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>Chapter 2. Motivation</H1
><P
>
Linux has historically lagged behind other operating systems in the multimedia
arena. Microsoft's <SPAN
CLASS="trademark"
>Windows</SPAN
>™ and Apple's <SPAN
CLASS="trademark"
>MacOS</SPAN
>™ both have strong support
for multimedia devices, multimedia content creation,
playback, and realtime processing. Linux, on the other hand, has a poorly integrated
collection of multimedia utilities and applications available, which can hardly compete
with the professional level of software available for MS Windows and MacOS.
</P
><DIV
CLASS="sect1"
><H1
CLASS="sect1"
><A
NAME="section-motivation-problems"
>2.1. Current problems</A
></H1
><P
>
We describe the typical problems in today's media handling on Linux.
</P
><DIV
CLASS="sect2"
><H2
CLASS="sect2"
><A
NAME="section-motivation-duplicate"
>2.1.1. Multitude of duplicate code</A
></H2
><P
>
The Linux user who wishes to hear a sound file must hunt through their collection of
sound file players in order to play the tens of sound file formats in wide use today.
Most of these players basically reimplement the same code over and over again.
</P
><P
> The Linux developer who wishes to embed a video clip in their application must use
crude hacks to run an external video player. There is no library available that a
developer can use to create a custom media player.
</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="sect2"
><H2
CLASS="sect2"
><A
NAME="section-motivation-goal"
>2.1.2. 'One goal' media players/libraries</A
></H2
><P
> Your typical MPEG player was designed to play MPEG video and audio. Most of
these players have implemented a complete infrastructure focused on
achieving their only goal: playback. No provisions were made to add
filters or special effects to the video or audio data.
</P
><P
> If you want to convert an MPEG2 video stream into an AVI file, your best
option would be to take all of the MPEG2 decoding algorithms out
of the player and duplicate them into your own AVI encoder. These
algorithms cannot easily be shared accross applications.
</P
><P
> Attempts have been made to create libraries for handling various media types.
Because they focus on a very specific media type (avifile, libmpeg2, ...),
significant work is needed to integrate them due to a lack of a common API.
GStreamer allows you to wrap these libraries with a common API, which
significantly simplifies integration and reuse.
</P
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><H2
CLASS="sect2"
><A
NAME="section-motivation-plugin"
>2.1.3. Non unified plugin mechanisms</A
></H2
><P
>
Your typical media player might have a plugin for different media
types. Two media players will typically implement their own plugin
mechanism so that the codecs cannot be easily exchanged. The plugin system
of the typical media player is also very tailored to the specific needs
of the application.
</P
><P
>
The lack of a unified plugin mechanism also seriously hinders the
creation of binary only codecs. No company is willing to port their
code to all the different plugin mechanisms.
</P
><P
>
While GStreamer also uses it own plugin system it offers a very rich
framework for the plugin developper and ensures the plugin can be used
in a wide range of applications, transparently interacting with other
plugins. The framework that GStreamer provides for the plugins is
flexible enough to host even the most demanding plugins.
</P
></DIV
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><H2
CLASS="sect2"
><A
NAME="section-motivation-network"
>2.1.4. Provision for network transparency</A
></H2
><P
>
No infrastructure is present to allow network transparent media
handling. A distributed MPEG encoder will typically duplicate the
same encoder algorithms found in a non-distributed encoder.
</P
><P
>
No provisions have been made for emerging technologies such as
the <A
HREF="http://developer.gnome.org/arch/component/bonobo.html"
TARGET="_top"
>GNOME object embedding using Bonobo</A
>.
</P
><P
>
The GStreamer core does not use network transparent technologies at the
lowest level as it only adds overhead for the local case.
That said, it shouldn't be hard to create a wrapper around the
core components.
</P
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><A
NAME="section-motivation-catchup"
>2.1.5. Catch up with the <SPAN
CLASS="trademark"
>Windows</SPAN
>™ world</A
></H2
><P
>
We need solid media handling if we want to see Linux succeed on
the desktop.
</P
><P
>
We must clear the road for commercially backed codecs and multimedia
applications so that Linux can become an option for doing multimedia.
</P
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