PSP Flash Player Coding Contest - $500 prize!

[wraggster]

News from PSPHacks.Net (http://www.psphacks.net/content/view/409/2/)

<blockquote>We are pleased to announce the commencement of a PSP Homebrew Application Coding Contest co-sponsored by PSPHacks.net and RK Digital.

The demand for a standalone PSP Flash Player is well known among the PSP Community, and we are positive that an award might motivate an individual or group to prioritize this project.

What we require this application to do, In order of priorities (meaning the lower on the list the more expendable they are):

1. SWF Format playback - Faithfully play back .swf media full screen, the newer the Shockwave File format, the better
2. Keyboard Emulation - Map PSP buttons to navigation (same way keyboard navigation would work on a PC app)
3. Actionscript Support
4. Kiosk Mode - Boot PSP directly into .SWF file and on subsequent restarts (optional)

Schematics and test media files will be provided to aid in development.

A very basic Flash player based on Mplayer is built into FileAssistant, which is open source and should be used if helpful.

Additionally, there exists ongoing Open Source Flash Initiatives which should also facilitate a PSP port. More info can be found at:
http://www.osflash.org/
http://gplflash.sourceforge.net/

The Award is $500 and will go to the individual or group who delivers the most advanced application by the deadline.
The 2nd Award is that which is given back to the PSP Community, a fully functioning, polished, Open Source PSP Flash Player Application. Please respect the spirit of Open-Source and collaborate - in the case of a group submission, we will help in determining which players made the most significant contributions and should therefore receive more.</blockquote>

[Insane1]

Wow. Man, I hope that if a standalone SWF player is made for this, that it works with the 2.00 eboot loader.

[xuphorz]

this is getting rediculous
just convert the swf files to mpeg/avi/something
then use pspvideo 9 to convert to psp

swf to mpeg or avi converter:
http://www.flydownloads.com/download/multimedia/swf2video.exe

psp video 9 link
http://www.pspvideo9.com

[Insane1]

this is getting rediculous
just convert the swf files to mpeg/avi/something
then use pspvideo 9 to convert to psp

swf to mpeg or avi converter:
http://www.flydownloads.com/download/multimedia/swf2video.exe

psp video 9 link
http://www.pspvideo9.com
1: Lowers quality. At least with the 3-4 convertors I've tried...INCLUDING THAT ONE. With the Amor SWF2Video it practically kills the audio.
2: Some SWFs are put together in a freakish way that makes convertors only convert the first 14 or so frames...which is only a second or two. And yet others will freeze on a menu or something because they don't allow you to interact with the Flash.
3: Any Interaction-like content won't work if you convert it, ya know...and some flashes REALLY rely on interaction.

4: YES I HAVE used the method your suggesting. Harder to do then you'd think. Some SWFs just don't seem to like being converted...

[xuphorz]

weird
never tried it myself, but it does apparently work most of the time acc to thew site
but alot of probs reported

i'll try to find a good one

[deniska]

There is a PC application (I forgot the name) that records anything from the defined screen segment as AVI with user defined frame rate and sound quality. It works like a VCR for your pc screen....It's shareware with full capabilitys open for 30 days...
I used it to convert some funky flash cartoons to my cell phone's series60 mobiclip format - It worked like a charm ;-) since there was no good flash player for that platform either.. Although some commercial companies looked in to it...

[Insane1]

There is a PC application (I forgot the name) that records anything from the defined screen segment as AVI with user defined frame rate and sound quality. It works like a VCR for your pc screen....It's shareware with full capabilitys open for 30 days...
I used it to convert some funky flash cartoons to my cell phone's series60 mobiclip format - It worked like a charm ;-) since there was no good flash player for that platform either.. Although some commercial companies looked in to it... Yeah, I've heard of that program quite a few times...buuuut...
Personally, I'd rather have a free SWF player for the PSP rather than record my entire screens contents...(Zero quality lost as opposed to quality loss when converting Flash to another format first)...mainly because I suck at cropping video to cut the rest of the screen out, and when in full screen flash movies slow down on me...anyways, this contest already started, soooo...it's not like it's just gonna end because a better flash to video convertor method is found. So I'm personally just going to wait and hope for the best outcome for this

[10shu]

a flash swf player is more than a video player...
you can do games with action script...you can even do 3d and stuf similar to mode7 with the latest version of flash (8)...
also flash environment is userfriendly and it would be an easy solution for everybody willing to do a game but have none or few coding ability...

[MaxSMoke]

I'd like to chip in $20 towards a Flash Player for the PSP! I'd love to watch Homestar Runner on the PSP, as well as access the HUGE list of flash games out there. I imagine somebody Sony will release a Flash player as part of Firmware 3.0, once that Firmware 2.5 hack picks up steam.

It's always the Carrot on a string with Sony. Does anybody even used that remote video streamer in Firmware 2.5? If they are going to bait us into upgrading, at least offer us something cool! How about Internet Radio... oh wait, you can already get that in Firmware 1.5....

