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>Chapter 1. Preface</H1
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>1.1. Who Should Read This Guide?</A
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> This guide explains how to write new modules for <SPAN
CLASS="application"
>GStreamer</SPAN
>. The guide is
relevant to several groups of people:
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> Anyone who wants to add support for new ways of processing data in
<SPAN
CLASS="application"
>GStreamer</SPAN
>. For example, a person in this group might want to create
a new data format converter, a new visualization tool, or a new
decoder or encoder.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Anyone who wants to add support for new input and output devices. For
example, people in this group might want to add the ability to write
to a new video output system or read data from a digital camera or
special microphone.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Anyone who wants to extend <SPAN
CLASS="application"
>GStreamer</SPAN
> in any way. You need to have an
understanding of how the plugin system works before you can understand
the constraints that the plugin system places on the rest of the code.
Also, you might be surprised after reading this at how much can be
done with plugins.
</P
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> This guide is not relevant to you if you only want to use the existing
functionality of <SPAN
CLASS="application"
>GStreamer</SPAN
>, or if you just want to use an application
that uses <SPAN
CLASS="application"
>GStreamer</SPAN
>. If you are only interested in using existing
plugins to write a new application - and there are quite a lot of
plugins already - you might want to check the <SPAN
CLASS="emphasis"
><I
CLASS="emphasis"
>GStreamer Application Development Manual</I
></SPAN
>. If you
are just trying to get help with a <SPAN
CLASS="application"
>GStreamer</SPAN
> application, then you
should check with the user manual for that particular application.
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