Re: gnome Media Library

["Nicholas Francis" <nicholasFrancis iname com>]

> On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Nicholas Francis wrote:
>
> > > On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Nicholas Francis wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'm starting a project to unify the media framework under gnome,
with the
> > > > ultimate aim to produce a CORBA/Bonobo media system.
> > > >
> > > > I would love to get any input...
> > > >
> > > > Anyways, I've made a small site - which you can get at by going to
> > > > http://www.sixpence.dk/media
> > >
> > > I wrote GMF last summer - it's in CVS, and there's a white paper on
> > > developer.gnome.org. I have had no time to continue work on it since
then,
> > > and I'm not confident that it represents a good final solution, but
Anders
> > > was hacking on it the other day, and I'm sure efforts in that
direction
> > > would be much more productive than starting from scratch.
> > >
> >
> > I played with it when it was first released.
>
> What is in CVS is a lot farther along than what was released.

Unfortunately, I can't get my linux box on the net (its a long story)...
>
> > Am I correct in my belief that it is designed for real-time processing
> > instead of doing streaming (with buffering & threads ?)
>
> I'm not really sure what the difference is between the two - after all,
> the stream had better be playable in real-time, or you might as well
> download the whole file first. :)

There are several advantages to streaming:
* Buffering gives you a more robust system for handling connections over
networks.
* You might have applied some filters that work on every 10th frame and take
long (relatively) long to render. The buffering makes this possible.

Basically, Streaming gives some leeway, which you definately need in a
non-realtime OS.
However, real-time has it's applications as well - a full-duplex streamed
thing would be very hard to synchronize...

I would really like to have a library that can work in both modes, so you
can stream stuff if you want - or just forget about, because you know that
playing this 100x100 px. anim straight from harddisk will never be a
problem.:)

>
> Anyways, no, GMF is not just an equivalent of gAlan or other lockstep
> filter networks. It handles QoS issues etc.

QoS ?

Gotta play with this. How would it be for distributed applications ?

Nicholas