GStreamer
GStreamer is our multimedia framework library.
Introduction
GStreamer is a library that supports multimedia, ranging from simple audio/video playback of Ogg/Vorbis files to complex audio mixing and video processing.
- The Totem plugin uses GStreamer to play multimedia URLs in the Browse activity.
- The Record activity uses GStreamer to deal with streams from the camera and microphone.
Using gst at the command line
Expert users can run GStreamer commands in a Terminal Activity to do things like
- play audio files in the background
- stream XO video to other servers
The rest of this page is oriented towards developers using GStreamer.
Home page: http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
Getting started programming
Getting started with GStreamer with Python
Camera
- Have to script v4l2 via gstreamer to capture a single frame from the camera. See sugar/shell/intro/glive.py for sample code
- Try this from the command line: gst-launch-0.10 v4l2src ! ffmpegcolorspace ! pngenc ! filesink location=foo.png
- See also: Programming the camera
- You can simulate this hardware via a file source in gstreamer
Camera-as-video-camera (v4l2)
- Is a regular v4l2 device available via gstreamer (gst module)
- If you do not have hardware, you can simulate the camera interactively with an regular v4l2 source (many cheap web-cams provide this type of source)
- For test-driven development, you can use any gstreamer source (such as a regular file), hooking up your code to use a file source instead of a v4l2src
- Try this from a terminal in the developer console: gst-launch-0.10 v4l2src ! ximagesink (The image will appear behind the developer console window so you'll need to move the window aside. In addition, it will have strange colors, since you are displaying the YCrCb colorspace as though it is RGB data. Use gst-launch-0.10 v4l2src ! ffmpegcolorspace ! ximagesink to run slowly and get the right colors.)
- See also: Programming the camera
- You can simulate this hardware via a file source in gstreamer
GStreamer 101
Examples
v4l2src can always be replaced by videotestsrc, and alsasrc by audiotestsrc.
Beginning of a normal video pipeline:
v4l2src ! queue ! videorate ! video/x-raw-yuv,framerate=15/1 ! videoscale ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=160,height=120 ! ...
Beginning of a normal audio pipeline:
alsasrc ! audio/x-raw-int,rate=8000,channels=1,depth=8 ! ...
Video encoding:
... ! ffmpegcolorspace ! theoraenc ! ...
Audio encoding:
... ! audioconvert ! vorbisenc ! ...
Video output:
... ! ffmpegcolorspace ! videoscale ! ximagesink
Audio output:
... ! audioconvert ! alsasink sync=false
Stdout:
... ! fdsink fd=1
Encode video+audio as ogg:
v4l2src ! queue ! ffmpegcolorspace ! theoraenc ! queue ! \ oggmux name=mux alsasrc ! queue ! audioconvert ! vorbisenc ! queue ! mux. mux. ! queue ! ...
A long version of videotestsrc ! ximagesink:
videotestsrc ! theoraenc ! oggmux ! oggdemux ! theoradec ! ffmpegcolorspace ! videoscale ! ximagesink
A long version of videotestsrc ! ximagesink &; audiotestsrc ! alsasink:
videotestsrc ! ffmpegcolorspace ! theoraenc ! queue ! \
oggmux name=mux audiotestsrc ! audioconvert ! vorbisenc ! queue ! mux. mux. ! queue ! \
oggdemux name=demux ! queue ! theoradec ! ffmpegcolorspace ! \
ximagesink demux. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! alsasink
- Hangs on current fc6. MitchellNCharity 17:43, 12 June 2007 (EDT)
Live video streaming to an icecast server:
v4l2src ! ffmpegcolorspace ! videoscale ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240 ! theoraenc quality=16 ! oggmux ! shout2send ip=192.168.1.100 port=8000 password=hackme mount=olpc.ogg
Live streaming to an icecast server:
v4l2src ! queue ! ffmpegcolorspace ! theoraenc quality=16 ! queue ! oggmux name=mux alsasrc ! audio/x-raw-int,rate=8000,channels=1,depth=8 ! queue ! audioconvert ! vorbisenc ! queue ! mux. mux. ! \ queue ! shout2send ip=... port=... password=... mount=/whatever.ogg
Time lapse photography (1 frame every 30 seconds):
gst-launch v4l2src ! videorate ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=640,height=480,framerate=\(fraction\)1/30 ! ffmpegcolorspace ! jpegenc ! multipartmux ! filesink location=lapse1.mjpeg
press ctrl-c to stop
Playback:
gst-launch filesrc location=lapse1.mjpeg ! multipartdemux ! jpegdec ! autovideosink
Notes
Colorspace
The video coming raw out of v4l2src is color formatted YUYV. That is, there are 4 bytes per 2 pixels. The first 8 bit Y represents the luma (brightness) of the first pixel, the second 8 bit Y is the brightness of the second, the 8 bit U is the blue chrominance of both pixels, and the 8 bit V is the red chrominance of both.
video size, framerate, and theoraenc quality
audio encoding
glive.py used wav rather than vorbis. Why?
