aRts documentation

[Peter.Q at gmx.net]

Hi all,

I am trying to play a little with video in KDE. As far as I found out, there
has been a big discussion about a multimedia framework for KDE a while ago
(January/April?). As for today, I find bindings for GStreamer (well
documented) which seem to work for a rudimentary set of features, but seme to have no
real user. Then there is noatun and kaboodle which are the canonical
KDE-players and use some video extension for aRts (KVideoWidget?). Unfortunately I
cannot find recent documentation for aRts (and in particular aRts::video). The
Handbook is a year old and the "news" on the webpage as well. Also the traffic
on their mailinglist is quite low. Any hints where to find recent docu other
than src? 

I am aware of some threads in kde-multimedia: "Xine or GStreamer",
"Arts::Video", and especially
 http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-multimedia&m=102509496600687&w=2
looks _very_ interesting. On the other hand I was told, that GStreamer is
buggy, not appreciated by KDE devolpers and will probably never get really
supported. Then, I see that there is an aRts sink for GStreamer. Does that work?
Is there interaction between GNOME-KDE on this? 
GStreamer looks as if it would be maturing. Are there technical issues
(other than the C/C++ problem), or is the aRts::video system superior? Or is the
hesitation of KDE in adopting more an ego problem? (Please don't get me wrong,
I know, that ego problems are serious but normal real world problems)

Is point 4. in above cited post still true, I mean "I havent seen any
progress...two years..."?

So I would like to ask some advice in which direction to go. In an optimal
case, I would like to read and also write files containing audio/video/both. I
would like to support different codecs and different file formats. I would
like to apply filters on audio and/or video streams. I would like my
application to benefit from new installed fileformats/codecs and filters without
recompilation. I don't want to bother with
avifile/ffmpeg/transcode/effectv/VirtualDub/younameit libraries. The esiest part might be to display the streams
(propperly synced audio/video of course).

Is there a "KDE-way" to do that, or even better, a "linux-way" to do that? 
Actually, beeing able to be used by GNOME-users is more a requirement than a
wish. I mean, Konsole/KMail can be used with GNOME perfectly (I actually use
them with fvwm), but if I would need some central registry, which is not
available/ configurable/ usable with GNOME, or if I would have to install every
codec twice (once for GNOME-Apps and once for KDE Apps) that would be a show
stopper.

Even if there is no easy answer to those questions, what would you guys
recommend?

Thanx a lot for any help,
Peter

PS. RTFM is welcome if a link to M is included and M is compatible with KDE
>= 3
PPS. I am not new to linux, just to GUI/multimedia on linux.


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