VideoPlaybackRoadmap

Revision 14 as of 2005-04-28 05:02:05

Clear message

VideoPlayback

Status

Introduction

Video playback in Ubuntu is currently somewhat clunky. We should provide the best available video playback experience by default. In order to make the right decisions, we need to survey the available solutions, evaluate them against our requirements and use cases, and decide on a strategy for BreezyBadger.

This topic is NOT related to support for particular codecs, but to the general infrastructure needed to support all kinds of video playback.

Rationale

Video is a killer app we need to support to maximize our appeal.

Scope and Use Cases

  • Good Audio/Visual (AV) sync is essential
  • Must integrate cleanly with the desktop
    • User interface
    • Audio device sharing

Options:

  • gstreamer
    • Bad AV sync
    • best long time
    • DLL loader
    • Firefox integration
  • xine
    • not much covery
    • need to split the codecs (should not be too hard)
    • DLL loader
    • player only
    • just works
    • Firefox integration
  • VLC
    • similar to xine
    • generally works
    • Firefox integration
  • helix
    • hicky
  • mplayer
    • hostile upstream
    • application, not platform
    • not easy to split the codes

Codecs:

  • Good:
    • dirac
    • flac
    • MPEG1
    • speex
    • theora
    • vorbis
  • Evil
    • AAC
    • MPEG 2/4
    • realaudio
    • WMV
  • Evilish
    • MP3

Methods:

  • ffmpeg
  • DLL loader
  • fluendo (easy licence)

We can have different version of xine for main and universe

Implementation Plan

  • SebastienBacher tracks gstreamer 0.9 for breezy

  • DanielStone works on splitting the codecs for xine

  • we pick the better one for breezy

Data Preservation and Migration

Packages Affected

User Interface Requirements

Outstanding Issues

  • how far can we go in suggesting ? (marillat, mplayerhq, DLL downloader)

UDU BOF Agenda

  • gstreamer vs. xine vs. ???

UDU Pre-Work