network settings are not what they should be.

On the other hand, I have heard people complaining about terrible download speeds from the PS Store, which is also something I haven't experienced. I routinely get speeds of about 2 MB/s from there (on a 25 Mbps - 3.125 MB/s - connection), which is perfectly fine to me. So maybe your PSN connection quality really depends a lot on where you live.

BTW,
awesome avatar! Oh, if there only was an LBA3... ; ;

And yeah, a new browser is really necessary. Just throw together a half-decent Webkit one, it would be a huge improvement over the current piece of trash.

Yeah, back on topic, it's pretty sad when there's a number of websites that I have to browse on my phone when I'm in the living room since the PS3 can't handle them (slashdot, animenewsnetwork). But a half-decent webkit browser appears to be mostly thrown together, can't wait.

If a new browser meant better stability for stuff like 4oD and the STV player then I'd love it. It doesn't have to be Chrome, just something functional that doesn't freeze your hardware every 20 minutes.
It'll probably be more stable (their test page that's supposed to crash the browser crashes even Chrome), but the main thing is it'll support HTML5, so no need for flash for streaming video. And if they don't need flash, they can use their good codecs, so 1080p youtube will be a cinch.
 
androvsky said:
Yeah, I'm doing that more now (err, holding the PS button, not the power one), but it always annoyed me. Same thing if I want to check my trophies while in a game.

Before the useless in-game XMB (what's the point when nearly every function prompts you to quit the game?), you didn't have to hold the PS button, just tap it. Now tapping it brings up the in-game XMB, which takes nearly as long to display as holding the button to get the 'old' menu. Sony's firmware updates have done nothing but piss me off. I wish I could have my launch firmware back.

By the way, has anyone else ever noticed the loading icons for the loading icons? You have to be quick to catch a glimpse of them, and a lot of the time they don't show up at all. But I had a good laugh when I noticed there actually is such an absurd thing.

The "failed to shut down" message, followed by a shutdown, is wonderful comedy, too.
 

yurinka

Member
Cornbread78 said:
see seeing all this, does anyone else have a problem syncing trophies? It's starts to load then gets stuck between 10-15 percent. Same thing when I try to compare trophies with a friends...
Same here. It started to happen after my console crashed when it was creating GOW3 savefile when the game was created.

Do anyone know how to fix it without having to format the HDD?
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
elektrixx said:
It's just occurred to me that I could be watching 3D porn on my 3DS in the near future.

I love the future.
Maybe. But with a screen that small you'll go blind.
 

Afrikan

Member
ReBurn said:
Maybe. But with a screen that small you'll go blind.

if watching this as a kid didn't mess with my vision long term...

scrambled-tv1.jpg


I don't know what would.....also I had this for my portable porn years back.

Archos402.JPG
 

Massa

Member
jeff_rigby said:
There are two issues here, Linux and Gstreamer

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html GNU/Linux totally free Linux. The lack of applications for the PS3 may be due to the kernel being a CE version missing many of the libraries that are LGPL or GPL.

The Snap developer program is GNUstep also and is on-hold not broken.

It is my belief that Sony purchased the rights to use Gstreamer. https://www.fluendo.com/business/introduction/

They wrote the codec plugins using the SPUs and were not required to post the changes.

Why would they spend the money to do this for the PS3 but not for TVs where they can use the software for free? Guess because of the Cell optimizations for codecs and GPU- shader were secrets worth protecting.

So we will never see the source code to OpenGL (Cell version) and Sony won't comply with the LGPL Gstreamer license to use it free because that would require they disclose the changes they have made both in codec and/or DRM. .

opensource_webkit
opensource
Linux OSS technical information

For Sony 2011 TVs http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/TV/NSX-24GT1.html

cairo-1.8.6.tgz
dfb_base.tgz
dfb_fusion.tgz
directfb_modules.zip
e2fsprogs-1.41.0.tar.gz
exceptionmonitor.tgz
gcc-4.1.2.tar.bz2
glib-2.12.13.tar.bz2
glib-2.16.6.tgz
glibc-2.7.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-bad-0.10.10.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-base-0.10.22.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-good-0.10.14.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-qtdemux.tgz
gstreamer-0.10.22.tar.bz2

Fluendo doesn't own the entire Gstreamer suite so they can't relicense it under a different a license. Their business revolves around supporting and developing proprietary plugins to Gstreamer - plugins which they fully own, so they can do that. Since Sony would have to use Gstreamer to use those plugins in the first place they'd have to disclose that use and comply with the LGPL licensing terms.

Same with the Linux kernel. Same with cairo. Same with WebKit. These are GPL/LGPL licensed projects owned by quite literally thousands of different people and companies. Sony would have to get a license from each individual to use them under different terms - for no purpose at all, since distributing modifications wouldn't hurt them at all.

Sony doesn't pick whether to comply with a license. The only way to use Gstreamer under different terms than LGPL would be to get a license from Fluendo, Red Hat, Novell and several individuals and other companies (every single contributor to the project). In other words, practically impossible.

Also, DRM is not a problem with Gstreamer. Since it's available under the LGPL, proprietary and closed plugins can be developed and distributed freely. Sony would only have to credit and make the source code available for the Gstreamer parts that they use, not any proprietary plugins they create or license (in fact, creating proprietary plugins is a big part of Fluendo's business model).
 

onQ123

Member
Afrikan said:
if watching this as a kid didn't mess with my vision long term...

scrambled-tv1.jpg


I don't know what would.....also I had this for my portable porn years back.

Archos402.JPG

lol I remember those days as a kid turn the tv to channel 2 & cable box to 19 or was it 18 whatever it was.
 

Afrikan

Member
onQ123 said:
lol I remember those days as a kid turn the tv to channel 2 & cable box to 19 or was it 18 whatever it was.

kids are so lucky now a days......man they have the internet, I had that shit.....and boxes of magazines I found one day, that I hid upstairs on my roof, in some cut. And there were VHS cassettes that some friend would come across every now and then.
 

onQ123

Member
Afrikan said:
kids are so lucky now a days......man they have the internet, I had that shit.....and boxes of magazines I found one day, that I hid upstairs on my roof, in some cut. And there were VHS cassettes that some friend would come across every now and then.

& then came the Dreamcast with it's web browser, when my older brother seen that I could see naked girls on the big screen he went & bought him a Dreamcast too lol


Dreamcast was ahead of it's time now kids have so many ways to get on the internet that the web browsers on the PS3 & Wii don't really mean much to them.


which reminds me even if the PS3 web browser is updated & becomes perfect it still will be mostly over looked do to people having so many laptops ,netbooks, smartphones & tablets
 
Massa said:
Also, DRM is not a problem with Gstreamer. Since it's available under the LGPL, proprietary and closed plugins can be developed and distributed freely. Sony would only have to credit and make the source code available for the Gstreamer parts that they use, not any proprietary plugins they create or license (in fact, creating proprietary plugins is a big part of Fluendo's business model).

