Every so often, a discussion of the Java Multimedia Format (JMF) library pops up on an open source multimedia development list. I had never given it any kind of attention until a Google search recently led me to the documentation. I always assumed that it just supported raw formats and some common, open MPEG formats. It turns out that the library actually supports a few better known codecs, some of which are not completely reverse engineering. Of course, my interest in this would be decompiling them and de-obfuscating them beforehand, as necessary. The library contains a non-obfuscated, pure-Java implementation of the Cinepak codec. It also includes an obfuscated, pure-Java implementation of what I believe are some or all of the MPEG-1 codecs.

However, most interesting codecs (including all of those that are not yet RE’d) are only supported via the Win32 or Linux/Solaris “Performance Packs” which are presumably compiled, SIMD-optimized x86 code.

Some curious features– the pure-Java portion of the library supports some of the quirkier Sound Blaster playback frequencies like 11127 Hz and 22254 Hz (while the performance packs support 8000 Hz -> 48000 Hz). Also, I can not get over the fact that the documentation for the javax.media.format.VideoFormat class states that SMC corresponds to “Sorenson format”. (Here is the SMC format, apparently named for its creator, one Sean M. Callahan.)