GStreamer 1.2 Feature Release Is Now Available

[Teho]

Why is there three ways to do the same(?) thing? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of an abstraction layer? To be clear, I am curious, not trolling.

Well only Phonon and Qt Multimedia are compareable as Qt Gstreamer is just a wrapper libary and the other two do a lot more. I don't know much about the history behind Phonon and Qt Multimedia so I won't go there. Phonon is probably bit more flexible than Qt Multimedia in sense that it support multiple backends on multiple platforms and Qt Multimedia only support GStreamer on Linux, whether such flexibility is needed is another question.

[DanL]

Why is there three ways to do the same(?) thing? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of an abstraction layer? To be clear, I am curious, not trolling.

It has nothing to with gstreamer1.2. Don't let the troll derail the thread and make it about gnome vs. KDE...

[kigurai]

The thing is that if you want to easily integrate GStreamer with Qt you need something in between. There's currently at least three ways to integrate GStreamer with Qt, the first one was Phonon, then came the Qt Multimedia libary and there's also Qt Gstreamer.

Why is there three ways to do the same(?) thing? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of an abstraction layer? To be clear, I am curious, not trolling.

[Teho]

Gstreamer is a multiplatform multimedia backend amd there's no need for yet another abstraction layer ( which by the way won't use all the features that the backed Ali offers)

GStreamer being as portable as it's is relatively new feature (in comparison to the age of Phonon anyway). The thing is that if you want to easily integrate GStreamer with Qt you need something in between. There's currently at least three ways to integrate GStreamer with Qt, the first one was Phonon, then came the Qt Multimedia libary and there's also Qt Gstreamer.

Phonon is just a c++ abstraction layer on top of gstreamer.

Well it's quite a bit more than that considering that it support other backends too and has features like:

Centralized configuration of audio and video: Configuration of hardware and media frameworks are offered in a single, centralized dialog.
Purpose driven design: Instead of demanding that you select special audio outputs for applications, Phonon applications describe what kind of sound output they make and lets you select for these categories individually.
Automated device selection: Pluggable audio and video devices like USB or Bluetooth headsets become easy to use with Phonon. Phonon acts on information and signals from Solid, which is KDE's hardware subsystem, and automatically makes use of new devices.

-Source

Phonon has a gstreamer backend and afaik it is the default backend...

It has been the recommended backend for Phonon on Linux for years. The VLC at least used to be recommended on Windows and all other backends have been deprecated to my knowledge.

[bwat47]

Usable since 2005, used by Gnome since 2006, still not accepted by KDE in 2013. Their loss, I wonder how many KDE developers are gonna waste their time on phonon and useless backends

Phonon has a gstreamer backend and afaik it is the default backend...

[smitty3268]

Gstreamer is a multiplatform multimedia backend amd there's no need for yet another abstraction layer ( which by the way won't use all the features that the backed Ali offers)

Again, gstreamer = c, kde = c++.

[newwen]

Ummm... Honton, you don't even SUCCESSFULLY troll this time. Phone is just an abstraction layer so that if OTHER people want to use Xine or VLC (or want to use KDE on Windows/Mac) they can.. The default choice, the recommended choice, and the only sane choice IS Gstreamer. KDE just gets the advantage in that if something OTHER than Gstreamer comes along and its better, its relatively clean to add it to Phonon (new backend) whereas the Gnome guys are looking at a complete re-write to be able to use it.

Gstreamer is a multiplatform multimedia backend amd there's no need for yet another abstraction layer ( which by the way won't use all the features that the backed Ali offers)

[smitty3268]

Usable since 2005, used by Gnome since 2006, still not accepted by KDE in 2013. Their loss, I wonder how many KDE developers are gonna waste their time on phonon and useless backends

Huh? Phonon is just a c++ abstraction layer on top of gstreamer. Do you really expect a bunch of C++ devs not to use a C++ wrapper around a C library they are using?

[wargames]

I hope it is backwards compatible with 1.0 since I hate having different versions of the same thing...

[Ericg]

Usable since 2005, used by Gnome since 2006, still not accepted by KDE in 2013. Their loss, I wonder how many KDE developers are gonna waste their time on phonon and useless backends

Ummm... Honton, you don't even SUCCESSFULLY troll this time. Phone is just an abstraction layer so that if OTHER people want to use Xine or VLC (or want to use KDE on Windows/Mac) they can.. The default choice, the recommended choice, and the only sane choice IS Gstreamer. KDE just gets the advantage in that if something OTHER than Gstreamer comes along and its better, its relatively clean to add it to Phonon (new backend) whereas the Gnome guys are looking at a complete re-write to be able to use it.