EDIT 2: You allow above that DRM aware plugins could be proprietary and no source code distributed for them (confirmed in articles). The Gstreamer core (21 small programs) is the only issue we appear to have. The Gstreamer core may also be DRM aware and part of a from source to sink that must be DRM secure Edit: still an issue? The PS3 is using Marlin DRM and the examples cited for Linux use Gstreamer. So proprietary from source to sink with Sony paying for codec plugins as well as Marlin DRM aware Gstreamer core and bad plugins. No disclosure allowed much less required. Possible?

There is a big hole in the Sony disclosure site where the PS3 should be. There is no disclosure for anything PS3 except now webkit and Cairo. So again, according to you there should be a disclosure for Linux and Gstreamer or whatever AV stream-codec-player is being used. Edit: It would be hard to not have some software that is GPL or LGPL in an operating system. Either there is some legal reason for not having to disclose or all software is clean room written by Sony.

Looking at it from the other side there is no disclosure for anything. Add to that, the Quriocity music application for the PS3 is 121megs and uses software from 1999 without hardware acceleration. Why? Disclosure or waiting for HTML5 <audio> with ultraviolet DRM....Google (widevine) provided open source?

Again there are two issues, something that looks and works like Linux that is compatible with software that needs a Linux 2.6 kernel and is not disclosed and an AV system that works like Gstreamer but does not need disclosure.

Edit: One of the links in my previous post is for a lecture given by a Sony employee about cell optimized linux kernel. "How to Build A Custom Linux Distribution" That might answer the first issue. I expect that the PS3 kernel is custom designed if just for the copy protection and encryption. So totally re-written by Sony following Linux kernel 2.6 (POSIX) rules with source chosen (probably GNUstep) to be open source legal not requiring disclosure. Or source could have been as androvsky said, IBM with the same rewrite.

If not Gstreamer in the PS3 then the webkit port will work like Firefox does. A gstreamer plugin for Gstreamer in Firefox that interfaces to the AV output programs on the PS3. No custom cell optimized codecs, an additional 300K+ or so duplication for AV as a entire Gstreamer core will have to be loaded with all the other plugins needed. Gstreamer with cairo bindings is needed for WebGL video features and the HTML5 <video> tag.

If Gstreamer (or something that works like Gstreamer) is in the PS3 then only the GTK+3 webkit version Gstreamer plugins to interface with webkit are needed and all codecs and AV stream features in the PS3 can be used as is.

Need to check on this as I am assuming the GTK webkit/cairo/gstreamer/pango version is for Linux platforms that already have gstreamer (standard) installed. That only Cairo was disclosed in it's entirety but not Gstreamer supports this guess but only if Gstreamer in it's entirety is not part of the gstreamer GTK+ library.

It should be possible to determine from the webkit disclosure which was done.

Debian GTK webkit build
autoconf
automake
autotools-dev
bison (>= 2.4.1)
flex
gperf
glib-networking
gtk-doc-tools
libenchant-dev
libgail-dev (>= 1.8)
libgeoclue-dev
libglib2.0-dev (>= 2.27.4)
libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev This webkit build assumes Gstreamer core is already installed. It's linking base plugins webkit to gstreamer core
libgtk2.0-dev (>= 2.10)
libicu-dev
libjpeg62-dev
libpango1.0-dev (>= 1.16)
libpng12-dev
libsoup2.4-dev (>= 2.33.1.20101209)
libsqlite3-dev
libtool
libxslt-dev
libxt-dev

Library list in Sony webkit build

$(CAIRO_LIBS) \ Cairo SVG library
+ $(COVERAGE_LDFLAGS) \
+ $(ENCHANT_LIBS) \...............Front end API for a spell checker and more
+ $(FREETYPE_LIBS) \...............Font Library
+ $(GAIL_LIBS) \
+ $(GEOCLUE_LIBS) \.....No need for this on the PS3, NGP will use!
+ $(GLIB_LIBS) \
+ $(GSTREAMER_LIBS) \ Gstreamer AV library * Gstreamer library
+ $(GTK_LIBS) \
+ $(HILDON_LIBS) \ See below*
+ $(JPEG_LIBS) \
+ $(LIBSOUP_LIBS) \...The libsoup package contains an HTTP library implementation in C. This is useful for accessing HTTP servers in a completely asynchronous mode.
+ $(LIBXML_LIBS) \
+ $(LIBXSLT_LIBS) \
+ $(PANGO_LIBS) \ International Fonts Cairo-pango = SVG international fonts
+ $(PNG_LIBS) \
+ $(SQLITE3_LIBS) \ Data Base Library
+ $(UNICODE_LIBS) \
+ $(XT_LIBS) \
+ $(WINMM_LIBS) \ Windows Multi-Media library ?
+ $(SHLWAPI_LIBS) \
+ $(OLE32_LIBS)

The above would tend to indicate that Gstreamer is not in the PS3 depending on what $(GSTREAMER_LIBS contains (does it contain the core?). But no changes to webkit dff file to indicate this? Obviously there are changes to the library names so back to the other files to find the source. I'd guess that Sony programmers are using an internally maintained set of libraries and are not making direct get repository calls to internet sources. When unziping the Sony maintained webkit disclosure files to examine them I got three alerts by my virus checker.

There is a project called OpenMax with GST-OpenMax plugins available which might impact this issue if the PS3 is not using Gstreamer. If we see OpenMax anywhere in the webkit changes then Gstreamer is probably not being used in the PS3 but then PS3 codecs and AV could be used with webkit Gstreamer, still a less efficient footprint.

Just quickly went through the .DFF files, some impressions;

1) Lots of not implemented
2) Definitely mouse support and keyboard support added. Did not see virtual keyboard changes so Google or Apple virtual keyboard is still there.
3) Sony is calling this a POSIX port but there was reference to PS3(OS) & POSIX several times in one of the .dff files. I expect this means the POSIX version being created will find it's way into other Sony platforms with this one being PS3 specific.
4) No reference to gstreamer or openMAX. Either I missed it, webkit is not done and more updates are coming or there are no changes to the GTK port with reference to gstreamer and gstreamer with cairo bindings. Which would mean Gstreamer or something exactly like it is in the PS3.
4) touchscreen and multi-touch not mentioned so no changes there.

Someone would have to go through the GTK webkit code to determine features and then cross off the not implemented to see what's left. There is also a possibility that include Posix means there is a custom set of Sony written routines replacing the ChromeClient (not implemented) and other webkit routines written by Apple and Google for their platforms.

