GStreamer as another media player core in XBMC?

The big downside with GStreamer is that it is linux specific, (no it does not work at all good on Windows I've tried to compile it and it's a complete nightmare to even make it run)

That will hinder development to new plattforms If anyone want's to, XBMC's DVDPlayer uses ffmpeg which is atleast 90% of what GStreamer uses but the big upside to DVDPlayer is that it's way easier to port to new plattforms, as it has less dependencies.

Also if we have one engine more we have alot more code to maintain (which by all means is good if anyone is willing to maintain it ).

So all in all, the upside with GStreamer might be some, the question is if it's worth the trouble. Although if anyone wants to code up something and maintain it I'm very sure we would accept and include it

I think it should be a goal of any opensource player to intentionally not provide the ability to play any DRM content.

M$ and @pple are far too busy ruining end user enjoyment of any and all media through DRM that exists only to aid in anti-competitive licensing, format lock in and the MPAA/RIAA buddy system.

As an end user wanting to watch my store bought DVD's I personally don't give a damn how illegal THEY think it is.

XBMC remembers that it's about the users experience, as it should be.

If I can't watch DRM content that's fine. I'd rather boycott it altogether until the powers that be come up with a solution to THEIR problem that doesn't cost me my $$$$ or functionality.

Just my ,02c

Cheers,

Arkay.

well said, couldnt agree more

Emulashun Wrote:I can offer a very good reason to support gstreamer:

http://www.fluendo.com/products.php?product=plugins

One thing that I think turns people away from trying Linux for HTPC, is the "scary" copyright/DRM issues that make the average person wonder whether or not they have the right to play something they legally own. M$ and @pple are what most people use, partially because they've already obtained and integrated licenses (for the most part anyway).

Again, I do not think that GStreamer is something that the current developers on Team-XBMC would have a personal interest to integrate themselves but you could maybe be able to convince Team Boxee to implement it as media player core (in Boxee) because of this feature:

Quote:Support for monolithic plugins. Allows for a plugin to encapsulate many operations such as reading a file, decoding it and sending the output to a sound card. This is particularly useful for DRM implementations.

IIRC someone at Boxee mentioned that in the long term (future) they will be looking to also supporting DRM video/audio streams if it can be done via plugins without violating the GPL. If Boxee implements it then we can backport it to XBMC, or maybe they could even add it to XBMC directly themselves.

gstreamer works on windows and mac now