goal of kde-multimedia ?

[Alexander Neundorf]

Hi,

maybe to make things a bit clearer, what is actually the goal of 
kde-multimedia ?

In kde-multimedia are:

section 1: tightly arts related sound stuff:
arts/
audiofile-artsplugin/
kaboodle/
noatun/
mpeglib-artsplugin/
xine-artsplgin/
mpg123-artsplugin/
oggvorbis-artsplugin/

section 2: not-so arts-related things:

kaudiocreator/
kfile-plugins/
audiocd-ioslave/
kmid/ (or is it arts-related ?)
kmix/
kscd/
libkcddb/

Section 3: non-standard funcionality, depending on arts:
juk/
krec/

Section 4: codec libs:
mpg123/
mpeglib/

So what is actually the goal of kdemultimedia ?
Section 1 basically does nothing else than implement an audio player (with 
highly advanced capabilities) and a multimedia API.

Section 2 AFAICS works completely without arts. They don't output any sampled 
sounds.

Section 3, these are applications which add real value.

Section 4, maintaining an own copy of codec libs isn't a good idea IMO.

But, be honest, are there any wide-spread KDE-based multimedia applications 
out there ?
For sound people use xmms, for video mplayer (or xine). There are several kde 
frontends for mplayer.

IMO what we need is the ability for any app to say "play this sound file", 
usually notifications. This is done by knotify. One simple method: "play this 
file" This doesn't have to offer many features. Playing some standard file 
types and output to OSS/ALSA/MAS and other important "sound servers". This 
one shouldn't depend on much non-KDE stuff (except the basic coded libs for a 
fixed set of sound formats). This should probably provide additionally a more 
or less easy to use library with slightly lower level functions: start/stop/
pause/seek/ for the same set of file formats. No effects, no channel mixing, 
no synchronizing functions, nothing fancy.

Now for "real" multimedia applications: IMO the best way to get some good 
apps/kparts is to work with the established projects. 
This means: working together with mplayer and xine, videolan, etc. , and 
adding the kde-required stuff directly *there*. 

What other multimedia apps do we need ?

So, what is the actual goal ode kde-multimedia ? Do we want to implement our 
own versions of mplayer, xine, xmms, videolan with our own super-integrated 
system or do we simply want to get some nice kde-integrated multimedia apps 
out to the people ?

Bye
Alex

PS.: Discussions about the bad code of mplayer are pointless, it works great, 
is fast, many developers, widespread usage and the code *is* understandable 
(I wrote some patches, it is possible). It's not that nice, but you can find 
your way through it.

PPS: /me ducks.. even good old xmms can be used as a backend via libxmms, 
works perfectly, plays all files, offers all functions, is rock-stable, and 
with some patches the xmms-window can be hidden so you never see it...
-- 
Work: alexander.neundorf at jenoptik.com - http://www.jenoptik-los.de
Home: neundorf at kde.org                - http://www.kde.org
      alex at neundorf.net               - http://www.neundorf.net