Edit: one other issue, there are DRM aware plugins for gstreamer since 2005 (Created a big roar for Linux to have copy protection at the time) and according to a PDF for a lecture, a Gstreamer player (adaptive streaming) that supports Marlin ultraviolet DRM. Is the source code for that required to be disclosed? It would seem to me that it can't be disclosed. Marlin DRM -Gstreamer player used in PS3

Marlin is used for content distribution and protection in:
–Japanese national IPTV deployment (IPTV-ES specification)
–Sony PlayStation Network, PS3, PSP, TVs, and other devices

I believe this system is in the PS3 now: Linux-Platform-Multi-media content managementl There is a DRM flag set in media legally copied to the PS3 which keeps the media from playing on other platforms without proper keys. This is enabled in Settings. PS3 firmware 3.41 added a flag in the audio for movies.


MM-Framework-Architecture.jpg


For Linux platforms, it comes as a precompiled machine language package of programs; not as source code. Kernel changes are required also.

I believe that Sony updated the PS3 with the HTML5 javascript engine and Marlin DRM aware gstreamer adaptive streaming player with Firmware 3.5 and 3.56. These updates made it possible for the PS3 to support Flash 3.5 streams. (Adaptive streaming H.264, DRM, HTML5 UIs with social networking support and commercials). The same for the PSP with firmware 6.35

The PS3 gstreamer codecs were optimized for the Cell SPU sometime in 2008, according to the article above, the Kernel was optimized to use the SPE also 2007.

The Home client also uses the same Gstreamer stream and when adaptive streaming became available, Home automatically had access to it. The Home client 1.4 now has Lua with Cairo bindings.

EDIT: Gstreamer Developer site

Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller wrote:
> All the code will be licensed under the BSD or MIT license. There will
> be nothing in this package actually useful to begin with. This is more
> about creating a toolkit for Fluendo or anyone else who needs to make
> DRM enabled products and wants to use GStreamer.
It is also worth to
> mention that the design we come up with for the DRM and GStreamer do not
> touch the core or any of the plugins module. It assumes a untrustable
> GStreamer core in fact.
So in the above diagram, DRM is part of another process outside the Gstreamer core framework and is part of the player(s) (there are probably multiple AV players in the PS3, one for DRM Blu-ray, one for DRM IP streams and a non-DRM gstreamer player, the last two may be combined and outside the gstreamer core).

Fluendo Gstreamer
Fluendo was founded in 2004 to address the multimedia issue in GNU/Linux and Free Software in General. Fluendo employs several of the central developers of the GStreamer multimedia framework, which is quickly establishing itself as the de-facto standard multimedia framework for GNU/Linux and UNIX systems. Fluendo provides a wide range of products under and above GStreamer including proprietary codecs (together with their respective patent licenses), a streaming server, a DVD player and a media center.
If this is the case then the Gstreamer core would still require disclosure. Gstreamer plug-in and application architecture .... minimal reciprocal disclosure requirements upon OEMs , what is minimal and why the qualification OEM? Edit: Fluendo and Collabora employ or are owned by the developers of Gstreamer. They can legally bypass the LGPL disclosure requirements for code they wrote.

So while I believe the PS3 is using Gstreamer based on functionality, Marlin DRM using Gstreamer, it being the Standard for Linux and embedded, Sony using it in all their SNAP developer supported platforms and there being no changes from the GTK/cairo/gstreamer/pango webkit to Posix/cairo/gstreamer/pango that would indicate gstreamer is not supported in the PS3, I can't find any links to prove this or to prove an exception for the Gstreamer core disclosure requirements.

The fallback would be Sony writing a Gstreamer core in a clean room which would not require disclosure.

Or possibly Sony lawyers gave an opinion that an encrypted OS where there is no possibility of using the LGPL disclosed software source being used by the user to update or modify the code gives Sony a pass for ALL LGPL code in the PS3 thus the black hole where the PS3 should be as far as disclosures. (It would help if the primary gstreamer contributors since it was public funded (and totally free) agreed to not test this opinion.)

If the above is true then Sony now disclosing webkit and Cairo might mean that these libraries will be used by third party applications or/and are not encrypted on the PS3 Hard Disk. Not encrypted also means faster. There might as a result be a narrow open nitch in the PS3 for LGPL applications by even home brew, the webkit port providing all the tools to do this. The SNAP developer program then applies to the PS3 also.

One final point: Games and Audio-Video need protection and I assume Sony spent a lot of effort protecting these two areas as well as thought in how to properly support them. In 2004 Gstreamer was the AV leader and it's modular design best suited to a platform with a 10 year life. As articles point out there was no other choice for developers; there still isn't as Gstreamer is now being ported to Android by Platform developers.
 
androvsky said:
Where do you see that? You linked to a bunch of plugins, but nothing that says anything about SPU support (dvdspu doesn't count, it refers to something else). If Gstreamer had SPU support, then it would've come in super-handy with OtherOS. Really would've changed things a lot, as we could've had a media center app that supported 1080p h.264 and everything else close to the PS3's launch. Since Gstreamer is LGPL, you should be able to find SPU includes in the sources.... and Sony would've had to disclose the fact they're using Gstreamer in the about section like Massa said, and they'd have to give out the source to their highly-optimized h.264 decoding libraries.


By the way, I remembered where I read that the PS3 used a commercial Unix variant; it turned out to be a hilariously uninformed post by demonhades. Still, AIX is likely, maybe vxworks, basically anything that doesn't require them to disclose that they're using it and post source code changes. It's hard to imagine Sony getting through all the jailbreak and key leak changes without having to touch the kernel or USB drivers at all.

EDIT: Still needs to be confirmed so my opinion only. Massa points out that Gstreamer would need to be disclosed. That still is a valid point but there might be loopholes that Sony has used. Edit: There are different copyright laws at play in different countries. I wonder at PlayTV or Torme not being brought to the US. Was this because it would link to LGPL Gstreamer code in the PS3 and that code would then legally be required to be disclosed?

I posted the link to the Gstreamer plugins and provided a picture with many description of how Gstreamer works. The model and plugins match the functionality and features we have in the PS3. That was the point of the post. When added to the Snap developer program, and Webkit requiring it, it seemed a sure thing.

Basing an opinion on functionality can be wrong. Last year I assumed that the ultraviolet model being used by the PS3 was Flash, based on functionality. Knowing the PS3 uses a Gstreamer AV stream would have eliminated that guess.

Massa forced me to go back and research for more proof and I linked those proofs in #304 also but did not pick out and post the relevant parts. I went back last night and did so.

