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59 lines
2.5 KiB
XML
59 lines
2.5 KiB
XML
<chapter id="cha-intro">
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<title>Introduction</title>
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<para>
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This chapter gives you an overview of the technologies described in this
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book.
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</para>
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<sect1 id="sec-intro-what">
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<title>What is GStreamer?</title>
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<para>
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GStreamer is a framework for creating streaming media applications.
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The 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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</para>
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<para>
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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
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to 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
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data flow.
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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 designing
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even high-end audio applications which put high demands on latency.
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</para>
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<para>
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One of the the most obvious uses of GStreamer is using it to build
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a media player. GStreamer already includes components for building a
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media player that can support a very wide variety of formats, including
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MP3, Ogg Vorbis, MPEG1, MPEG2, AVI, Quicktime, mod, and more. GStreamer,
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however, is much more than just another media player. Its main advantages
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are 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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</para>
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<para>
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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
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a pipeline. This pipeline defines the flow of the data. Pipelines can
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also be edited with a GUI editor and saved as XML so that pipeline
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libraries can be made with a minimum of effort.
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</para>
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<para>
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The GStreamer core function is to provide a framework for plugins, data flow
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and media type handling/negotiation.
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It also provides an API to write applications using the various plugins.
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</para>
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<para>
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This book is about GStreamer from a developer's point of view; it describes
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how to write a GStreamer application using the GStreamer libraries and tools.
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For an explanation about writing plugins, we suggest the Plugin Writers Guide.
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</para>
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</sect1>
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</chapter>
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