XAnim is a Unix-based software that enables playback of audio, video and animation files in multiple formats on X11 machines. This versatile program facilitates the viewing and listening experience on Unix platforms.
XAnim is an excellent program for playing various animation, audio, and video formats on Unix X11 machines. One thing to note is that the program receives a significant amount of email messages, and the developer tries to respond to all of them. However, he tends to receive emails with invalid return addresses. So, if you reach out and do not receive a response within a week, please double-check your return address.
XAnim has X11 support, and it supports the majority of the common X11 visuals. It also supports all depths that have bpp of 1, 8, 16, and 32, while other bpp's are non-standard. The depth signifies the number of bits used to specify the color of a pixel, while bpp indicates the number of bits each pixel consumes in memory. For example, a depth 24 Visual usually has a 32 bpp that uses 24 bits to specify the color and 8 bits of padding per pixel.
The program optimizes each video decompression routine for each bpp, currently over sixty of them, which is quite laborious when someone uses a "non-standard" bpp, especially when the bpp doesn't have a correspondingly sized variable. Therefore, bpp 24 is not yet supported by the program.
Another feature of XAnim is that it supports X11 shared memory. This is useful since it speeds up the drawing of images on most X11 servers by eliminating the need for the X11 server to copy the image before writing the image to display memory. However, X11 shared memory isn't possible when using a remote display.
Regarding audio support, Unix doesn't have something similar to an audio standard or API. This means to support different platforms, separate and unique code must be written for each OS/machine combination. XAnim currently supports Linux x86 platforms, NetBSD x86 platforms, BSDI x86 platforms, FreeBSD x86 platforms, SGI workstations, DEC workstations running MMS, Sun Solaris/SunOS Sparc/68K/x86 workstations, HP workstation running HP's Aserver, HP workstation direct audio device, Sony NEWS 5000 series workstations, QNX 4.2 x86 platforms, NEC EWS workstations, IBM AIX 4.1 workstations, Any machine running AudioFile(AF), and Any machine running Net Audio Server(NAS).
The developer has plans to remodel the audio device section of XAnim such that multiple audio devices can be compiled in at once. This means that if you have a Solaris Sparc platform, you could compile in support for the native audio device and NAS at the same time. Therefore, you could use the same xanim executable depending on whether the machine you're on is running NAS or not. However, since he doesn't have access to the majority of these platforms, he won't be able to test them out before releasing, and the program might be broken left and right for a while. Nevertheless, when the time comes, he'll give plenty of warning, and the old release will be available.
XAnim has X11 support, and it supports the majority of the common X11 visuals. It also supports all depths that have bpp of 1, 8, 16, and 32, while other bpp's are non-standard. The depth signifies the number of bits used to specify the color of a pixel, while bpp indicates the number of bits each pixel consumes in memory. For example, a depth 24 Visual usually has a 32 bpp that uses 24 bits to specify the color and 8 bits of padding per pixel.
The program optimizes each video decompression routine for each bpp, currently over sixty of them, which is quite laborious when someone uses a "non-standard" bpp, especially when the bpp doesn't have a correspondingly sized variable. Therefore, bpp 24 is not yet supported by the program.
Another feature of XAnim is that it supports X11 shared memory. This is useful since it speeds up the drawing of images on most X11 servers by eliminating the need for the X11 server to copy the image before writing the image to display memory. However, X11 shared memory isn't possible when using a remote display.
Regarding audio support, Unix doesn't have something similar to an audio standard or API. This means to support different platforms, separate and unique code must be written for each OS/machine combination. XAnim currently supports Linux x86 platforms, NetBSD x86 platforms, BSDI x86 platforms, FreeBSD x86 platforms, SGI workstations, DEC workstations running MMS, Sun Solaris/SunOS Sparc/68K/x86 workstations, HP workstation running HP's Aserver, HP workstation direct audio device, Sony NEWS 5000 series workstations, QNX 4.2 x86 platforms, NEC EWS workstations, IBM AIX 4.1 workstations, Any machine running AudioFile(AF), and Any machine running Net Audio Server(NAS).
The developer has plans to remodel the audio device section of XAnim such that multiple audio devices can be compiled in at once. This means that if you have a Solaris Sparc platform, you could compile in support for the native audio device and NAS at the same time. Therefore, you could use the same xanim executable depending on whether the machine you're on is running NAS or not. However, since he doesn't have access to the majority of these platforms, he won't be able to test them out before releasing, and the program might be broken left and right for a while. Nevertheless, when the time comes, he'll give plenty of warning, and the old release will be available.
What's New
Version 2.80.1: N/A