Sony apparently formed a business arrangement with the Gstreamer authors to provide a parallel but separate DRM version/branch of Gstreamer and plugins. This branch is for OEM and can not be disclosed. The Marlin DRM group was formed and worked with Gstreamer to provide DRM versions of gstreamer. Proof is in the Marlin PDF & message #304 above. This all happened in Edit 2008.

Also in message 304 is a link to a 2007 lecture from a Sony employee working on Optimizing the Cell SPU for use with Linux.

Remember back to Netfront displaying video better. That was a Gstreamer SPU-codec optimization. Since it is part of the DRM aware branch of Gstreamer it could not be disclosed and used in the unsecure other OS Linux which used non DRM Gstreamer.

Also I'm concerned that only one news site has bothered to do the research to confirm the coming webkit port is not Chrome.

There is a lot of information in the Sony Webkit published Diff file.

It's a Cairo/gstreamer/pango port (toolkit name removed) backend same as Firefox. It is Android Chrome-like only because of the number of ChromeClient features that have been disabled and perhaps how I expect the front end to look based on Sony using CairoGL with no Xwindows support. They will have to manage windows similar to how Android Chrome does.

Linux Chromium (Non-Android) uses Cairo but not Gstreamer and requires Xwindows. Android Chrome uses Skia and Open Core not Cairo and Gstreamer and does not use Xwindows.

So functionality like Firefox but frontend written/managed similar to Android Chrome with features probably limited to provide the smallest footprint for games.

IF you look at the functionality only when using WebGL, it will display like Firefox but may be faster due to SPU support. HTML5 exactly the same as Firefox. Differences will come in with those chromeclient disabled features and the front end.

For instance Spell checking was disabled but a library that is generally used as the front end for a spell checker is included. So I'm confused and we may be mislead by Sony disabling those chromeclient features as they may include some of their own in POSIX libraries.

I expect that all PS3 applications including the XMB will be rewritten to use Cairo-Pango international SVG fonts to make the PS3 truly an international console. This also applies to the NGP and all Sony capable platforms.

As Cairo surfaces, any PS3 screen can become a window to the internet.
 

/XX/

Member
jeff_rigby said:
Looking at it from the other side there is no disclosure for anything. Add to that, the Quriocity music application for the PS3 is 121megs and uses software from 1999 without hardware acceleration. Why? Disclosure or waiting for HTML5 <audio> with ultraviolet DRM....Google (widevine) provided open source?
Is the actual Qriocity application for Sony HDTV, Blu-ray Disc players and Home Audio and Video devices written to be used for Pango + Cairo SVG? Or is similar to the application you have listed there? Is the back-end on those networked products using Gstreamer?

As Pango + Cairo is already used in new products backed by Sony Network Entertainment Inc. (SNEI), for example in the internationalization with dynamic text (i18n-text), this could be an indication of the possibilities that other existing XMB applications could have to be rewritten for the probable future POSIX port. The intention of SNEI is to take advantage of the connectivity and derived synergies between their different products, so I suppose that sharing a similar back-end in their devices to simplify porting tasks and maximize resources is a logical step.
 
/XX/ said:
Is the actual Qriocity application for Sony HDTV, Blu-ray Disc players and Home Audio and Video devices written to be used for Pango + Cairo SVG? Or is similar to the application you have listed there? Is the back-end on those networked products using Gstreamer?

As Pango + Cairo is already used in new products backed by Sony Network Entertainment Inc. (SNEI), for example in the internationalization with dynamic text (i18n-text), this could be an indication of the possibilities that other existing XMB applications could have to be rewritten for the probable future POSIX port. The intention of SNEI is to take advantage of the connectivity and derived synergies between their different products, so I suppose that sharing a similar back-end in their devices to simplify porting tasks and maximize resources is a logical step.

I don't know the state of Qriocity on other platforms but expect that second quarter this year it's all changing to a final standard/version.

You have it, all 2011 Sony networked products are using Cairo-Pango & Gstreamer including the PS3 after the XMB rewrite to "Internationalize" it with Cairo-pango fonts.

Applications written to SNAP rules can easily be ported to the PS3. That's the point of SNAP. Future applications will use Cairo (it's in the SNAP developer site)

http://snap.sonydeveloper.com/about/

And yes all are using gstreamer probably for DRM.

Finally someone who understands what I've been saying! You actually said it better. Thanks

Sony uses Marlin in the PlayStation Network, allowing users of the video download service to share purchased or rented content on PS3 and PSP systems. The connectivity between PS3 and PSP platforms provides a seamless solution and is part of Sony’s broader strategy to network its CE products and content libraries.

WASBI Marlin media application suite
Comprehensive SDK provides all the functionality required to create Marlin-enabled media players and other media-related applications. Built on top of the Sushi Marlin Client SDK, which supports the Marlin Broadband specification.

• Integrates with popular media frameworks. Supported frameworks include DirectShow and GStreamer.
DirectShow (sometimes abbreviated as DS or DShow), codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams.

Gstreamer a multi-platform AV framework that is a Linux and embedded standard.

Looking trough what the latest version of Gstreamer supports, with GEOCLUE_LIBS (in the PS3 webkit library):

GST_TAG_DEVICE_MANUFACTURER
* GST_TAG_DEVICE_MODEL
* GST_TAG_IMAGE_ORIENTATION
* GST_TAG_GEO_LOCATION_CAPTURE_DIRECTION
* GST_TAG_GEO_LOCATION_MOVEMENT_DIRECTION
* GST_TAG_GEO_LOCATION_MOVEMENT_SPEED
GST_TAG_GEO_LOCATION_COUNTRY
* GST_TAG_GEO_LOCATION_CITY
* GST_TAG_GEO_LOCATION_SUBLOCATION

Geoclue_lib

[org.freedesktop.Geoclue]
+gps-baudrate = /apps/geoclue/master/org.freedesktop.Geoclue.GPSBaudRate
+gps-device = /apps/geoclue/master/org.freedesktop.Geoclue.GPSDevice
(PS3 does not have GPS)

Which are not necessary for the PS3 but would be useful to tag pictures using the NGP. So the PS3 webkit disclosure contains in error geolocation (live area or near would use) and possibly the entire gstreamer library which would be required by the NGP.

Edit: In the Sony PS3 webkit disclosures are a list of library locations for files that are included in webkit. They are supposed to be just for the PS3 but Hilden and Geoclue are included also.

Hilden and Geoclue are libraries that would be used by the NGP not the PS3. This leads to the conculsion that the POSIX toolkit theme name has special meaning. POSIX is generally a name given to a set of OS standards from file I/O to mouse events. Machines using this standard can use the same libC and are cross platform "C" compatible.

