gstreamer/docs/manual/intro-preface.xml

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<chapter id="cha-intro">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>
This chapter gives you an overview of the technologies described in this
book.
</para>
<sect1 id="sec-intro-what">
<title>What is GStreamer?</title>
<para>
GStreamer is a framework for creating streaming media applications.
The fundamental design comes from the video pipeline at Oregon Graduate
Institute, as well as some ideas from DirectShow.
</para>
<para>
GStreamer's development framework makes it possible to write any
streaming multimedia application. The framework includes several
components to build a full featured media player capable of playing
MPEG1, MPEG2, AVI, MP3, WAV, AU, ...
</para>
<para>
GStreamer, however, is much more than just another media player. Its
main advantages are that the pluggable components also make it possible
to write a full fledged video or audio editing application.
</para>
<para>
The framework is based on plugins that will provide the various codec
and other functionality. The plugins can be connected and arranged in
a pipeline. This pipeline defines the flow of the data. Pipelines can
also be edited with a GUI editor and saved as XML so that pipeline
libraries can be made with a minimum of effort.
</para>
<para>
The GStreamer core function is to provide a framework for plugins, data flow
and media type handling/negotiation.
It also provides an API to write applications using the various plugins.
</para>
<para>
This book is about GStreamer from a developer's point of view; it describes
how to write a GStreamer application using the GStreamer libraries and tools.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>