Mplayer Bonoboized: lumiere (gstreamer)

["' '" <tint14 hotmail com>]

I have mixed feelings about this announcement, and I'd like to express a 
couple of opinions. First, I'd like to note that I'm not a very experienced 
developer (I'm just getting started with gtk, actually), and I don't code 
multimedia apps professionally, or anything like that. These are my 
opinions, just opinions, and I'd like to hear what the free software 
community thinks in this area.

Ever since I got started with GNU/Linux, I've noticed that it is 
consistently behind windows in terms of multimedia support. It is possible 
to play a greater variety of video and audio formats under windows and it's 
easier to write multimedia apps for that OS. Some of this, of course, is due 
to a lack of third party support: linux apps can't be expected to play the 
latest quicktime files when Apple won't release a linux native quicktime 
player, and the same thing goes for MS and windows media (not that a lot of 
GNU/Linux people I know really want to use windows media ;) ).

However, one of the things that really bothers me is that media players 
sometimes compete on core features (e.g. it plays this file format or that), 
and this sometimes forces users to have more than one media player installed 
out of necessity, rather than being able to choose a single media player 
they like while secure in the knowledge that they all have the same 
features. I attribute this, and other deficiencies in GNU/Linux multimedia 
support, to the lack of a system-wide multimedia framework. Windows has 
directshow, and any app that embeds it and calls the right functions 
instantly supports whatever media types the entire OS does. Linux does not 
have this -- yet. A few days ago I was hanging out in a linux-oriented chat 
room on IRC, chatting about this very topic, and someone introduced me to 
gstreamer.

I was absolutely floored.

There, at gstreamer.net, was an OSS project aimed at fixing exactly what was 
wrong. It wasn't a new player app to compete with xmms, xine, mplayer, 
mpg123 and all the tiny, single-function apps whose names I don't remember 
right now. It was a pure and simple lightweight multimedia framework, 
embeddable by any app (gnome or kde, despite the "g" in the name), that 
would instantly give that app the ability to play and (to some degree 
depending on code maturity) encode any popular media type. It supports avi, 
dv, mpeg, mjpeg, windows codecs, a52, alaw, cdda, icecast, mp3, ogg vorbis, 
wave, and a bunch of things I've never heard of, not to mention input and 
output plugins for esd, aRts, oss, and alsa. But having a working multimedia 
framework only halfway solves the problem.

A free, open multimedia framework is great. It lets app developers create 
new and exciting programs that use multimedia without having to implement 
everything from scratch, and it allows already written apps to integrate 
multimedia capabilities without a lot of work. However, when there are 
multiple multimedia backends (e.g. xine-libs, gstreamer, lumiere, etc...) 
instead of a single multimedia framework (e.g. directshow), the developer 
base is fractured.

This is bad for the user. When one backend is patched, only the apps that 
use that particular backend benefit. Other apps are still "broken" or 
"behind".

This is bad for the developer. If one backend adds a capability that a 
developer wants and she is using a different backend it her app, she has to 
learn, all over again, how to use a new multimedia backend if she wants that 
capability.

This is bad for third party codec developers. If there were a single, 
standard multimedia framework for linux, third party codec developers would 
only have to build one binary, and all GNU/Linux apps would instantly gain 
the ability to play that audio or video format. Regardless of how certain 
developers may feel about the ethics behind releasing a binary-only codec 
library, I think everyone can agree that an active and contributing 
commercial developer is better than one that has been "turned off" by a lack 
of standards and has decided to ignore GNU/Linux.

That is why, when I heard about lumiere, I felt the need to write this 
response. To me, a new framework for apps to play multimedia is a step 
backwards when there is already a working and rapidly progressing solution. 
Gstreamer has a chance at ubiquity. I would prefer to help it rather than 
compete with it. Again, I'm not a professional developer (yet ;) ), and I 
don't write multimedia applications (yet ;) ). This is just my opinion.

Do you feel the same way? Do you disagree?

Thank you for your time,

Eric

------------

Hello,

I just decided to release an alpha version of "lumiere", a Bonobo
control that embeds mplayer.

It can be used as a viewer for Nautilus or in its own window.

It plays but doesn't stop properly yet, there is still quite a lot of
work to do. If anybody is interested in helping...

Leech it from http://brain.shacknet.nu/lumiere.html

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