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89 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
89 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: What is GStreamer?
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...
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# What is GStreamer?
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GStreamer is a framework for creating streaming media applications. The
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fundamental design comes from the video pipeline at Oregon Graduate
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Institute, as well as some ideas from DirectShow.
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GStreamer's development framework makes it possible to write any type of
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streaming multimedia application. The GStreamer framework is designed to
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make it easy to write applications that handle audio or video or both.
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It isn't restricted to audio and video, and can process any kind of data
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flow. The pipeline design is made to have little overhead above what the
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applied filters induce. This makes GStreamer a good framework for
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designing even high-end audio applications which put high demands on
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latency.
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One of the most obvious uses of GStreamer is using it to build a media
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player. GStreamer already includes components for building a media
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player that can support a very wide variety of formats, including MP3,
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Ogg/Vorbis, MPEG-1/2, AVI, Quicktime, mod, and more. GStreamer, however,
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is much more than just another media player. Its main advantages are
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that the pluggable components can be mixed and matched into arbitrary
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pipelines so that it's possible to write a full-fledged video or audio
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editing application.
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The framework is based on plugins that will provide the various codec
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and other functionality. The plugins can be linked and arranged in a
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pipeline. This pipeline defines the flow of the data. Pipelines can also
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be edited with a GUI editor and saved as XML so that pipeline libraries
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can be made with a minimum of effort.
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The GStreamer core function is to provide a framework for plugins, data
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flow and media type handling/negotiation. It also provides an API to
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write applications using the various plugins.
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Specifically, GStreamer provides
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- an API for multimedia applications
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- a plugin architecture
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- a pipeline architecture
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- a mechanism for media type handling/negotiation
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- a mechanism for synchronization
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- over 250 plug-ins providing more than 1000 elements
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- a set of tools
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GStreamer plug-ins could be classified into
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- protocols handling
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- sources: for audio and video (involves protocol plugins)
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- formats: parsers, formaters, muxers, demuxers, metadata, subtitles
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- codecs: coders and decoders
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- filters: converters, mixers, effects, ...
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- sinks: for audio and video (involves protocol plugins)
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GStreamer is packaged into
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- gstreamer: the core package
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- gst-plugins-base: an essential exemplary set of elements
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- gst-plugins-good: a set of good-quality plug-ins under LGPL
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- gst-plugins-ugly: a set of good-quality plug-ins that might pose
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distribution problems
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- gst-plugins-bad: a set of plug-ins that need more quality
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- gst-libav: a set of plug-ins that wrap libav for decoding and
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encoding
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- a few others packages
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