Here at the nest, we’ve been working hard to get GStreamer to rock on Windows and Mac, so that we’ll be able to move to our next-generation GStreamer-based MediaCore in the not-too-distant future. We want to keep you up-to-date with what we’re working on, even though it’ll be a while until we get the actual code into our users’ hands.
Our latest contribution to the GStreamer universe is a new ‘video sink’ (a GStreamer element that actually renders video frames onto the screen). The new ‘dshowvideosink’ actually delegates this part of the work to DirectShow, so it can take advantage of hardware acceleration to display video.
Hardware acceleration is pretty important for high definition video - on one of our test systems, we went from only being able to show about 2-3 frames per second, to being able to display full 1080p content at 24 frames per second.
We’re pretty excited to get this work out there - as well as being important for Songbird, it’ll benefit all the other people using GStreamer on Windows as well. So, for those of you who like to read C++ code, take a look!
Now, I’m off to watch a movie using GStreamer…
6 Comments
SubscribeNICE. GStreamer is the big thing holding back most of the features that keep me from switching to Songbird from WMP. Glad to hear more about the progress made. Thanks for the update.
I’m not sure exactly what this means, but it certainly sounds good!
The video feature of iTunes is incredibly important to me, and I am desperate to have that feature in Songbird. I am switching to Linux (really tired of Mac & Windows) and am very enthusiastic about Songbird and all that it can do. However, I can’t play any of my iTunes obtained videos on it and I’m having trouble playing anything on my Linux system due to DRM.
Is there any timeline when native H.264 video playback will be up? Are there any plans to work with sites like Hulu to obtain content? The ability to take a movie or TV show from Hulu and put it on my ipod would be incredible! And, while we’re at it, is there any chance of having the ability to rip DVD content into Songbird like you can a CD? I’d rather not use a third party app and the ability to do this would be one more improvement over iTunes.
Thanks for all you guys are doing!
As freedesktop.org has taken down the webcvs, any other way to access the codebase without downloading the source?
Hi jetmac.
For the moment, our focus is on getting music playback to be 100% awesome. We certainly want to do video - there’s basic video support already there, but it’s not all that great - but getting really great video support into the app will take a while. I don’t know if we have a specific timeline for that.
I will note, though, that H.264 playback is working great for me in songbird (in the current development version, plus some patches I haven’t quite finished yet).
As for DRM: I think on linux, you’ll be out of luck. Sorry, that’s the nature of the beast - we just can’t do anything. I personally refuse to buy music/video online if it has DRM in it for this reason. DRM sucks
eternalsword: sorry, not right now. The GStreamer project will hopefully have webcvs up again (or something equivalent) soon!
M,
I agree with your priorities — take the time to get phase one done then move on to video.
I have two versions of Songbird running — one on XP another on Linux (Ubuntu). The XP version plays everything except the videos I’ve obtained from iTunes. If you are running those on your system, was there anything in particular you had to do to enable it? They were picked up and loaded into the library fine — they just won’t play. I downloaded a non-DRM .mov file of some concert footage and Songbird performed beautifully. Only the iTunes video content is not playing.
Now, on to Linux. You guys at POTI are a bunch of geniuses, surely this problem can be fixed. I suppose I can tranfer everything into mp3 and haul it over — but really, is that the answer? And what does one do with video?
I refuse to believe there are no options — something can be done, even if we don’t know what it is yet. Please don’t give up on this issue and just write it off. You guys are, truly, the vanguard for open source! Media is the last bastion of the old way of central corporate dominance and denial of consumer’s rights. Don’t give up on this issue — what you are doing is, literally, world changing.
Keep up the good work — you guys are awesome!
I don’t have any DRM files - I assume the itunes files have DRM, and that’s what’s not working.
On windows, it should be possible to make that work - via the quicktime addon. I don’t know if it works currently, but it shouldn’t be impossible.
On Linux, it’s not that we don’t know how to do it, it’s that it’s SPECIFICALLY designed to be impossible. The whole point of DRM is to prevent you (the consumer) from doing things with your files - that’s why I refuse to pay for it. Support companies that provide user-friendly (i.e. non-DRM) solutions, by buying from them instead of from apple!
- Mike