[gst-devel] Representing hardware-only streaming

[Erik Walthinsen]

OK, so I've been away for a while...  I've been building up a colocation
company with Anch, and it's been eating all our time.  We're starting
beta now and production in a month, so hopefully I'll have time
available after that.  Go to pdxcolo.net for more info, though it's still
quite bare.

Meantime though I've actually turned down a job with a very well-known
company in order to get the colocation going.  They still want to hire
me when I have time, but that's a couple months off at least.

In the meantime they've asked that I make everyone aware of this
requirement, which to those who've been around for a while isn't really
a new one:

They need GStreamer to support hardware-only streaming, i.e. from
capture card to disk, and more complicated situations.  The method we'd
use for this is to create a different class of GstPad that would
represent but not actually *do* the data flow, and update the scheduler
to pay attention to a flag that indicates these kinds of pads.

The most complicated case would be a PVR with dual tuners, i.e.
something like:

                  /-> AC3dec
HDtuner -> TSdemux -> MPEGdec \
                              PIPoverlay -> video
HDtuner -> TSdemux -> MPEGdec /
                  \-> AC3dec

The goal would be to represent each piece of silicon above with an
element, and use the element states, clocking, etc., in order to control
the hardware.  The scheduler may in fact be a custom scheduler attached
to a custom bin, but it would be nice if it were possible to use the
same scheduler and bins for both the silicon and software-only cases.

So, if GStreamer can do this, this company at least is very bullish on
using it in their products, and if history is any example, there will be
other companies in the same situation.  Therefore it should be a
relatively high priority.

I can't help significantly right now, but I will make sure to follow and
comment on any discussion coming from this email.

      Erik Walthinsen <omega at temple-baptist.com> - System Administrator
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