Okay so I’ve been busy lately, with classes, the newspaper, and managing hordes of jabbering monkeys. I’ve been recently promoted to an op on the #sto and #stoqa irc channels(hence the jabbering monkeys).

I’ve observed something interesting though. Cryptic has been really stepping up their communication, thanks to people like Rehpic, Falkoren, and Jaguars. This has served to really benefit the game without much of a cost to the company.

Here’s a hypothetical. Say someone asks some questions about personal shields. Falkoren then asks the powers designers how they work, and he tells us in #stoqa. This gives us the knowledge to properly test them, while some of us add this info to places like sto-intel.org

This then serves to enhance the game. Players have more knowledge, players can properly test complex things to ensure they’re working right. For a minimal cost, of a few minutes of discussion between employees and customers, you have tremendously added to the perceived value of the game.

Encouraging communities are an excellent investment for game companies. Supporting them with actual employee interaction and communication is just pure gold.

However, Cryptic isn’t perfect in their communication. For example, the other moderators have a set of new rules they want to add and enforce for the IRC channels, however, its been difficult reaching Rekhan or Phoxe to get approval. In addition, they don’t rarely come in to the IRC channels for us to communicate community issues there are. I am thankful for Wishstone, she has been a good communication pipeline to Cryptic, but she’s the OCR for the German community, not the english community! This needs to change.

Okay, so I found the source of the desync issue for one kind of video, and fixed that. It was a solution I created for dealing with seeking. I’ll have to come up with a better one. One other video I have, which is great as a test video due to its weird occurrences of pts values and packets, still has a desync problem. I will give a go at fixing it today. I know its somewhere in the video system.

Okay, so we made some progress this week.

I did:

• Finished addition of a command queue, for every modification of the system.
• Fixed a bug with surfaces that happened rarely
• Added filepath checks, to ensure the file exists.
• Made significant improvements in audio/video syncing, but it still desyncs within a minute. This took up the rest of my week.

Unfortunately, I’m having a serious issue with audio/video desyncing. I’m going to be studying the ffmpeg tutorial, and ffplay.c for clues and understanding of where I’ve gone wrong. I will try on either Sunday or Monday to replace the current sound system I use with one similar to ffplay’s and see if that makes a difference. But I suspect it is an issue with the video thread, not the audio, because when the video is turned off, the audio doesn’t stutter at the beginning for one of my test videos. Then after that, I will be working to make my module work on Windows.

So if you haven’t seen the new Star Trek movie, and still want to… why did you wait so long?

Its also the reason I waited to post this. I didn’t want to give any spoilers. So, lets say that the suits realized what an abomination of a movie JJ Abrams made, and so they gave it to me to fix. The requirements would be that I stick with the same general plot as they can’t afford to re-film everything. So, here we go, down the rabbit hole:

We start off with old Spock arguing before the Romulan senate, going from a shot of a CGI wonderland supernova to the senate room. He is arguing that Romulus is under threat of destruction from the Hobus start going supernova. The romulans jeer, and boo old Spock off, and he retains his calm(obviously!). A miner, named Nero, youngish, idealistic, believed in what Spock had to say, and wants to help, especially to save Romulus. And again, we go to a scene of Nero and Spock having just finished their presentation, Nero glowing with passionate pride. The Vulcans say “No. It is simply not logical to expend effort on the behalf of a race of people that have sought to destroy us, and will try to destroy us again.” and they all turn to leave. Nero rails against this proclamation, shouting, calling them cowards, emotion-less computers. Spock sighs and tells Nero to cease, his arguments will have no effect.

This is where Nero shrugs off Spock’s arm, and he turns angrily to Spock, “I’m going back to Romulus, to save my wife and child. You can stay here, with the rest of your despicable kind.” and he spits at the floor, marching off.

Unfortunately, Nero is too late, and he has to watch the death of his home-world, with his wife and child on it before him. He struggles to hold it together, but we can see he has become equal parts anger and sadness. His subordinates tell him they’ve picked up the some of the Romulan Senate. Nero whips his around, and growls ferally. Grabbing a knife from a subordinate, he marches down to the senate, and pretends to welcome them. He kneels before the Praetor, then snarling, stabs upward to kill him. Nero’s subordinates, after a pause, follow his lead and kill the Senate members.

Nero pushes the dead corpse out of the way, and snarls, “Now… let us destroy Vulcan… and the rest of the treacherous Federation.”

Then we see a few months later, the small mining ship Narada noticeably transformed into a sinister and nearly undefeatable warship.

