mirror of
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer.git
synced 2024-12-29 03:30:35 +00:00
87 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
87 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
title: What is GStreamer?
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
# What is GStreamer?
|
|
|
|
GStreamer is a framework for creating streaming media applications. The
|
|
fundamental design comes from the video pipeline at Oregon Graduate
|
|
Institute, as well as some ideas from DirectShow.
|
|
|
|
GStreamer's development framework makes it possible to write any type of
|
|
streaming multimedia application. The GStreamer framework is designed to
|
|
make it easy to write applications that handle audio or video or both.
|
|
It isn't restricted to audio and video, and can process any kind of data
|
|
flow. The pipeline design is made to have little overhead above what the
|
|
applied filters induce. This makes GStreamer a good framework for
|
|
designing even high-end audio applications which put high demands on
|
|
latency.
|
|
|
|
One of the most obvious uses of GStreamer is using it to build a media
|
|
player. GStreamer already includes components for building a media
|
|
player that can support a very wide variety of formats, including MP3,
|
|
Ogg/Vorbis, MPEG-1/2, AVI, Quicktime, mod, and more. GStreamer, however,
|
|
is much more than just another media player. Its main advantages are
|
|
that the pluggable components can be mixed and matched into arbitrary
|
|
pipelines so that it's possible to write a full-fledged video or audio
|
|
editing application.
|
|
|
|
The framework is based on plugins that will provide the various codec
|
|
and other functionality. The plugins can be linked and arranged in a
|
|
pipeline. This pipeline defines the flow of the data. Pipelines can also
|
|
be edited with a GUI editor and saved as XML so that pipeline libraries
|
|
can be made with a minimum of effort.
|
|
|
|
The GStreamer core function is to provide a framework for plugins, data
|
|
flow and media type handling/negotiation. It also provides an API to
|
|
write applications using the various plugins.
|
|
|
|
Specifically, GStreamer provides
|
|
|
|
- an API for multimedia applications
|
|
|
|
- a plugin architecture
|
|
|
|
- a pipeline architecture
|
|
|
|
- a mechanism for media type handling/negotiation
|
|
|
|
- a mechanism for synchronization
|
|
|
|
- over 250 plug-ins providing more than 1000 elements
|
|
|
|
- a set of tools
|
|
|
|
GStreamer plug-ins could be classified into
|
|
|
|
- protocols handling
|
|
|
|
- sources: for audio and video (involves protocol plugins)
|
|
|
|
- formats: parsers, formaters, muxers, demuxers, metadata, subtitles
|
|
|
|
- codecs: coders and decoders
|
|
|
|
- filters: converters, mixers, effects, ...
|
|
|
|
- sinks: for audio and video (involves protocol plugins)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GStreamer is packaged into
|
|
|
|
- gstreamer: the core package
|
|
|
|
- gst-plugins-base: an essential exemplary set of elements
|
|
|
|
- gst-plugins-good: a set of good-quality plug-ins under LGPL
|
|
|
|
- gst-plugins-ugly: a set of good-quality plug-ins that might pose
|
|
distribution problems
|
|
|
|
- gst-plugins-bad: a set of plug-ins that need more quality
|
|
|
|
- gst-libav: a set of plug-ins that wrap libav for decoding and
|
|
encoding
|
|
|
|
- a few others packages
|