Aiming to improve Linux multimedia development using its processors, Texas Instruments (TI) has released a version of the open source GStreamer media plugin for its OMAP35x and DaVinci system-on-chips (SoCs). The Linux-based GStreamer library supports development of audio and video playback, audio and video synchronization, and recording capabilities, says TI.

The LGPL-licensed GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in C that offers a library for constructing graphs of media-handling components. The plugin helps optimize systems to exploit hardware codec accelerators, as well as the digital signal processors (DSP) that are incorporated in DaVinci processors, says TI.

By getting the most out of specialized accelerators for processing-intensive tasks, such as video and audio decoding/encoding, Gstreamer relieves the load on the ARM cores built into both the ARM Cortex-A8-based OMAP35x and DaVinci SoCs, says TI. The plugin also helps improve web browsing and video streaming performance in media players, video editors, and capture encoders, says TI.

TI's version of GSreamer is also said to be optimized for the chipmaker's digital video software development kits (DVSDK) and codec engine. As a result, the same plugin code can be re-used across TI's OMAP35x SoCs, as well as its DSP-equipped DaVinci-architecture processors (TMS320DM355, TMS320DM644x, and TMS320DM6467), which are typically used in video-intensive devices such as IP cameras.

Nokia N810 Internet Tablet

GStreamer has increasingly been adopted by mobile Linux stacks and frameworks including Gnome Mobile, which is part of the new Moblin v2 platform, Nokia's Qt framework, and the Nokia-backed Maemo distribution. The latter is is being tailored to support OMAP35xx SoCs that are expected to drive Nokia's next-generation versions of the N8xx Internet Tablets.

GStreamer plugin features and benefits are said to include:

• Extensible, industry-standard, and open source, enabling developers to incorporate their own modules or interfaces with hundreds of community plugins, including muxers, demuxers, codecs, and filters
• Pipeline engine, enabling developers to create custom workflows without needing to write a new application for each use-case
• Leverages TI's eXpressDSP Digital Media xDM-based elements for plug-and-play codecs, eliminating need for custom code per codec
• Open source portal for collaborative development with GStreamer community

Availability

Free downloads and more information about the TI GStreamer Plugin project may be found here. TI partner RidgeRun is said to be available for contract support on the TI GStreamer implementation.

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