This POSIX webkit flavor will be a cross platform standard used in the NGP as well as the PS3 and possibly other Sony platforms. Sony platforms use a Linux 2.6 kernel (POSIX Standard).

Sony is setting a GUI standard to be used by third party developers to write applications for their ecosystem.

Webkit calls, for example; to Save a file (POSIX standard call) will be defined with a toolkit GUI written using Cairo and it plus all the other POSIX standard calls will have their own GUI form written in Cairo. This will create a common GUI theme across all Sony platforms. This I believe was why the Sony SNAP developer program was put on HOLD. It's mentioned in SNAP that SONY is developing a GUI toolkit for use by third party developers to write applications.
 
jetsetfluken said:
The browser definitely needs an upgrade, but I am really hoping that this just coincides with a firmware overhaul or efficiency increase. I remember reading that to increase the longevity of the generation, the firmware will be getting a major overhaul. Hope that's true. There are so many little things that are still wrong that have not been addressed it makes my mind boggle.

Some examples:
The speed of the XMB - why do the icons and text have to "load"? What is it loading? Why aren't the icons (and title text data) cached into the console via the firmware updates? The only thing that realistically should make sense that "loads" is the Friends tab. Nothing else. Inexcusable that it has to take 3-6 seconds or more to load a few simple lines when going through tabs.

I'd like an answer to the XMB loading thing, otherwise I will chalk it off as poor programming/prioritizing as I have.
There is a PS3 XMB theme that has to load, it goes like this:

Snapshot kernel load very fast
check in settings for the theme name very fast
load the XMB theme Theme consists of a .png icon (small) picture for each of the XMB headings and a larger picture for the screen background. Total size 4-8 megs
Display theme
Search for Music, picture and movie clips to display on XMB If found create thumbnails

Default XMB is loaded so no savings if a custom theme is not loaded.

With a conversion to Cairo SVG, process will remain the same but the size of the XMB will on average decrease. With best choices down to about 500K from 4-8 meg.

Faster after Cairo update, yes, how much? Don't know. Same goes for every other application on the PS3. Less memory used and possibly faster load times. Webkit memory savings will be dramatic. Rendering will require less Power Processing time with SPU doing much of the drawing. Cairo Scalable Vector Graphics using the SPU should be VERY fast.

SVG sites (web moving to this) will result in very small web pages, memory won't be an issue. Linux, iOS, Android, Sony TVs, Blu-ray, PS3, NGP, IE9 going SVG. All major web browsers will support SVG, just have to have the web sites move to this.
 
The Portal 2 release April and the latest LGPL or GPL webkit disclosure that is only required after distribution of software might mean PS3 updates are coming sooner rather than later. Cairo rewrite to support international fonts may come soon also.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/48589.php

Sony Confirms Plans for Android Honeycomb Tablet by This Summer.

Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer has informed that this upcoming clamshell-shaped device will be ready by the end of the summer. It would feature 9.4 inch screen and an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor. Sony might also load Qriocity services for music, videos and e-books. There is even the possibility of having Playstation Suite. No details are known regarding the specifications and pricing of this

Sony Chairman Sir Howard Stringer outlines business strategy for Middle East & Google implements Arabic language versions of it's popular products; Gmail, youtube, maps. These events take place with weeks of each other, coincidence?

http://www1.albawaba.com/google-hosts-its-first-ever-‘g-saudi’-developer-event

eco-sony.jpg

Notice the picture name in the picture link above "eco-sony.jpg" as in Sony ecosystem support

How will this be supported; with SVG-Pango international fonts. Cairo-Pango in Sony products (TVs, BLu-ray, PS3, NGP and more) PS3 rewrite to move from bitmap graphics to Cairo SVG coming soon (opinion).

PS3 & NGP webkit library

$(CAIRO_LIBS) \ Cairo SVG library>> full source OS & webkit support
+ $(COVERAGE_LDFLAGS) \
+ $(ENCHANT_LIBS) \...............Front end API for a spell checker and more
+ $(FREETYPE_LIBS) \...............English SVG Font Library
+ $(GAIL_LIBS) \
+ $(GEOCLUE_LIBS) \.....No need for this on the PS3, NGP will use!
+ $(GLIB_LIBS) \
+ $(GSTREAMER_LIBS) \ Gstreamer AV library * Gstreamer library
+ $(GTK_LIBS) \
+ $(HILDON_LIBS) \ See below*
+ $(JPEG_LIBS) \
+ $(LIBSOUP_LIBS) \...The libsoup package contains an HTTP library implementation in C. This is useful for accessing HTTP servers in a completely asynchronous mode.
+ $(LIBXML_LIBS) \
+ $(LIBXSLT_LIBS) \
+ $(PANGO_LIBS) \ International Fonts Cairo-pango = SVG international fonts

GTK update not reflected in Sony disclosure: http://live.gnome.org/WebKitGtk
Default font backend is FreeType, you can choose Pango using --with-font-backend=pango. However, the FreeType backend now contains the latest Pango code as well and thus the Pango backend is considered obsolete at the moment. You should use FreeType backend.

TV BLu-ray disclosure library

cairo-1.8.6.tgz
directfb_modules.zip
exceptionmonitor.tgz
glib-2.16.6.tgz
kernel26.tgz
libjs-1.5.tgz
pango-1.24.2.tgz
 

theBishop

Banned
jeff_rigby said:
Your seeing POSIX as in a cross platform standard for "C" compatibility and Sony using the POSIX theme for webkit meaning cross platform webkit for their platforms...thus the name.

Sony programmers are again being cute <grin>. Kinda reminds me of the "3.5" Flash stream and HTML"5" references in number for Firmware 3.5 in the PS3 and 6.35 for the PSP<grin>.

Most I have been able to find is NGP and PS3 are going to share libraries. I'm confident that the NGP is going to use Cairo. Sony is apparently going SVG on ALL networked platforms that can support SVG.

I know you already know this; NGP is not based on Android, it's a CE/Embedded Linux (2.6) kernel just like the PS3.

Cairo & Gstreamer are now in the PS3 (Gstreamer since 2005) and from the NGP demos are already in the NGP.

Again, glazed over the last few pages, and I just think you're throughly wrong.

To me this is as simple as:

- Sony dev checks out "POSIX" build of Webkit (i.e. the one for unix-like platforms, which PS3 is).

- Sony dev is hard at work porting/swapping Webkit rending system to the existing PS3 browser, maybe adding some cool new features in the process. Any references to PANGO, Cairo, etc are simply because those necessary toolkits for building Webkit for a POSIX target. Pango for fonts, and Cairo as a drawing toolkit. No greater magic than that.

