“One and a half years. A large number of developers contributing. High expectations and a lot of pressure. The wait is over, GStreamer 0.10 has arrived. GStreamer 0.10 is a huge step forward for GNU/Linux and Unix multimedia. Power, stability, functionality, deployment, industry support, GStreamer 0.10 has it all.”
GStreamer has been a beautiful concept and a buggy, unusable media framework for so long… I sure hope this release fixes the pigginess and hanging and other problems.
Gstreamer is the backend that teh Linux Desktop needs. I’m glad to see a big release, and I hope this is the magical one that gets rid of the issues of video and audio being out of sync and the issues of bad closed codec support.
have used gstreamer on my ubuntu and nothing worked, changed to xine and vlc, it worked perfekt.
why reinventing the wheel ?
so is the audio in linux alsa , oss , esd , polypoly etc
why not only one and make it work flawlessly ?
hope it will get better
GStreamer is a multimedia framework and not a media player. why dont you RTFM first before posting?
you can call it whatever you want ! why rheinvent the wheel ? don´t care if it´s an backend or a framework !
there is working multiplatform players/backends/frameworks !
like those guys who make their own copycat distros , just stealing time from the coders/developers and users.
thats why i chose Ubuntu , i wanted a really free and usable distro (used mandrake but get confused of theis different editions with similar/bully names after every release)
remember redhat , they didnt want to have/listen to normal/home/desktop users and they now want to do it again.
remember suse , they wanted money from the beginning and know they make it free to get some users again.
long live ubuntu, the first big distro whitout RTFM sayers. thats why its so popular.
“long live ubuntu, the first big distro whitout RTFM sayers. thats why its so popular.”
bull. Ubuntu doesnt include any mp3 support by default just like Fedora. this has nothing to do with gstreamer and everything to do with software patents. Understand the difference between a multimedia framework and a simple player
like those guys who make their own copycat distros , just stealing time from the coders/developers and users…
thats why i chose Ubuntu
First off, forking a distro isn’t “stealing.” And secondly, you are aware that Ubuntu started its life as Debian, no? Are they stealing? You do prefer Ubuntu to Debian, right?
[shrug] I cannot tell if this is a troll or not.
Why reinvent the wheel? Well, I don’t know about you, but personally I found square wheels to just not work that well.
VLC is just an application and isn’t easily extendable, and xine lacks an easy plugin architecture which prevents it from being able to have certain codecs among other things.
alsa was designed as a replacement for oss because of various issues that people felt that oss had. Esd was a failed idea that gstreamer was created to fix. And gstreamer is needed along with alsa because alsa is too low level and would require too much effort for programers to build applications directly upon it.
What progress is hindered with duplication is made up by the ability for innovation. And remember, Microsoft has reinvented the wheel themselves in the Windows OS for Windows 95, NT, and Vista.
GStreamer is the DirectShow for linux.
Go take a look at gstreamer/msdn site and see what they do.
Btw. Whats the availablilty of filters on GStreamer now like? Any “killer” filters: multifile-format parser, ffdshow alike multiformat decoder etc? Need a graphedit for GStreamer to manually poke around with filters as well.
Why reinvent the wheel ?
I guarantee you’ll end up using applications relying on gstreamer to do media magic.
Naive twatter.
yup, totem/gstreamer doesn’t do much on my ubuntu 5.10 besides throw those ‘cannot play file’ errors. had to install vlc. on mepis, everything (mplayer, xine) worked great out of the box.
GST 0.10 is all about fixing those problems, simply put. I really drool at the idea of just installing dapper, apt-getting gstreamer plugins good/bad/ugly and that everything would work.
PiTiVi, among other things, benefits in huge leaps performance-wise and on the stability side too, because of gstreamer 0.10 having lots of issues fixed and components added for non-linear video editing.
And I predict/hope that totem-gstreamer will finally be viable.
I completely agree. The effect of a stable, mature gstreamer will be felt throughout the GNOME desktop (CD ripping, video capture, audio/video playback, browser plug-ins, etc). I think KDE is switching over to gstreamer as well which I think is a terrific idea. Since gstreamer is so flexible and not tied to a specific toolkit there is no need for both GNOME and KDE to duplicate effort on a multimedia framework.
Anyway, I’m really looking forward to Dapper.
Since gstreamer is so flexible and not tied to a specific toolkit there is no need for both GNOME and KDE to duplicate effort on a multimedia framework
None of the formerly used mulitmedia frameworks was tied to a toolkit either.
Same is true for other currently developed frameworks like MAS or NMM
strange i got ubuntu5.10 and totem/gstreamer works with every video, including wmv, if u take time to read the ubuntu 5.10 starter guide in system>help u will find its simply a matter of installing the non-free ‘stuff’, this version is pretty stable too, so i’m pleased a more stable gstreamer is out, although the numbering seems strage, 0.9>0.10, not 1.0
Well, I don’t think everyone is optimistic enough to say that gstreamer is ready for 1.0…
you can call it whatever you want ! why rheinvent the wheel ? don´t care if it´s an backend or a framework !
there is working multiplatform players/backends/frameworks !
Gstreamer is much more than the other “players/backends/frameworks” The others focus on video and audio. Gstreamer can work pipe video and audio as well, but it handles a lot of other things as well that these others don’t.
Gstreamer is much more than the other “players/backends/frameworks” The others focus on video and audio. Gstreamer can work pipe video and audio as well, but it handles a lot of other things as well that these others don’t
I’d be happy if it would handle *something* well, just “well” instead of lots of things “as well”.
Maybe this allow me to use the GStreamer backend again for totem instead of Xine.
