# mbebenita/Broadway

A JavaScript H.264 decoder.

Repository: https://github.com/mbebenita/Broadway
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/broadway
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2023-01-22T15:40:35+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5437, "days_push": 1319, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2813, forks 427 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:23.749110+00:00)

## What it is
Broadway.js is a JavaScript H.264 video decoder compiled from Android's native decoder with Emscripten, using WebGL for rendering and optional Web Workers for background decoding. It provides a Player and Decoder API for decoding H.264 streams in the browser.

## Use cases
- decode h264 video in the browser
- play mp4 video with javascript without plugins
- decode video in a web worker
- render yuv video frames with webgl
- javascript h264 decoder library

## When to choose
- you need to decode H.264/AVC video purely in JavaScript in the browser
- you want WebGL-accelerated frame rendering with worker-thread decoding
- you need a lightweight decoder without native plugins or WebCodecs

## When to avoid
- your bitstreams use CABAC entropy coding or weighted prediction, which are unsupported
- you need modern codecs like H.265/VP9/AV1
- you need streaming playback without downloading the whole video first
- you want an actively maintained project with recent updates

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: video-processing, graphics
- domain: web-development, media
- platform: browser
- tags: h264, decoder, emscripten, webgl, wasm, video-decoding, video, nodejs, javascript

## Member repositories
- mbebenita/Broadway (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:23.749110+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T08:13:29.989929+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mbebenita/Broadway (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:23.749110+00:00, sha bf31517d0121)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.