- PS3 owners get a nice browser update in a few months with better site compatibility, snappier performance, and potentially a path to better flash support (though not guaranteed).

You're constantly posting all these random layer-cake diagrams and bits of news and most of it seems irrelevant to me, which is why I don't spend much time in this thread.
 
theBishop said:
Again, glazed over the last few pages, and I just think you're throughly wrong.

To me this is as simple as:

- Sony dev checks out "POSIX" build of Webkit (i.e. the one for unix-like platforms, which PS3 is).

- Sony dev is hard at work porting/swapping Webkit rending system to the existing PS3 browser, maybe adding some cool new features in the process. Any references to PANGO, Cairo, etc are simply because those necessary toolkits for building Webkit for a POSIX target. Pango for fonts, and Cairo as a drawing toolkit. No greater magic than that.

- PS3 owners get a nice browser update in a few months with better site compatibility, snappier performance, and potentially a path to better flash support (though not guaranteed).

I think the NetFront browser will probably be wholesale replaced by a Webkit browser rather than having features added to it.

The PS3 browser isn't a Sony creation, it is made by Access Co. and Sony licence it from them. Moving to a custom Webkit browser would probably allow them a lot more control over updates and website compatibility. Currently Sony have to go to Access and get bugfixes from them, I very much doubt they would need to go to a third party for bugfixes if they had a custom Webkit browser.
 

theBishop

Banned
zomgbbqftw said:
I think the NetFront browser will probably be wholesale replaced by a Webkit browser rather than having features added to it.

The PS3 browser isn't a Sony creation, it is made by Access Co. and Sony licence it from them. Moving to a custom Webkit browser would probably allow them a lot more control over updates and website compatibility. Currently Sony have to go to Access and get bugfixes from them, I very much doubt they would need to go to a third party for bugfixes if they had a custom Webkit browser.

Well fine. I only say ported because the existing browser already has useful features a new browser would have to re-implement that don't come free with Webkit.

If it's a wholly new browser based on WebKit, fine. But lots of sweeping conclusions are being suggested in this thread, and to me they come across as the (genuine, imo) excitement of a person who doesn't see source code very often.
 
theBishop said:
Again, glazed over the last few pages, and I just think you're throughly wrong.

To me this is as simple as:

- Sony dev checks out "POSIX" build of Webkit (i.e. the one for unix-like platforms, which PS3 is).

- Sony dev is hard at work porting/swapping Webkit rending system to the existing PS3 browser, maybe adding some cool new features in the process. Any references to PANGO, Cairo, etc are simply because those necessary toolkits for building Webkit for a POSIX target. Pango for fonts, and Cairo as a drawing toolkit. No greater magic than that.

- PS3 owners get a nice browser update in a few months with better site compatibility, snappier performance, and potentially a path to better flash support (though not guaranteed).

You're constantly posting all these random layer-cake diagrams and bits of news and most of it seems irrelevant to me, which is why I don't spend much time in this thread.

No way to answer other than time will prove this issue. Already the choice of webkit flavor (GTK) and method of implementing it (Cairo) have proven I can correctly use a Google search engine given the information from the first webkit disclosure and the SONY snap developer site.

The sweeping conclusions beyond that are based again on information in the Snap developer site and Sony projects like the infinite picture database (Cairo and hyperlinking). Or Firefox demos using Gstreamer with Cairo bindings.

With an understanding of why Android and iOS use SVG and the above, predicting Sony going SVG is not a stretch especially if the SNAP developer site says; "SNAP has a re-architected display model and backend based on Cairo evolving toward COLLADA over time." and all 2011 Sony networked products have Cairo installed.

Why go Cairo? multiple reasons, as a cross platform standard, uses fewer resources, Cairo-pango allows international fonts and more. Again using Google with keywords SVG, Cairo, GUI & SVG supports this and more.

IE9 will support SVG graphics for the first time since it became a standard in 1999. All major browsers will support SVG this year.

I recognize that the "sweeping conclusions" I am making have NO direct confirmation, considering it's SONY we are talking about we should not expect plain language or a timetable for coming features. We have to guess or remain mute.
 
Apparently SVG and the reason for the move to SVG by ALL embedded systems (Handheld & Sony PS3) is not understood.

Android OS uses Skia SVG for everything not just the Chrome browser
Chrome OS uses Clutter SVG for everything not just the Chrome WEB browser
PS3, NGP and all Sony 2011 networked TVs and Blu-ray players use/will use Cairo SVG for everything Only the PS3 is speculation at this time (5/11/11).
Apple iOS uses SVG for everything not just the browser.

In 2011, all browsers will support SVG for the first time since it became a standard in 1999 (Microsoft was the hold out). Why? because many websites are moving to support SVG graphics for the multiple size and resource limited handhelds. SVG uses less memory and graphics can be scaled in size to fit any screen.

..............Chrome.......Firefox......Internet Explorer.....Opera....Safari...PS3 Webkit....NGP
SVG........Yes.............Yes...........yes.........................Yes... ....Yes.......Yes...............Yes
Canvas....Yes............ Yes...........yes.........................Yes.......Yes.......Yes.......... .....Yes
WebGL.....Yes............Yes...........No..........................yes..... ..Yes.......Yes...............Yes

IBM Article on Cairo SVG

A significant design decision in cairo is to support nearly identical output to the greatest extent possible. This consistent output lends itself exceptionally well for GUI toolkit programming, or cross-platform application development. The ability to print a screen at high resolution, and draw on the screen contents with the same drawing library has obvious advantages.

An added benefit to the vector nature of cairo drawing is that vector images tend to be smaller in size. This is because a relatively large amount of information can be encoded in a relatively small equation. The beauty of vector drawing is that the drawing tends to be relatively straightforward. The onus of actually converting the points, lines, and their associated equations into something you can see rests on the drawing library.

As mentioned previously, several graphics toolkits provide bindings to make cairo development even easier. Gtk+ versions newer than 2.8 contain full support for cairo, and cairo has been selected as the strategic drawing system to support future GTK releases. Additionally, toolkits like GNUstep and FLTK are beginning to support cairo for their graphics rendering needs.

Cairo makes perfect sense to select as your drawing API if you plan on doing anything cross-platform that requires low-level control of drawing operations and compositing. And if you want to have the cross-platform capabilities but do not want to draw at a low level, there are some other convenience drawing libraries that sit on top of cairo. Cairo-Clutter

Applications of cairo in the wild:

A large number of influential open source projects have jumped on the cairo bandwagon, and cairo has positioned itself to be a huge player in the Linux graphics space. Some of the more influential projects that are already embracing cairo are:

Gtk+, everyone's favorite cross platform graphics toolkit
Pango, a Free Software library for laying out and rendering text, with emphasis on internationalization
Gnome, a Free Software desktop environment
Mozilla, cross-platform Web browser infrastructure on which Firefox is based
OpenOffice.org, a free software office suite comparable to Microsoft Office

There is a reason the GTK webkit was chosen by Sony as the basis for a PS3 and NGP webkit port. It is based on (rendered with) Cairo. The Latest Gnome Desktop is also totally rendered with Cairo SVG, I expect the XMB to also be totally rendered with Cairo.

