You can connect the different pads of elements together so that the elements form a chain.

By connecting these three elements, we have created a very simple pipeline. The effect of this will be that the output of the source element (element1) will be used as input for the filter element (element2). The filter element will do something with the data and send the result to the final sink element (element3). Imagine the above graph as a simple mpeg audio decoder. The source element is a disk source, the filter element is the mpeg decoder and the sink element is your audiocard. We will use this simple graph to construct an mpeg player later in this manual. You can connect two pads with: GstPad *srcpad, *sinkpad; srcpad = gst_element_get_pad (element1, "src"); sinpad = gst_element_get_pad (element2, "sink"); // connect them gst_pad_connect (srcpad, sinkpad); .... // and disconnect them gst_pad_disconnect (srcpad, sinkpad); A convenient shortcut for the above code is done with the gst_element_connect () function: // connect them gst_element_connect (element1, "src", element2, "sink"); .... // and disconnect them gst_element_disconnect (element1, "src", element2, "sink"); You can query if a pad is connected with GST_PAD_IS_CONNECTED (pad). To query for the GstPad this srcpad is connected to, use gst_pad_get_peer (srcpad).