Slax author's Blog (RSS)
03
November2012
Multimedia backend for Phonon
In KDE, all multimedia is to be handled by Phonon. Phonon is the multimedia API provided by Qt and is the standard abstraction for handling multimedia streams within KDE4. It's main purpose is to provide a stable API for KDE 4's lifetime.
Phonon itself doesn't play multimedia itself. For that task, phonon has so called backends. There is a xine backend (deprecated), mplayer backend (deprecated), vlc backend and gstreamer backend. If a KDE application requests phonon to play sound or video, phonon translates the request to its backend to do that.
Which of the phonon's backends should I use for Slax? Actually that is a bit problem at the moment since none of the backends is perfect. Xine backend has bugs in playing audio files (tried mp3 and ogg). Mplayer backend doesn't work at all. VLC backend requires VLC (which is too big so I didn't even try that). And the preferred gstreamer backend is outdated. The current version of phonon-gstreamer works perfectly with sound, but it's not possible to compile the new version with libav (ffmpeg), thus video is missing at all.
For now, I'll use gstreamer backend in Slax, to handle 100% of the audio tasks. Furthermore I'll use MPlayer (not the -phonon backend, but just the player) with smplayer GUI as a vodeo player, so user can play videos in Slax too. As soon as phonon's gstreamer backend is ready for the version of gstreamer 1.0.* then I'll update it, to make sure both video and audio goes through phonon in the future.
User comments
I have no idea on the software / technical aspect , but as far as vlc is concern , whenever I come across a video file that I can't play , I will try vlc as chances are vlc will play it.
I think that everyone was hoping it to be VLC, which is the best player out there. If you choose gsmtreamer we will need VLC as a separate module.
You could try phonon-mplayer backend using mplayer2, it works with version 20120517 available on archlinux mirror.
That will save you some MB.)
I did not know that this would be so difficult. If you do not get a good solution with phonon, should applications independent of phonon be used, like MPlayer and Audacious?
The vlc package fits only 8.1 MB. Are there many dependencies? Otherwise, this size would be acceptable.
Well I don't know where you see 8MB, I see 22MB plus deps, here:
http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/vlc/pkg64/14.0/
What is your source? Thanks
I saw many dependencies of vlc-2.0.4-i486-1sl.txz in www.slackware.org.uk/slacky/slackware-14.0/PACKAGES.TXT
Maybe that is why the vlc-2.0.4-i486-1sl.txz fits only 8.1 MB. There are many dependencies not included.
i would consider including vlc despie its size as well as other software,and optionally maintain a slax version without those extra programs.
Slax full - (salx, vlc, libreoffice, kopete, etc)
Slax thin - (core, KDE)
im surprised that libav/avconv/ffmpeg doesnt fix gstreamer compiling, did the gstreamer devs not report it to them ASAP.
so why not include avplay/ffplay thats really small and can be piped if theres not a real backend.
people will want VLC no matter what anyway, even if thats only an extra install....
given 4's all shiny and new the fact "rebol view" is about to be make open source at last that that could be a very good cross platform GUI scripting base for slax7 very soon as well, please consider that.... www rebol com /cgi-bin/blog.r?view=0513#comments
@pip:
it's not a problem of gstreamer or ffmpeg/libav guys. It's a problem of KDE's phonon-backend-gstreamer interface, which supports only the old gstreamer, ignoring version 1.0.2 yet.
In recent versions, VLC refused to be run as root. As an easy workaround, please see how to patch the binary in galinux.myftp.org
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What a pity not to select VLC as default built-in video player for Slax. I understand for the big size but VLC has made the choice of embedded self media drivers to resolve (!) dependencies.
Hope you don't have to wait so long for a gstreamer ready version. It seems to be a good multi-os and multi-plateform API on the paper.
Nonetheless, i will get VLC as a module for slax 7.....