His subordinates tell him that a small ship has managed to somehow prevent the Hobus supernova from destroying the universe. Nero discovers this is Spock, whom had finally gotten a concession from the Vulcan council for the equipment he needed. Nero growls again, and orders the ship to destroy Spock’s ship. Unfortunately, Spock’s ship is being drawn into the singularity he created, and Nero’s revenge-fueled rush to destroy him causes the Narada to be drawn into the singularity as well.

Now we come to the alternate timeline, where the USS Kelvin is responding to reports of a massive singularity wrecking some ships. Then we have the Kelvin scenes almost unaltered, except that George Kirk remembers to use the autopilot and runs to the shuttle. Unfortunately, he dies on the way, on the Com channel with his wife. We see the Narada being pushed back into the singularity by the Enterprise’s bulk.

The next scene, in dramatic contrast with the dark, gloomy, and sad scene previously, is bright and sunny, and we hear someone call “Kirk!” Chris Pine turns around and greets warmly Doctor McCoy. They discuss the Kobayashi Maru test that Kirk is going to take for the third time. McCoy thinks he’s being ridiculous. Kirk insists. He is still cocky, and arrogant, with a knowing swagger to his steps. Then we see the Kobayashi Maru scenes, and then the testimonial scene of Kirk vs Spock. Only this time, the Admirals consider the situation, and order Kirk to perform community service, by helping Spock improve the simulator, and fix the bug that Kirk exploited. As a reward for creative thinking, Kirk is promoted from Cadet to Ensign. We can put in scene in here about how Kirk has the “rubber-neck” mentality, and chases women.

Then we go a few more years later, and Kirk looks a bit older. He’s calmer, settled, and has Lieutenant stripes on his shoulder. He’s boarding the enterprise, having been transferred there. Pretty women in mini-skirts walk by, and in contrast to the scene just before, he checks them out discreetly. He’s still a skirt-chaser, but is a lot less cocky and arrogant, and doesn’t get distracted easily by women anymore. He’s no longer a Frat Boy. He meets Spock again, at the rank of Commander. “Welcome Lieutenant Kirk. Captain Pike sent me to welcome you, since we are already acquainted.”

Lt. Kirk makes it to the bridge, and looks around, smiling at everyone on the bridge. Pike nods, and directs Kirk to the conn. Then they receive a distress message from a Klingon fleet, talking about how some deadly ship appeared from a singularity…which tenses Kirk right up. He turns and tells the captain that this may be what destroyed the USS Kelvin. Every ounce of swagger is gone from Kirk’s demeanor, and he is genuinely worried. Pike takes the recommendation to heart, and exercises caution on arriving at the latest sighting of the mysterious warship, in Vulcan’s system. Everyone pales and becomes noticeably quieter as they see other Starfleet ships’ wreckage scattered around, bouncing off the shields. They scan the system, and find the Narada. They open hailing frequencies, as per standard operating procedure, but at Red Alert status. Nero sees young Spock and smiles, like a cat finding a mouse. “Send over both your captain and first officer or I will destroy Vulcan.” The communication ends there. The science officers confirm that the Narada indeed has such power, and is ready to do it at a moment’s notice. Pike sighs, and nods to Lt. Kirk, “Take command, myself and Mr. Spock will go over there and try to save Vulcan. Keep locked onto our lifesigns, I don’t trust this Romulan bastard.”

Almost as soon as the shuttle with Pike and Spock on it leaves, the Enterprise receives a message from one of Vulcan’s moons. Old Spock appears, and Kirk has a moment of recognition. “Jim old friend, we have not a second to lose. Please beam up myself and someone you will find extremely useful, Mr. Scott.” Kirk demands to know whats going on, “Jim, all I can see is this is an instance of time-travel, and I had to wait till my previous self left the ship. Please, trust me.” Kirk makes a decision, and orders the two people beamed up. “Mr. Spock, if that is who you really are, I would like some explanation now.”

Just that moment, the lifesigns for Pike start becoming erratic, as if he’s being tortured. Spock tilts his head, and narrows his eyes. He strides over to the science station, and with an ease born of familiarity, inputs information and reconfigures the sensors, with Commander Spock’s authentication code. He raises an eyebrow to young Kirk as if to say, “There. I am Spock.” With these changes, they’re able to beam aboard, to try to save Pike and young Spock. Kirk, Sule and a few red shirts go over. They manage to save Pike, and rescue young Spock, but not before Nero presses the button to destroy Vulcan. The blast lances out, piercing the planet, which begins to crumble inwards. Kirk orders the Enterprise to begin beaming up as many survivors as possible as soon as they can. Young Spock waits in the transporter bay for the first batch of survivors, the Vulcan High Council… but as he watches, his mother’s trace disappears, and the young transporter tech is horrified. Spock retains his calm, and hurries back to the bridge. We see a single scene of Spock’s fist tightening, knuckles turning white, hand nearly shaking, but otherwise, he is completely composed.

