Java Media Players

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The Java Media Framework (JMF) is an application programming interface (API) for incorporating media data types into Java applications and applets. It is specifically designed to take advantage of Java platform features. The 1.0 version of JMF provides APIs for media players; future versions will support media capture and conferencing. This document describes the Java Media Player APIs and how they can be used to present time-based media such as audio and video.

Java Media Players

The 1.0 specification for Java Media Players addresses media display and the concerns of the application builder in that domain, with an eye towards the other application domains and other levels of developer. There are two parts to this release: a user guide entitled "Java Media Players" and the accompanying API documentation.

Future Releases

Javasoft and its partners are developing additional capabilities and features that will appear in a future release of the JMF specification. The features that we are considering for future releases include:

Incomplete Players - A JMF Player is self-contained and does not provide access to its media data. Additional interfaces that provide access to media data and allow selection of rendering components are in development and intended for a future release.
Rendering Interfaces - Rendering interfaces for specific audio and video formats and additional interfaces for audio and video renderers will be developed for a future release.
Capture Semantics - The JMF Player architecture does not support the media capture capabilities required for authoring or conferencing applications. Capture semantics will be addressed in a future release.
Data Definitions - JMF 1.0 provides an overall structure for data manipulation and format negotiation among generic formats. Future releases will address specific interfaces for audio and video data.
CODEC Architecture - A CODEC (coder-decoder) architecture will be defined in a future release to provide a common API for using CODECs to compress and decompress media data and a mechanism for installing additional CODECs into the system.

Contact Information

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

To obtain information about the Java Media Framework, see the web site at:

http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/desktop/media/jmf/

Change History

Version 1.0.5

Updated TimeLineController example in Appendix C. The previous version was not compatible with the JMF 1.0 API. Please note that this example has not been fully tested or optimized for production use and is intended as a reference for developers who are implementing their own Controllers.

Version 1.0.4

Fixed incorrect reference to constant value Clock.UNSET to Clock.RESET.

Version 1.0.3

Updated contact info for SGI.

Version 1.0.2

Added attribution for blockingRealize example code in Section 5. Versions 1.0 and 1.0.1 of this document erroneously omitted this attribution. This example code is used with the permission of Bill Day and JavaWorld magazine. It was first published April 1997 in Bill Day's article "Java Media Framework Player API: Multimedia Comes to Java" in JavaWorld magazine, an online publication of Web Publishing Inc.

Changed references to PlayerClosedEvent and Player.close to ControllerClosedEvent and Controller.close in Section 5.

Changed java.media to javax.media in Appendix B.

Changed example in Appendix C to use Time objects as parameters for setStopTime and setMediaTime.

Version 1.0.1

Fixed inconsistencies with JMF 1.0 API.

Version 1.0

Updated document for final JMF 1.0 API release.

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