Well, that’s kind of the whole point of gstreamer.
Oh, one more thing. GStreamer needs to coexist with something like ALSA or OSS. It’s a multimedia framework — it needs to run on top of a low-level audio driver.
The effect of a stable, mature gstreamer will be felt throughout the GNOME desktop
After over 5 years that would be a change, some of the Gnome developers may appreciate it. As some have a not so nice opinion of it.
I think KDE is switching over to gstreamer
It may become one of several optional backends for KDE4, as always depending on if it actually meets the requirements.
Since gstreamer is so flexible
It’s so flexible it’s still not useable as a complete sound solution for the Gnome desktop. It’s only used by the mediaplayers, but not all the sound events and stuff generated by the desktop environment. Afterall that part is still done by ESD.
http://live.gnome.org/GStreamer_2fesd
The real test will be how many of the top distros choose it as a multimedia framework. Personnaly I consider these releases as irrelevant to me, until delivered by either SUSE, Ubuntu, or PClinuxOS (my ‘pesonal non judgemental for the other distros’ shortlist)
xine/mplayer/vlc and helix from realplayer all rock.
I think you don’t understand the difference between gstreamer and a video player like mplayer and helix. Gstreamer isn’t an application that plays video and audio for you. According to the GStreamer website: GStreamer is a library that allows the construction of graphs of media-handling components, ranging from simple Ogg/Vorbis playback to complex audio (mixing) and video (non-linear editing) processing.
Applications can take advantage of advances in codec and filter technology transparently. Developers can add new codecs and filters by writing a simple plugin with a clean, generic interface.
I’m not a programmer and I only occasional play with linux so I’m not sure exactly what its flaws are, but this new version according to them is supposed to be much improved but as with all things time will tell whether or not this is true.
I hope this is the release that finally turns down the suck and turns up the good. It handles sound admirably, but video…um…hmmm. It’s a brilliant concept, but its delivery has so far been, for back of a better description, lacking. Seriously – it’s an awesome concept, but everything dealing with video through 0.8 should have remained in development. It was nowhere near ready for prime time.
I hate to be a party pooper, but the KDE developers are strongly considering implementing an entirely new Multimedia platform for KDE 4. There has been a lot of talk about this in the developer blogs and wikis. I think there’s even some mention of it on the multimedia.kde.org site.
Gstreamer is maturing and I hope it’s sucessful, becuase Linux needs a rock solid multimedia framework. I don’t really have problems viewing various multimedia files on my linux box, but every now and again, I will find myself having to switch over to windows to view a particular type of file. Now sometimes it’s just a codec problem, but sometimes it isn’t.
the KDE developers are strongly considering implementing an entirely new Multimedia platform for KDE 4.
Not entirely correct, they are implementing a backend independent multimedia solution not a new platform. Making it possible to use different backends like NMM, MAS, Xine, aRts or Gstreamer. Rather than locking it to one solution, they will make it possible to switch to the one serving the users need best. Not going the NIH route or picking someones pet project, they use their long experience with the needs of multimedia on the desktop making the best decision. They have also done real life testing and experimentation with different backends, both in Juk and amaroK.
Edited 2005-12-06 15:15
It’s a fairly ridiculous policy. A multimedia framework isn’t like spellcheck. Encapsulating it is, well, non-trivial. Now, time well tell whether the added flexibility is worth the enormous complexity, but I think it won’t be. Most people will end up using Gstreamer, if only for GNOME compatibility.
Unfortunately, the real reason they chose to wrap the multimedia framework is that people couldn’t pick one, and nobody in the KDE project has the authority to force the issue. They have nobody like Linus, to use an example, who can say “this is the way its going to be, whether anyone else likes it or not”.
A multimedia framework isn’t like spellcheck. Encapsulating it is, well, non-trivial
The encapsulation doesn’t have cover all possible use cases. The goal is to have a API for the most common use cases, to avoid ending up in another arts situation, i.e. having to use an unmaintained backend because of compatability.
Applications with more advanced needs will very likely directly work with a chosen framework
I think this is a great idea! Right now, because the state of linux media frameworks, most multimedia players have chose to support multiple backends anyways (ie. amorok, totem, kaffeine etc.) and this will save a lot of efforts at reinventing the wheel.
The way multimedia situation is now, I think adding the flexibility with wrapping the multimedia framework is the best possible solution. The different frameworks are not really good or mature enough and still evolving.
– a higher level API(Qt/KDE like) helps ease the integration of media capabilities into all kinds of programs.
Look at how Gnome still keep using ESD for lots of tasks, and the relative complexity of the Gstreamer API.
-no lock-in to one specific media framework.
Learn from history, why change look-in with aRts to another technology. Who also may become obsolete or replaced by newer and better solutions.
-independent from ABI changes in the media frameworks.
Had KDE4 been released already, this release of GStremer would have been useless for KDE until KDE5 since it breaks API/ABI. Or they have to pick another solution promising ABI compability for the whole KDE4 series.
gstreamer’s incredible instability absolutely ruined my life. after using linux exclusively for over a decade, it fried my brain and made me wonder how things got this way, when apps can only function without crashing every 10 minutes…
i hope its not too late, but the doctor will be able to see me tomorrow for my physical health problems brought on by the flood of instability with linux distributions and “stable” released software…
Looks nice
I however never experienced ANY trouble with 0.8, not on ubuntu 5.04, gentoo or arch linux.
Since 0.6 times it has worked just fine for me as long as all the required plugins has been installed. Proprietary formats if of course a problem but not gstreamers, complain to the vendors about that.