He reaches the bridge, with Pike sent to the infirmary. Kirk gets up to give Spock his command back, with old Spock having slipped out before young Spock shows up. Spock shakes his head. “I am afraid, Lt. Kirk, that I would not be capable of command in my present state. I am afraid I am emotional, and that these emotions will negatively impact my capabilities. Thus, you must take command, Kirk. Nero said his next target was Earth. Our duty is to stop him.” Kirk nods, and sits back in the chair. “Plot a course to Earth, maximum warp Ensign…” Chekov turns around, “Chekov sir.”

“Fascinating.” Spock says, finding the science station already has information input into it, “With this data, we should be able to beam through the shields of the Narada… but…” Scotty comes over to look, and they confer quietly, as the ship warps to Earth. “Gentlemen, tell me we have a way to stop this ship.” Scotty looks up and gives a trademark grin, “Oh aye, Captain… we do.” Kirk spends some time talking to old Spock in secret, to find out just what is going on. Chekov warps them into the solar system, out of reach of the Narada’s sensors, where Spock and Scotty outline their plan. They’ll need the Enterprise to attack the Narada, to weaken the shields first. They’ve managed to strengthen the shields and power output of the engines thanks to the calculations given by old Spock. Kirk hails the Narada, and tells Nero to let go of his quest for destruction. “What happened to your wife and child was a regrettable tragedy, Nero. One I feel for. But there is no need to do this.” Nero snarls, and says to the viewscreen, “No diplomacy, no peace talks, no negotiations will stop me. I will have my vengeance.” and turns off the communications, yet again.

“Time to try two-fisted diplomacy fellas.” Kirk says, and the crew gets to work. The Enterprise swoops in, rocking the Narada with the force of its blasts. The Enterprise gets hit back, hard, and the shiny uber-Apple bridge begins to get smokey, and filled with sparks. “Keep firing! We’ve got to save Earth!” Kirk holds on for dear life. Finally, the Narada’s shields are weakened, and Kirk, Sulu, Spock, and more red-shirts beam aboard the Narada. This time, they get between Nero and the death beam button. Nero manages to disarm Kirk, while the rest are busy fighting Nero’s crew. Kirk struggles with Nero, and in homage to TOS, uses the infamous Kirk punch. Barely able to stay standing up, Kirk looks almost beaten while the victorious Nero is about to deliver the coup de grace. Spock comes in, and delivers an uncharacteristic punch, knocking Nero over. Kirk yells, “Don’t Spock!” but Spock does it anyway, and vaporizes Nero. He sighs, and turns to Kirk, helping him up. Kirk looks around and tells Spock, “This ship was advanced in its own time, 100 years in the future. We need to keep this technology out of enemy hands.” Spock concurs, and they set about turning on the self-destruct sequence. They escape the ship, and beam back to the Enterprise.

There, everyone is promoted, especially Kirk. However, due to his murder of Nero, Spock receives no promotion, and Kirk is given the command of the Enterprise.

And voila! Took almost 2000 words, but isn’t this a better movie?

I apologize that I didn’t post an update earlier. I didn’t do a post for week 8(from July 6-10), and the next week was only a partial week as I left on vacation on Thursday. I was on vacation from the 16th to the 24th. Then I’ve just completed another week of progress. I’ll just sum up everything I’ve done in one big gigantic post.

What I’ve done since then:

• Fixed video sync issues after pausing and unpausing
• Fixed a bug dealing with overlay and surface releasing and resizing
• Expanded unit tests for all the backends
• Added more commenting, cleaning up code
• Began working on subtitle support but discovered that ffmpeg 0.5 has no demuxers for subtitles so decided to delay this feature for after GSoC
• Worked on various references issues
• Moved audio packet processing to its own thread
• Wrote a more optimized routine for writing data to an SDL_Surface, still slow on large screens
• Added some profiling
• Merged branch with trunk revisions
• Fixed slowdown issues
• Added seeking. No relative seeking yet, it is absolute for now.
• Updated the code to work with older ffmpeg libraries. Only one section is incompatible, and waiting on a response from the libav* mailing thread
• Began working on a command queue to make the module more thread safe.

There are some current issues at the moment.

• If using surfaces, and you resize the window smaller, there ends up being corruption in the bottom of the window. I have no idea why this happens.
• I will be adding relative seeking this next week.
• Found an issue where commands issue from the Python interpreter thread in sequence but with no delay cause a big crash. Thus the necessity of the command queue.
• Code seems a bit slow, and very very rarely, audio and video get desynced.
• No path expansion yet.

And there we go!