Sooner or later, all developers come to selecting tools best-fitting their needs. Choosing of proper tools can significantly boost development efficiency and improve code quality. In this post, we are going to describe tools we use to create the frontend of our projects and enable the coding workflow. Continue reading
If you develop gaming or multimedia applications for iOS, then AirPlay is absolutely a must for you, almost a standard. Indeed, what could be better for a user than watching favorite videos or photos on a big screen of a plasma TV or playing advanced games using iPhone/iPad/iPod as a multi-touch joystick? AirPlay has been designed specifically for this purpose. Continue reading
However nice the multi-platform nature of AIR is, still it is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we can write a Flex or ActionScript application that would work correctly on all possible platforms supported by AIR. On the other hand, developers feel much restricted by that AIR sometimes fails to provide all tools to fully use the functionality unique to a particular platform or device. Fortunately, we can write native extensions for a particular platform to implement features specific to this environment only. Such extensions are called Native Extensions and are attached to the AIR project as external libraries.
In our work, we often use such extensions. Here we are going to discuss the as3c2dm extension developed by Piotr Walczyszyn. It allows you to receive push-messages and display them in the notification bar. In our work, we are actively using the extension. As we have detected a number of errors and inconveniences in it, we have tried to correct them. Continue reading
Over the recent years, the largest TV manufacturers are actively exploring into Web-based TV service, and Panasonic is no exception at that. The Japanese company experts have implemented their vision of Smart TV based on the Viera Connect technology. Continue reading
As AIR applications can run on multiple platforms and devices, AIR based developers have to take into account a vast diversity of screens, their resolutions and DPIs. Despite a broad diversity of supported platforms, in this post we will focus on multiscreen development for mobile AIR applications based on the Flex framework. Continue reading
In a mobile application, Screen Capture is a powerful auxiliary tool to be used in a variety of tasks. In this article, we are going to look at the mechanisms used to implement this feature. Continue reading
All video services are similar in two key aspects. Even with a relatively small number of concurrent viewers the load may become an essential issue. Also, the users may opt to abandon the service in case of faulty video delivery. The issues with video delivery are often relating to high load and suboptimal use of resources. To address such challenges in our projects, we used a special video load balancer module. In this post, we are going to provide you with details relating to the balancer and building of efficient video platform by optimal load distribution. Continue reading
DENIVIP Media has been creating video platforms since 2008 (usually in conjunction with services, portals and applications). Over the 4 years of developing ad-hoc video platforms for different projects, we have accumulated a decent expertise and information on many hindrances that are almost inevitable in video projects. In this post, I would like to brief you on how we design video platforms and what drivers have to be taken into account when creating a new or upgrading an old video platform. Also, I would like to note major forthcoming trends in the development of video platforms foreeable for the near future. Continue reading
In this post, we are going to focus on developing based on a relatively new technology, Node.js. It is rapidly gaining in popularity, and not unreasonably. Node.js allows you to implement faster Web services capable to hold extreme load, which is critical to video service projects. For example, in Node.js you can easily build real-time statistics collectors , large-scale chats, etc. Of course, services written in C++ have a higher performance margin, but are too costly to implement. On the contrary, Node.js allows you to quickly create complex systems. In this post, we will use Node.js to build a simple application that can hold very high load. Continue reading
The BBC Olympics sports broadcast service is one of the largest media events of 2012. It has brought the video service industry to a totally new level, earning for the 2012 Olympics the popularity of "truly digital games". In this context, it is critical to acknowledge the importance of expertise gained and leverage it in further growth. In this post, we are going to dwell into the project, its implementation, and valuable experience that you can apply to your own projects. Continue reading