gstreamer/markdown/frequently-asked-questions/using.md

Using GStreamer

Ok, I've installed GStreamer. What can I do next ?

First of all, verify that you have a working installation and that you can inspect plugins by typing

$ gst-inspect-1.0 fakesrc

This should print out a bunch of information about this particular element. If this tells you that there is "no such element or plugin", you haven't installed GStreamer correctly. Please check how to get GStreamer If this fails with any other message, we would appreciate a bug report.

It's time to try out a few things. Start with gst-launch and two plug-ins that you really should have : fakesrc and fakesink. They do nothing except pass empty buffers. Type this at the command-line :

$ gst-launch-1.0 -v fakesrc silent=false num-buffers=3 ! fakesink silent=false

This will print out output that looks similar to this :

RUNNING pipeline ...
fakesrc0: last-message = "get      ******* (fakesrc0:src)gt; (0 bytes, 0) 0x8057510"
fakesink0: last-message = "chain   ******* (fakesink0:sink)lt; (0 bytes, 0) 0x8057510"
fakesrc0: last-message = "get      ******* (fakesrc0:src)gt; (0 bytes, 1) 0x8057510"
fakesink0: last-message = "chain   ******* (fakesink0:sink)lt; (0 bytes, 1) 0x8057510"
fakesrc0: last-message = "get      ******* (fakesrc0:src)gt; (0 bytes, 2) 0x8057510"
fakesink0: last-message = "chain   ******* (fakesink0:sink)lt; (0 bytes, 2) 0x8057510"
execution ended after 5 iterations (sum 301479000 ns, average 60295800 ns, min 3000 ns, max 105482000 ns)

(Some parts of output have been removed for clarity) If it looks similar, then GStreamer itself is running correctly.

To get a test video displayed, try:

$ gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! videoconvert ! autovideosink

If autovideosink doesn't work, try an element that's specific for your operating system and windowing system, such as ximagesink or glimagesink or (on windows) d3dvideosink.

Can my system play sound through GStreamer ?

You can test this by trying to play a sine tone. For this, you need to link the audiotestsrc element to an output element that matches your hardware. A (non-complete) list of output plug-ins for audio is

• pulsesink for Pulseaudio output

• alsasink for ALSA output

• osssink and oss4sink for OSS/OSSv4 output

• jackaudiosink for JACK output

• autoaudiosink for automatic audio output selection

First of all, run gst-inspect-1.0 on the output plug-in you want to use to make sure you have it installed. For example, if you use Pulseaudio, run

$ gst-inspect-1.0 pulsesink

and see if that prints out a bunch of properties for the plug-in.

Then try to play the sine tone by running

$ gst-launch-1.0 audiotestsrc ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! pulsesink

and see if you hear something. Make sure your volume is turned up, but also make sure it is not too loud and you are not wearing your headphones.

How can I see what GStreamer plugins I have on my system ?

To do this you use the gst-inspect command-line tool, which comes standard with GStreamer. Invoked without any arguments,

$ gst-inspect-1.0

will print out a listing of installed plugins. To learn more about a particular plugin, pass its name on the command line. For example,

$ gst-inspect-1.0 volume

will give you information about the volume plugin.

Where should I report bugs ?

Bugs are tracked in GNOME's Bugzilla at http://bugzilla.gnome.org, under the product GStreamer. Using bugzilla you can view past bug history, report new bugs, submit patches etc. Bugzilla requires you to create an account there, which might seem cumbersome, but allows us to at least have a chance at contacting you for further information, as we will often have to do.

How should I report bugs ?

When doing a bug report, you should at least describe

• your distribution, distribution version and GStreamer version

• how you installed GStreamer (from git, source, packages, which ?)

• if you installed GStreamer before

If the application you are having problems with is segfaulting, then provide us with the necessary gdb output. See ???

How do I use the GStreamer command line interface ?

You access the GStreamer command line interface using the command gst-launch-1.0. To play a file you could just use

gst-play-1.0 song.mp3

or

gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file:///path/to/song.mp3

To decode an mp3 audio file and play it through Pulseaudio, you could also use

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=thesong.mp3 ! decodebin ! audioconvert ! pulsesink

or

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=thesong.mp3 ! mpegaudioparse ! mpg123audiodec ! audioconvert ! pulsesink

. More examples can be found in the gst-launch man page.

To automatically detect the right codec in a pipeline, try

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=my-random-media-file.mpeg ! decodebin !
 pulsesink

. or

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=my-random-media-file.mpeg ! decodebin !
 videoconvert ! xvimagesink

Something more complicated:

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=my-random-media-file.mpeg ! decodebin name=decoder
   decoder. ! queue ! videoconvert ! xvimagesink
   decoder. ! queue ! audioconvert ! pulsesink

We also have a basic media playing plugin that will take care of most things for you. This plugin is called playbin. Try this:

gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file:///home/joe/my-random-media-file.mpeg

This should play the file if the format is supported, ie. you have all the necessary demuxing and decoding and some output plugins installed.