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99 lines
4.2 KiB
Text
99 lines
4.2 KiB
Text
<chapter id="cha-motivation">
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<title>Motivation</title>
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<para>
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Linux has historically lagged behind other operating systems in the multimedia
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arena. Microsoft's Windows[tm] and Apple's MacOS[tm] both have strong support
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for multimedia devices, multimedia content creation,
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playback, and realtime processing. Linux, on the other hand, has a poorly integrated
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collection of multimedia utilities and applications available, which can hardly compete
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with the professional level of software available for MS Windows and MacOS.
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</para>
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<sect1 id="sec-motivation-problems">
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<title>Current problems</title>
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<para>
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We descibe the typical problems in todays media handling on Linux.
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</para>
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<sect2 id="sec-motivation-duplicate">
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<title>Multitude of duplicate code</title>
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<para>
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The Linux user who wishes to hear a sound file must hunt through their collection of
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sound file players in order to play the tens of sound file formats in wide use today.
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Most of these players basically reimplement the same code over and over again.
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</para>
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<para>
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The Linux developer who wishes to embed a video clip in their application must use
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crude hacks to run an external video player. There is no library available that a
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developer can use to create a custom media player.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="sec-motivation-goal">
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<title>'One goal' media players/libraries</title>
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<para>
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Your typical MPEG player was designed to play MPEG video and audio. Most of
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these players have implemented a complete infrastructure focused on
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achieving their only goal: playback. No provisions were made to add
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filters or special effects to the video or audio data.
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</para>
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<para>
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If I wanted to convert an MPEG2 video stream into an AVI file, my best
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option would be to take all of the MPEG2 decoding algorithms out
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of the player and duplicate them into my own AVI encoder. These
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algorithms cannot easily be shared accross applications.
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</para>
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<para>
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Attempts have been made to create libraries for handling various media types.
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Because they focus on a very specific media type (avifile, libmpeg2, ...),
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significant work is needed to integrate them due to a lack of a common API.
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GStreamer allows you to wrap these libraries with a common API, which
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significantly simplifies integration and reuse.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="sec-motivation-plugin">
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<title>Non unified plugin mechanisms</title>
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<para>
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Your typical media player might have a plugin for different media
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types. Two media players will typically implement their own plugin
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mechanism so that the codecs cannot be easily exchanged.
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</para>
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<para>
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The lack of a unified plugin mechanism also seriously hinders the
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creation of binary only codecs. No company is willing to port their
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code to all the different plugin mechanisms.
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</para>
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<para>
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While GStreamer also uses it own plugin system it offers a very rich
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framework for the plugin developper and ensures the plugin can be used
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in a wide range of applications, transparently interacting with other
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plugins.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="sec-motivation-network">
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<title>Provision for network transparency</title>
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<para>
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No infrastructure is present to allow network transparent media
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handling. A distributed MPEG encoder will typically duplicate the
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same encoder algorithms found in a non-distributed encoder.
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</para>
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<para>
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No provisions have been made for emerging technologies such as
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the GNOME object embedding using BONOBO.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="sec-motivation-catchup">
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<title>Catch up with the Windows(tm) world</title>
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<para>
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We need solid media handling if we want to see Linux succeed on
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the desktop.
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</para>
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<para>
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We must clear the road for commercially backed codecs and multimedia
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applications so that Linux can become an option for doing multimedia.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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</chapter>
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