topical media & game development
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research directions -- the next generation multimedia platform

 Factors that may influence your choice of multimedia development platform include:
A first dividing line is whether you prefer to develop on/for Linux or Microsoft windows. Another dividing line, indeed, is your choice of programming language, C/C++, Java or .NET languages. Another factor that may influence your choice is the functionality you strive for. For example, Managed DirectX, for the .NET languages, provides only limited support for DirectShow and does not allow for capturing live video from a DV camera. And finally, it matters what deployment you wish to target for, mobile phone, PDAs or PCs, and whether you plan to make stand-alone applications or applications that must run in a web browser.

Apart from the hard-core programming environments such as the Microsoft DirectX 9 SDK, the Java Media Framework, OpenGL with OpenML extensions for streaming media, or the various open source (game development) toolkits, there are also high-level tools/environments, such as Macromedia Director MX, that allow you to create similar functionality with generally less effort, but also less control. In appendix E, a number of resources are listed that may assist you in determining your choice.

Given the range of possible options it is futile to speculate on what the future will offer. Nevertheless, whatever your choice is, it is good to keep in mind, quoting Bill Gates:

Software will be the single most important force in digital entertainment over the next decade.

It should not come as a surprise that this statement is meant to promote a new initiative, XNA, which as the announcement says is targeted to help contain the skyrocketing development costs and allow developers to concentrate on the unique content that differentiates their games.
[] readme course(s) preface I 1 2 II 3 4 III 5 6 7 IV 8 9 10 V 11 12 afterthought(s) appendix reference(s) example(s) resource(s) _

(C) Æliens 04/09/2009

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