[osol-mktg] Re: [osol-discuss] Re: Audio File Support

[Brian Cameron]

Kaiwai:

Oh, another thing to consider.  Remember that Fluendo's plugins only
work with GStreamer 0.10.  Unfortunately GStreamer 0.10 is *not*
compatible with GStreamer 0.8, which is what we ship on Solaris 10.  If
there is a desire to support Fluendo's advanced plugins on Solaris 10,
then it would be necessary to backport the GStreamer 0.10 engine back to
Solaris 10.

This would be a bit of work, but not impossible, if marketing felt
it was desirable.  Or, perhaps, it makes more sense to just focus on
the future and make the next release of Solaris (or the Developer
Express releases) the place where Solaris becomes media savvy?

Brian


> The JDS multimedia team has the following FAQ which discusses the
> different media programs on Solaris and their functionality.  You
> might find this useful:
> 
> http://sceri.prc.sun.com/wiki//index.php/RealPlayer_Supportted_file_type#FAQ 
> 
> 
> Ignore the fact that the URL indicates it is RealPlayer specific.  It
> also discusses other programs, such as GStreamer and JMP (Java Media
> Player).
> 
>  From your email, it sounds like you are considering contacting Fluendo
> and making some deals with them.  If so, perhaps you and I should talk
> (or trade emails) becuase I have been the main point-person in our
> discussions with them so far.  For example, I was the person who
> arranged to provide them with a Sparc machine so that they can build
> their proprietary WMA/WMV plugins for the Sparc platform (their NDA
> agreement with Microsoft requires that only Fluendo employees can
> actually build the code).
> 
> It would probably be good to avoid covering old ground with them, so
> you should probably be aware of what has been discussed with them so
> far.
> 
> - We have had discussions with them about purchasing WMA, WMV, MPEG2,
>   and MPEG4 licenses.  They can sell the licenses per-user or a full
>   license allowing us to ship the plugins with all Solaris
>   distributions.  We have also had similar discussions with Real.
>   They also offer the same plugins for similar prices.
> 
>   These discussions have always broken down because Sun doesn't want
>   to pay the money for the full license.  The main reason seems to be
>   that only a subset of Solaris users really use media, and it doesn't
>   make sense to increase the cost of Solaris for all users when only
>   a subset benefit.  It would probably be much cheaper for Sun to buy
>   a batch of per-user licenses and provide them in the download
>   center for registered users (either for free or for a small fee -
>   much cheaper than the current price at the Fluendo store).  But this
>   option seems to never get much consideration.
> 
>   The decision of whether it makes more sense to buy Real or GStreamer
>   plugins has been a difficult one for many people to get their head
>   around.  Real seems able to offer the plugins at a slightly cheaper
>   price, but remember that MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 are used in DVD formats
>   so any future DVD solution would need access to these plugins to
>   play most common DVD's.  GStreamer seems to be in a better situation
>   to provide a DVD player, but I would imagine that we could negotiate
>   with Real to offer a DVD solution if we wanted.
> 
>   Note that RealPlayer is a playback only tool while GStreamer supports
>   playback, recording and media conversion.  So, it might make more
>   sense to support GStreamer since there is more opportunity for
>   supporting more types of media usage.
> 
> - Fluendo's MPEG2 and MPEG4 plugins don't yet work on Solaris.  This
>   is because their plugins currently use the IPP (Intel Performance
>   Primitives) library.  Talking with the mediaLib team, it would take
>   a "few months" to convert these plugins to using mediaLib or Solaris
>   native code.  Fluendo has told us that if their current WMA/WMV
>   Solaris plugins sell well enough, they will consider doing the work
>   to port the MPEG2 and MPEG4 plugins to Solaris.  If we want the
>   plugins available sooner, they suggest we help with funding (which
>   could include wanting to purchase a site license or enough per-user
>   licenses).  Note these plugins will be necessary for any DVD solution
>   to work.
> 
>   I've been working with the mediaLib team on an alternative solution.
>   They already have MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 code that works with mediaLib
>   that we can probably share with Fluendo and allow them to resell.
>   I'm currently working with the mediaLib team to see if this can
>   be worked out.  If so, we can avoid needing to wait for them to
>   port, and avoid having to fund anything.
> 
> - I think a MP3 encoding plugin would also be a big nice-to-have.
>   They currently don't offer such a solution, and Solaris doesn't allow
>   you to encode to MP3.  I don't suspect WMV encoding is something
>   that we really need to pursue right now since there aren't really
>   any good video creation tools available yet - though hopefully this
>   might change over time.  Also, is WMA encoding really something we
>   need?  Do many people really create their own WMA files?  I'd say
>   MP3 encoding is probably the one audio encoder that we are missing
>   that would be nice to have.
> 
> Not sure if this really relates to your plans, but if you are going to
> talk to Fluendo, perhaps it's good for you to be aware of what we've
> been doing with them so far?  If you want to talk further, please just
> let me know.
> 
> Brian
> 
> 
>> On 31/03/07, *Kaiwai Gardiner* <kaiwai.gardiner at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:kaiwai.gardiner at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Hi,
>>          Just having a look around; along with hardware support, I 
>> thought it
>>     would be best to help provide a 'link database' to link up customer
>>     needs to solutions that exist for Solaris.
>>          Case in point, https://shop.fluendo.com/ who sell currently 
>> support
>>     for WMA/WMV/Mp3 playback for Solaris x86/SPARC - and from what I
>>     understand, the compresssion side of the equation will be arriving
>>     soon.
>>          Not only will this help first time users in regars to helping 
>> them
>>     resolve support issues relating to multimedia, it'll also provide a
>>     good platform in which Solaris solution provides can directly
>>     contact customers and vice versa, without needing to navigate the
>>     beaucracy that is Sun - if this provides free publicitly, hopefully
>>     it'll entice more vendors to come on board and provide Solaris
>>     editions of their software.
>>          What does everyone else thing?
>>          Matt
>>
>>
>> Just a follow up to this; before I go ahead and do anything, I'm 
>> looking at communicating with Fluendo and OpenSound to see if some 
>> sort of "OpenSolaris Multimedia" package which at a reduce price for a 
>> packaged deal, which will bring OpenSolaris forward in regards to its 
>> multi-media capabilities - DVD play back, WMA/WMV decode/encode 
>> support through the gstreamer framework, and improved soundcard 
>> support via the use of OpenSound.
>>  
>> Matt
>>
>>
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