Homebrew 1 - Sony 0

[deniska]

My point was - since lot's of people failed to implement a fully functional Flash player on other mobile platforms, I would not hold my breath waiting for a mirracle here.. but rather explore alternatives :-)

[Insane1]

My point was - since lot's of people failed to implement a fully functional Flash player on other mobile platforms, I would not hold my breath waiting for a mirracle here.. but rather explore alternatives :-)
I'd rather hold my breath and hope the contest gets some good results, because as far as I can tell, the alternatives stink.

[Valiant]

hahah man wish there was a $500 prize for a psx emu for psp now THAT would be something XD. (But rather a challenge <_<)

[Cap'n 1time]

this... isnt actually that hard I think. after all someone made a SWF player for DC... it is just a matter of portage. Now it wasnt the best in the world, and it didnt play audio, but it was a good start.

[Psyberjock]

deniska My point was - since lot's of people failed to implement a fully functional Flash player on other mobile platforms, I would not hold my breath waiting for a mirracle here.. but rather explore alternatives :-)

This is assuming that the PSP is as weak as other mobile platforms. What other mobile platforms had 32 Megs of RAM, 3D acceleration, and a 300MHz CPU? Not any cellphones I've seen, not a single attempt at any of the Gameboys, nothing. Of course the PSP is not the end of the evolution, there is and will be faster and better platforms, just not until this point has there been anything capable in a mobile. This console is capable of more than what some people think.

[Zaibach333]

I've been a flash coder for two years now and it really bugs me that people still think flash is just a video. none of my applications have more than one frame. they run through a system of classes in actionscript similar to C++ or Java.

if any of you coders dont know much about programming, flash actionscript doesnt take much to get some cool looking product.

once this is made I'm sure it will string in lots of fun on-the-go applications.


oh yeah, and does anyone know much about this osFlash that was mentioned? does anybody know if it can handle actionscript 2.0? *my real consern

[RedKing14CA]

w00t, combat instinct please!!!

[10shu]

what the closing date of the contest?

[Zaibach333]

i really havent heard anything about it for a while, I think its untill somebody does it

[IndianCheese]

One problem with this: if it occurs, say goodbye to homebrew games. Everyone will begin coding in Flash instead of Lua, C, or C++.

[cloudd]

No way homebrew is where the consoles are and that is what most of us want that have a psp at the moment. Flash will not kill the psp homebrew scene. I think the scene will just get bigger. How many people would buy a psp just so they could use it as a wireless internet point (web surfing with flash a must!). Hello starbucks the airport so many places you could get on the web easily. Lap tops are big the psp is tiny with that new keyboard coming out and a USB port(HD attactchemnt with psp stand) PSP's would be selling like hot cakes for $300 CAD. The psp is like a mini laptop with ease of use and style that fits in a chicks purse or a student bag or coat posket, car consle

[Zaibach333]

if flash was that succesfull, it would have overcome everything already.

trust me, it wont. it's not even 3d

[cloudd]

you can port 3d models into flash and besides I really don't think many people understand flash well enough it is far beyond graphics and tweens which the majority of flashers think it is. The internet with out flash sucks! therefore the psp without flash sucks as an internet access point. flash is in some form on the majority of wwebpages these days. Flash will that over it is hugh. especially with flash 8 Alpha video & the new codec will make the web look very different over the next year.

[Cap'n 1time]

you can port 3d models into flash and besides I really don't think many people understand flash well enough it is far beyond graphics and tweens which the majority of flashers think it is. The internet with out flash sucks! therefore the psp without flash sucks as an internet access point. flash is in some form on the majority of wwebpages these days. Flash will that over it is hugh. especially with flash 8 Alpha video & the new codec will make the web look very different over the next year.

tis true :)

[Zaibach333]

*rolls eyes*

the system that is givin, only includes _x and _y

if you roll through a very complex trigonomic system of functions you can acheive an _z and render all of your vector objects through you own system of classes.

but so far nobody seems to want to get too involved with that.

it's as easy as 3d in javascript and dos. personally I dont think it fly because we can just make homebrew in c++ using openGL *a much, much simpler way to render 3d* graphics

by the way I'm no duchebag *cloudd, if you read any of my earlier posts on this thread* and <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flash/articles/flash_3d_5.0.html">here</a>'s a link to some 3d examples a guy made for macromedia flash 7

<embed src="http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flash/articles/flash_3d/Realtime3D.swf"><BR>:::try moving your mouse over this:::

[Zaibach333]

accomplishing that is simply unplosable at the moment so I casted it aside in the earlier post. sorry for the misinterperetation

[Cap'n 1time]

tis also true :)

[Zaibach333]

accually, I took it upon myself to remake my signature in flash after that last post.

I didnt know you could even post flash on the forums... that could lead to alot of people getting banned for stupid media in their posts. good thing it's scarsly known

I made a <a href="http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=15612">thread</a> on my experiments with my signature