From Fedora Project Wiki

m (added LIRC information)
m (glitch free audio update)
Line 63: Line 63:


If you had a previous setup with lirc, it is recommended you regenerate the configuration files with gnome-lirc-properties. This is required so that a majority of applications work with your new setup.
If you had a previous setup with lirc, it is recommended you regenerate the configuration files with gnome-lirc-properties. This is required so that a majority of applications work with your new setup.
=== Glitch Free PulseAudio ===
The PulseAudio sound server has been rewritten to use timer-based audio scheduling instead of the traditional interrupt-driven approach. This is the approach that is taken by other systems such as Apples CoreAudio and the Windows Vista audio subsystem and has a number of advantages, including reduced power consumption, minimization of drop-outs and flexible adjustment of the latency to the needs of the application.

Revision as of 19:42, 9 October 2008

Multimedia

Fedora includes applications for assorted multimedia functions, including playback, recording, and editing. Additional packages are available through the Fedora Package Collection software repository. For additional information about multimedia in Fedora, refer to the Multimedia section of the Fedora Project website at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia.

Multimedia Players

The default installation of Fedora includes Rhythmbox and Totem for media playback. Many other programs are available in the Fedora repositories, including the popular XMMS player and KDE's amaroK. Both GNOME and KDE have a selection of players that can be used with a variety of formats. Additional programs are available from third parties to handle other formats.

Totem, the default movie player for GNOME, now has the ability to switch playback back-ends without recompilation or switching packages. To install the xine back-end, run the following command as root:

yum install totem-xine

To run Totem with the xine back-end once, run the following command as root:

totem-backend -b xine totem

To change the default back-end to xine for the entire system, run the following command as root:

totem-backend -b xine

While using the xine back-end, it is possible to temporarily use the GStreamer back-end. To use the GStreamer back-end, run the following command as root:

totem-backend -b gstreamer

Ogg and Xiph.Org Foundation Formats

Fedora includes complete support for the Ogg media container format and the Vorbis audio, Theora video, Speex audio and FLAC lossless audio formats. These freely-distributable formats are not encumbered by patent or license restrictions. They provide powerful and flexible alternatives to more popular, restricted formats. The Fedora Project encourages the use of open source formats in place of restricted ones. For more information on these formats and how to use them, refer to the Xiph.Org Foundation's web site at http://www.xiph.org/.

MP3, DVD and Other Excluded Multimedia

Fedora cannot include support for MP3 or DVD video playback or recording. The MP3 formats are patented, and the patent holders have not provided the necessary licenses. DVD video formats are patented and equipped with an encryption scheme. The patent holders have not provided the necessary licenses, and the code needed to decrypt CSS-encrypted discs may violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright law of the United States. Fedora also excludes other multimedia software due to patent, copyright, or license restrictions, including Adobe's Flash Player and Real Media's Real Player. For more on this subject, please refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems.

While other MP3 options may be available for Fedora, Fluendo now offers an MP3 plugin for GStreamer that has the related patents licensed for end users. This plugin enables MP3 support in applications that use the GStreamer framework as a backend. We cannot distribute this plugin in Fedora for licensing reasons, but it offers a new solution for an old problem. For more information, refer to the Installing Fluendo MP3 Plug-in or Installing MP3 Plug-in with Codeina pages.

CD and DVD Authoring and Burning

Default installations of Fedora and the Desktop Live spin include a built-in feature for CD and DVD burning. Fedora includes a variety of other tools for easily creating and burning CDs and DVDs. Fedora includes graphical programs such as brasero, gnomebaker and k3b. Console programs including wodim, readom and genisoimage.

Screencasts

You can use Fedora to create and play back screencasts, which are recorded desktop sessions, using open technologies. Fedora includes istanbul, which creates screencasts using the Theora video format, and 'byzanz', which creates screencasts as animated GIF files. You can play back these videos using one of several players included in Fedora. This is the preferred way to submit screencasts to the Fedora Project for either developers or end-users. For more comprehensive instructions, refer to the ScreenCasting page.

Extended Support through Plugins

Most of the media players in Fedora support the use of plugins to add support for additional media formats and sound output systems. Some use powerful backends like the gstreamer package to handle media format support and sound output. Fedora offers plugin packages for these backends and for individual applications, and third parties may offer additional plugins to add even greater capabilities.

LIRC Support

gnome-lirc-properties is a new graphical frontend to LIRC that makes it easy to connect and configure Infra-Red remote controls. Multimedia applications such as rhythmbox and totem can be remotely controlled in this way. To access the graphical frontend, use the "Infrared Remote Control" item in the menus.

If you had a previous setup with lirc, it is recommended you regenerate the configuration files with gnome-lirc-properties. This is required so that a majority of applications work with your new setup.

Glitch Free PulseAudio

The PulseAudio sound server has been rewritten to use timer-based audio scheduling instead of the traditional interrupt-driven approach. This is the approach that is taken by other systems such as Apples CoreAudio and the Windows Vista audio subsystem and has a number of advantages, including reduced power consumption, minimization of drop-outs and flexible adjustment of the latency to the needs of the application.