[LAD] [LAA] gst123-0.1.2

[Stefan Westerfeld]

   Hi!

On Tue, Jul 06, 2010 at 02:43:11PM -0700, Niels Mayer wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 9:11 AM, Stefan Westerfeld <stefan at space.twc.de> wrote:
> > gst123-0.1.2 has been released.
> > Website:  http://space.twc.de/~stefan/gst123.php
> > Download: http://space.twc.de/~stefan/gst123/gst123-0.1.2.tar.bz2
> 
> Stefan -- very nice and useful program. Thanks for making this available!
> 
> FYI -- To compile on Fedora, I had to install the following to get
> 'configure' to stop complaining:
> 
> 1) yum install 'gstreamer-devel' (obviously)
> 2) yum install gstreamer-plugins-base-devel (less obvious as config complains:
>     No package 'gstreamer-interfaces-0.10' found // No package
> 'gstreamer-video-0.10' found )
> 3) yum install ncurses-devel

gst123 should normally point you to Debian packages if it doesn't find
something, although currently it only does this for ncurses. I am not yet sure
how to make configure.ac print out the right thing to install depending on the
distribution. But I'd accept patches that solve this.

>  Question: is there a way to disable checking for pulseaudio for each
> new file when specifying multiple media files. e.g.: "gst123 *.ogg" ?

If at all, this could be fixed in GStreamer pulseaudio support. Except for the
.gst123rc entry we already discussed.

> (2) For HD Video recorded off digital broadcasts, but not for regular
> def broadcast video, there's a problem when issuing the '->' (forward
> arrow) or '<-' (backward  arrow) commands to skip forwards or back: As
> you go forward, there's an increasingly longer delay before the audio
> syncs up and starts playing. Hit '->' a few times and the audio never
> seems to sync up, and sometimes the video stays paused on the same
> frame, even though the time display in the terminal continues
> updating.

This also sounds to me like a GStreamer bug - probably you should repost the
question on a GStreamer mailing list. gst123 is just a very thin wrapper that
uses GStreamer for actual seeking and decoding, so if there is something wrong
with some files, the most likely thing is that the corresponding GStreamer
plugins need to be fixed.

> (3) Note that if the above file is played out of a list 'gst123 *.mpg'
> then at least it gets audio playback. The same file, started
> standalone, shows video, but gives plays no audio:
> .............
> gnulem-346-~> gst123 /home/npm/Videos/1551_20100407195900.mpg
> 
> Playing file:///home/npm/Videos/1551_20100407195900.mpg
> 
> ** (gst123:12323): CRITICAL **: gst_mpeg_descriptor_find: assertion
> `desc != NULL' failed

Looks like a GStreamer issue, too.

> PS: Feature request: decode caption information from videos, and
> display in video. And/or output a timed-text, SMIL or other file
> containing the caption information and time-of-presentation
> information. This can be very useful in searching content of video
> files.

I would accept patches for this one. Currently, I don't know what needs to be
done to display anything on top of the video display.  Could be that it can be
done at Gtk level (we already have a Gtk window where we display things in),
could also be that overlaying text or other information needs to be done with
GStreamer somehow.

Personally, I'd like to have a visual indication of the stream position during
seek (and that is on the TODO), and once gst123 has the capability to draw on
top of the video display, other stuff could be added.

   Cu... Stefan
-- 
Stefan Westerfeld, Hamburg/Germany, http://space.twc.de/~stefan