[Multimedia Mike]

Hi! I've been lurking and leeching music from OCRemix for awhile now but I finally joined because I might have something to contribute.

Is there any interest in being able to run Chipamp in a web browser? I.e., the ability to play a chiptune directly in the browser rather than relying on an external program? Does something like this already exist or is someone working towards the goal?

The reason I ask is because I'm working on the goal. In fact, it's almost ready to launch (for a handful of systems' chiptunes). I thought now would be a good time for due diligence to learn if I'm duplicating anyone else's effort.

[jmr]

There's already been some headway in porting video game music format players to flash.
FlashNSF is pretty well known and widely used.
Someone's also ported the Game Music Emu library to flash. Interface is clunky and not really suited to use on a website as is, but it's open source and fairly easy to customize. Case in point: I (having ZERO experience with flash or actionscript) was able to throw together this modified version in an afternoon or two.

[Multimedia Mike]

Originally Posted by jmr

There's already been some headway in porting video game music format players to flash.
FlashNSF is pretty well known and widely used.

Thanks, I hadn't heard of this one.

Originally Posted by jmr

Someone's also ported the Game Music Emu library to flash. Interface is clunky and not really suited to use on a website as is, but it's open source and fairly easy to customize. Case in point: I (having ZERO experience with flash or actionscript) was able to throw together this modified version in an afternoon or two.

I am familiar with the GME port to Flash. Nice work cataloging all the SNES songs. It would be nice to see an easier way to transition between the various tracks in a song.

My project also leverages libGME, only by using the original C library in Google Chrome's Native Client interface.

[Rozovian]

Somebody make this happen.

[djpretzel]

Is Flash really the way to go?

I think HTML5 would be preferable... JavaScript... and using Web Workers to pre-render & Web Storage to buffer? Or something like that?

[Multimedia Mike]

Originally Posted by djpretzel

Is Flash really the way to go?

I think HTML5 would be preferable... JavaScript... and using Web Workers to pre-render & Web Storage to buffer? Or something like that?

Flash would be my second choice for this, right behind Chrome Native Client, which is what I'm using.

Going the pure JS/HTML5 route would entail: Getting the engines ported to JavaScript (the ActionScript ports might help with this, otherwise, huge chore); then there's audio output which would require separate backends for the experimental audio APIs that both Firefox and Chrome are deploying, plus there would probably need to be a Flash audio output "fallback" (which seems to be how many HTML5 apps current do audio). And that's not even getting into visualization (not necessary, but it is nice to have).

It probably can be done with pure 'HTML5' (or rather, a combination of tech that often contribute to the overall HTML5 buzzword), but it would be a lot more work, and likely not anywhere near as performant.

[Multimedia Mike]

Originally Posted by Rozovian

Somebody make this happen.

A quick update: I am still committed to making this happen. I was about to make it happen when I first posted a few weeks ago. djpretzel encouraged me to try to get some more feature support into the player to bring it closer in line with the real Chipamp. So I've been working on that.

Anyway, if anyone wants a peek at what I'm working on, drop me a PM or email. I hope to release something public soon that can support a wide enough set of formats (and a decent database to back it up) and then be able to add more formats and features as requested.

[Brandon Strader]

I think chiptunes in browser is a great idea, especially with youtube's system of flag first, ask questions later. This might be an interesting thing to pursue, especially since a lot of remixers focus on those dusty old chiptunes instead of modern soundtracks.

[DarkSim]

Yeah this would be a really useful thing to have, especially if it could be integrated on the remix pages so you could have a link to the original source by the side of the youtube preview, if the chiptune is available. Would also be handy for WIP threads to quickly compare source usage. Nice work, Mike