Elements
Adapters:
- tee
- queue
- videoscale Convert video size.
- videorate Convert video rate.
- ffmpegcolorspace Convert video colorspace.
- audioconvert Convert audio format.
Video characteristics:
Audio characteristics:
File I/O:
Video sources:
- videotestsrc
v4l2srcbroken
Audio sources:
Coding video:
Coding audio:
Wrapping:
oggmuxbroken (MitchellNCharity 11:44, 13 June 2007 (EDT))- oggdemux
Outputing video:
Outputting audio:
Not sure about:
Sending ogg to an icecast streaming server:
... ! shout2send ip=... port=... password=... mount=/whatever.ogg gst-launch ... ! fdsink | oggfwd host port password mount
- Regretabbly, it appears fc6, and thus olpc, does not include shout2send in gst-plugins-good-plugins. Nor does it have rpms for oggfwd, or other possible alternatives. You can grab a random binary of oggfwd from it's site, or compile shout2send from source. :( MitchellNCharity 17:43, 12 June 2007 (EDT)
- Correction, shout2send is on the olpc. oggfwd is not. --Damonkohler 23:14, 13 September 2007 (EDT)
Doing live streaming video from an xo
Method1
xo sending video:
gst-launch v4l2src ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240,framerate=\(fraction\)5/1 ! ffmpegcolorspace ! jpegenc ! multipartmux ! tcpserversink host=192.168.2.1 port=5000
xo recieving video:
gst-launch tcpclientsrc host=192.168.2.2 port=5001 ! multipartdemux ! jpegdec ! autovideosink
Method2
xo sending video:
gst-launch v4l2src ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240,framerate=\(fraction\)2/1 ! ffmpegcolorspace ! smokeenc keyframe=8 qmax=40 ! udpsink host=192.168.1.1 port=5000
xo receiving video:
gst-launch udpsrc port=5000 ! smokedec ! autovideosink
Method3 Video+Audio
Sending XO:
gst-launch v4l2src ! queue ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240,framerate=\(fraction\)4/1 ! videorate ! videoscale ! ffmpegcolorspace ! queue ! smokeenc ! queue ! udpsink host=192.168.2.129 port=5000 alsasrc ! queue ! audio/x-raw-int,rate=8000,channels=1,depth=8 ! audioconvert ! speexenc ! queue ! tcpserversink host=192.168.2.129 port=5001
Receiving XO:
gst-launch-0.10 udpsrc port=5000 ! queue ! smokedec ! queue ! autovideosink tcpclientsrc host=192.168.2.129 port=5001 ! queue ! speexdec ! queue ! alsasink sync=false
Section TODO
- Fill in blank sections.
- Include snapshot recipes.
- Discuss python interfacing.
See also
- Programming the camera
- Video
- Sound
- Display
- Compiling_GStreamer_On_The_XO for cutting-edge GStreamer development
- http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
- http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/
- Getting started with GStreamer with Python
- Software components ; Sugar Architecture/API#Third_Party_Packages
Other resources
- http://www.mediamods.com/public-svn/camera-activity/Record.activity/glive.py
- https://coderanger.net/svn/projects/olpc/games/olpcgames/camera.py (said to not really be working (trouble knowing when gs is done) MitchellNCharity 18:24, 12 June 2007 (EDT))
- Where is the camera code in sugar? MitchellNCharity 18:16, 12 June 2007 (EDT)
- gstreamer-plugins
- gstreamer-plugins-plugin-coreelements
- gst-plugins-base-plugins
- gst-plugins-good-plugins
- google search "site:gstreamer.freedesktop.org"
- http://xiph.org/ Ogg/Theora/Vorbis
Newer package
Some new rpm's that may fix gstreamer codec and playback issues : http://people.collabora.co.uk/~daf/olpc-gst/