I don't think anyone is getting it. All applications are getting a rewrite using Cairo. "re-architected display model and backend based on Cairo"
1) Because it's an industry standard
2) It is an ecosystem standard (SVG graphics) scalable graphics for any screen size.
3) It results in more efficient and smaller applications
4) With everything based on Cairo the kernel and memory footprint can be smaller.
5) IP is more easily portable
6) System fonts are going to be Cairo-Pango (international fonts)
7) Cairo-Gstreamer allows manipulation of Video (Start the Party, Eyepet)
8) Remote desktop easily possible PS3-NGP

The key is webkit, since cairo has to be resident for everything webkit related, which I assume is going to be a big part of the XMB, Cairo and Cairo-pango have to be in the kernel. It does not make sense in a resource limited console to have multiple font engines or bitmap graphics and display libraries in the kernel and memory at the same time.

Zooming user Interface
A ZUI is a type of graphical user interface (GUI). Information elements appear directly on an infinite virtual desktop (usually created using vector graphics), instead of in windows. Users can pan across the virtual surface in two dimensions and zoom into objects of interest. For example, as you zoom into a text object it may be represented as a small dot, then a thumbnail of a page of text, then a full-sized page and finally a magnified view of the page.

ZUIs use zooming as the main metaphor for browsing through hyperlinked or multivariate information. Objects present inside a zoomed page can in turn be zoomed themselves to reveal further detail, allowing for recursive nesting and an arbitrary level of zoom.

Apple's iPhone (premiered June 2007) uses a stylized form of ZUI, in which panning and zooming are performed through a touch interface
Sonys-high-res-image-enlargement-engine-gives-infinite-zoom Cairo and Hyperlinking September 2009

Sony Snap site April 2010 Cairo reference
September 2010 HTML5 javascript engine with Cairo bindings
Cairo stable release Feb 2011
GTK webkit stable release March 2011
2nd PS3 webkit disclosure March

This pan’n'zoom effect, which gives Playstation products an easy, seamless way to navigate mindbendingly huge images, is part of a new library that’ll be seeding out to developers before too long, though it’s not clear exactly what for. It’s a novel way to navigate a brochure, or a massive, stitched panorama, or even a comic-strip-type storyboard, and the addition zoom-triggered video content gives it a discernible advantage over similar technologies we’ve seen before, but how exactly could you incorporate this into a game?

Cairo was required for the HTML5 javascript engine (Cairo in the PS3 by at least September 28, 2010)
is being used by GT5 for the Infinite Zoom picture database of cars
Home's Lua client 1.4 is now using Lua with Cairo bindings (results in a smaller application size, more shader features and resolution/platform independence)


Cairo is the big news! Apple iOS ads featured SVG pictures being expanded (two finger pinch and expand). It would seem that Apple felt that SVG features were enough WOW to sell iOS platforms.

And last, the Cell SPU excels at Vector graphics calculations which should give the PS3 the potential to do more WOW than anyone else.

The above are the basis for my "sweeping" speculations, everyone else is going SVG so I expect Sony to do the same for the same reasons.

Edit: It "Looks" like PS3 firmware 3.0 was a CairoGL rewrite for the XMB but still Pixel based.
 

androvsky

Member
jeff_rigby said:
The PS3 webkit browser should work like Firefox because it uses has the same Webkit Open Source support libraries particularly cairo/gstreamer but the front end should work similar to Android Chrome's front end because of the way the PS3 will handle windows as Cairo SVG surfaces like Android does windows as Skia SVG surfaces.

I don't want to get involved with the side stuff, but this isn't the first time you've said something that makes it sound like you think Firefox uses Webkit for rendering HTML. It's Gecko. A generic Webkit browser should work like other Webkit browsers, like Chrome or Safari. The details on how SVG and fonts are rendered aren't as important as the HTML engine, as our current Netfront browser unfortunately demonstrates.
 

hateradio

The Most Dangerous Yes Man
I'm sure he meant that Firefox (Gecko) shares some open source commonalities to WebKit, and not that WebKit was used in Firefox.
 

androvsky

Member
hateradio said:
I'm sure he meant that Firefox (Gecko) shares some open source commonalities to WebKit, and not that WebKit was used in Firefox.

You're probably right, but it just sounds wrong. Just think of it as a way to get the thread ever so slightly back on topic...
 
androvsky said:
I don't want to get involved with the side stuff, but this isn't the first time you've said something that makes it sound like you think Firefox uses Webkit for rendering HTML. It's Gecko. A generic Webkit browser should work like other Webkit browsers, like Chrome or Safari. The details on how SVG and fonts are rendered aren't as important as the HTML engine, as our current Netfront browser unfortunately demonstrates.
Edit: firefox039s-upcoming-javascript-engine-uses-webkit-code Not what I was implying but still true. If you read the linked article, Firefox kept the scripting (Cairo SVG rendering) and used the JIT code from Webkit. GTK uses Cairo for scripting (Cairo rendering) and the Webkit JIT engine too. The differences between Firefox/cairo/gstreamer/pango and GTK/cairo/gstreamer/pango appear to be few except for the front end.

Cairo uses code pulled from the Android Skia SVG library. Best code is used regardless of source in an effort to insure performance and compatibility with standards. So it could be said that Firefox has webkit and Android code <grin>.

Side stuff????? It's the KEY to understanding what we are getting!

The details of the webkit engine(S) are not as important as the Standards they support. IE WebGL, SVG, HTML5

Cairo and Gstreamer are used by Firefox for SVG, HTML5 and WebGL. The demos in the following website can be displayed by any browser properly supporting webGL and HTML5. The same support libraries means the rendering should be the same, differences in Javascript engines with Cairo bindings should be minimal if they follow standards. Front end differences are of course to be expected.

Currently Firefox is the best browser (in my limited experience) to display these SVG, WebGL and HTML5 features. The PS3 Webkit browser should support SVG, WebGL and HTML5 also as the GTK webkit port was designed with this in mind as it too uses Gstreamer and Cairo. Many of the contributions in the GTK port are from Collabora-Gstreamer programmers. Cairo and Gstreamer programmers got together at Hackfests to optimize the interaction between Gstreamer and Cairo for use in web browsers. Firefox takes advantage of these optimizations too.

