CineJS 0.1.2
http://www.cinejs.com/


	This is how it always ends.
	A little magic, a little smoke, something floating.
		- "Reconstruction"


I. WHAT IS CINEJS?

CineJS is a Javascript library designed to provide a simple toolbox for
filtering and manipulating HTML-defined visual content, namely still images and
HTML5 videos.


II. HOW DO I BUILD IT?

If you want to build it yourself, you will need the following:

- GNU Make
- The usual array of binutils shipped on any *nix in the last 20 years
- JSMin (optional, but highly recommended)

Simply execute "make" in the top-level directory and a dist directory will
appear with the standalone distributables.


III. WHAT DEPENDENCIES DOES IT HAVE?

None, besides requiring a browser that implements the commonly implemented
subset of HTML5 as at January 2010. In practice, I test with these browsers:

- Firefox 3.5
- Safari 4
- Chrome 4

There are no Javascript library or framework requirements; CineJS is completely
standalone.


IV. ARE THERE EXAMPLES?

Definitely! An example file to pull apart is available at
http://www.cinejs.com/example/.

If you build CineJS, you can point your browser to the test directory and look
at the various HTML files therein. Alternatively, you can go to
http://www.cinejs.com/test/ to see the same tests in action.


V. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT TO PROCESS VIDEO IN JAVASCRIPT?

I think my motivation can be summed up broadly as "because you can".

Beyond that, here's where this came from. In 2009, there were a number of demos
written that took advantage of the various new features available within HTML5,
particularly around the video and canvas elements and the ways they could
interact. For me, the stunning moment was the chromakey demo that came out in
February: while it's obviously nothing like a "real" chromakey filter, it
showed that surprisingly complex effects could be generated in near real time
in current browsers.

This percolated its way into my subconscious, and returned when I needed to
produce a visual art installation as part of my film studies. I decided to use
the Web browser as a way of rapidly developing something, and part of this
involved some basic filtering of videos. From there, it seemed fairly obvious
to turn it into a simple library.


VI. WHAT ABOUT PROCESSING.JS?

I'm certainly aware of Processing.js, which allows you to perform all sorts of
really cool visual trickery far above and beyond what this library will let you
do. I highly recommend it. Still, I felt as though I didn't need that much
power or complexity for what I was working on at the time, and hence this was
born.


VII. WHAT ABOUT WEBGL?

WebGL is awesome, and should be extremely useful for CineJS moving forward. At
present, there aren't any filters that use it, but I'm definitely keen to write
some when I have time. (I'd also very gladly accept donations of code doing
just that.)


VIII. I FOUND A BUG/HAVE A FEATURE REQUEST/WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES.

The first two can be handled at the Google Code Web site. (For now. I'll
probably end up just moving everything to GitHub soon enough.) The last one
can't be, but knowing Google, they'll have something in beta for that by the
end of the year.


- Adam Harvey <cinejs@adamharvey.name>