I expect the Cell to come into it's own with these new standards. It may really surprise everyone, at least that's what I can glean from the net.

Firefox cairo/pango example for Pango international fonts If the PS3 XMB gets a rewrite to support Cairo-Pango then the PS3 will finally be an international machine.

Examples: Cairo/gstreamer => WebGL, SVG, HTML5 <video> & <Audio>

http://planet-webgl.org/

For those of you without a WebGL browser:
Augmented reality video AKA Eyepet or Start the party (Gstreamer with Cairo bindings)

At the last E3 we were shown a Manipulation of video which probably used Gstreamer with Cairo bindings. Gstreamer native to the PS3 is probable.

Due to the use of the SAME SVG library, the SVG desktop (Gnome3, Android, iOS) is merging with SVG webkit. The same surface can display an internet window or applications. With little change a webkit browser can display/run a Gnome3 (GTK) application inside the browser window or on the desktop interchangeably. Remote desktop implications see below.

Because of Webkit 2 and common SVG libraries, webkit tools and libraries can be used by applications on the desktop, in browsers....anywhere.

Add to the above WebGL and HTML5 and you have a mix that a PS3 designed for vector graphics and multi-media can easily support.

A little way down the http://planet-webgl.org/ website you will see this:

Our preference for open technologies also meant that the COLLADA scene format was an obvious choice.
That means using Collada Game Scene Data format for a javascript engine with Cairo bindings.

Remember this quote from the Sony SNAP developer site
SNAP has a re-architected display model and backend based on Cairo evolving toward COLLADA over time.
we want your coolest apps to run on SNAP! We want Games, Widgets (weather, news, traffic, etc), remote controls, social apps, media sharing apps, media players, home automation, etc, etc, etc. You name it!

SNAP stands for Sony's Networked Application Platform and is part of an emerging new ecosystem for making downloadable applications available to networked devices like TV’s, Blu-ray Disk players and other Consumer Electronic products
We can now see with the PS3 webkit disclosure that the speculation that Snap applies to the PS3 too was correct. I think we all know that the PS3 will be a major player in the Sony ecosystem.

Opinion: If you have properly equipped yourself by watching the demos and now understand the POTENTIAL that Gstreamer, Cairo and Webkit libraries (including Pango International fonts) give the PS3, you can make up your own mind as to what Sony will do with this potential.

One school of thought is that nothing outside a new browser is coming. jonabbey; "There's no point to this speculation. None at all." or TheBishop; "I haven't read the links but I just think you're throughly wrong." or Shifty (B3D); loosely linked quotes, no proof at all (before latest PS3 webkit disclosure) and " still continuing with off-the-wall posts that lead nowhere useful".

Another is massive changes are coming. My opinion and so far it's tracking with predictions. All it takes to accurately predict what's coming is to have as a starting point Cairo and Gstreamer which came from the Sony Snap developer site and to understand the features in Cairo and Gstreamer.

Given statements from SONY that the PS3 is going to be given new features every year to keep it fresh, something like my opinion is a given eventually. I think all would agree on that. Competition is then the driving force on when new features are implemented. What of this new rumor of a Wii 2 that uses a touchscreen controller; sounds like a combination PS3-NGP or a Windows 7 touchscreen Xbox combination. Hmmmm....is this what's coming? You decide!

Edit: Wii HD Probably not a rumor as now pictures leaked: http://gamespundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/wii2-leak.jpg

In the short term how do you think this will impact the features coming for the PS3 with webkit and the PS3-NGP/Android ecosystem.

Remote desktop and remote play for coming ecosystem platforms; it will be easier with a common SVG library in Sony platforms like the NGP & PS3. Limiting the use of SVG to those calls supported by WEB SVG could allow remote PS3 desktop (both ways) with any platform with a webkit 2 browser with SVG support. WebGL and SVG, another reason for Sony including Chrome on all Sony laptops sold? Easy route PS3 to NGP or any SVG web browser or NGP & Gnome 3 Linux to PS3. PC remote desktop to PS3, NGP or Android more difficult but coming?

Might be coming with webkit:

PS3 applications rewrite to use Cairo-Pango International Fonts
XMB changes for coming ecosystem (beyond cairo surface)

Dynamic Kernel
Flat tree model kernel
The above might allow Cross Game Chat

Cross Platform Audio/video Chat
Basic Applications package (email-mini editor-calender)

SNAP announced (taken off Hold status)
PS Suite officially announced for the PS3
 
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/673369?start=0&tstart=0

Rumor: Sony planning Firefox PS3 port Nov 20, 2009 10:29 AM

By the above date Firefox was using Cairo and Gstreamer.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2007/12/html5-video-support-in-gtkwebkit.ars
http://tech.mahesha.com/2008/06/17/firefox-30-on-linux-and-cairo-version/
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2008/04/firefox-html5-video-with-gstreamer.html

MARCH 2010 Firefox to use webkit code (JIT engine from webkit)

"We recently received a tip from a source very close to Sony who says that they have been in talks with Mozilla lately about possibly porting Firefox over to the PS3," wrote Dustin Rudzinski.

"That said, our source made sure to point out that they were unsure if any deal had actually been reached at this point, but it is great news none the less considering the complaints Sony has been getting about the lack of reliability with their current built in PS3 web browser."
I would guess the above rumor was accurate, already Sony probably had plans to go with Cairo SVG.



It should be noted that the PS3 is already capable of running Linux, although Sony disabled the option of running other operating systems on the Slim version of its console.

Sony spokesperson John Koller told Ars Technia that support for Linux had been stripped away for a "couple" of reasons.

"We felt we wanted to move forward with the OS we have now. If anyone wants to use previous models and change the OS, they can do so," explained Koller. "We wanted to standardize our OS."
Tie the above to the PS3 and all Sony platforms that can support Cairo SVG going Cairo SVG; IE Snap Developer platforms and the way Gnome 3 has gone all Cairo SVG (started late 2008) and things start to become clear, at least to me. By this time both Andorid and iOS had gone SVG. EDIT: To enable PS3 Other OS Linux to go Cairo SVG would require Sony to release OpenGL for Other OS Linux and that would allow PS3 Linux to play games and compete with the PS3 as a game machine. Not going to happen, so Linux on the PS3 would eventually die. (See the state of Linux Gnome 3 & GTK+ for what's coming.)

1) ALL SVG
2) Moving away from Xwindows to support more embedded platforms and Matchbox Linux
3) cleaning code, reducing dependencies implied in the above.
4) Attempt to use cross platform libraries and standards as much as possible

And Sony is, I believe, doing exactly the same as 1-4 above.
 
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