xine 1.2.2

Overview
                 
          xine by xine Development Team is a free, GPL-licensed video player for unix-like systems. The software
          is based on a modular, advanced multi-threaded architecture composed of:
     
                 
                      xine 1.2.2-engine

          The core of xine [xine1.2.2.exe] is responsible for synchronizing audio, video and overlays.
          It provides high performance comunication functionality between modules, logging
          capability, unified configuration system, On Screen Display support, fast
          MMX/MMXEXT/SSE memory transfers, among other important things.
                      input plugins

          They provide input data to xine - 7.2MB and may be seen as an abstraction layer for
          DVDs, files, http, pipes, VCDs so that the rest of xine 1.2.2 does not need to know
          from where the data is coming. Several input plugins for xine are already
          available over the internet from third party programmers.
                      demuxer plugins

          These plugins are responsible for understanding file formats like AVI, MOV,
          ASF and others. These file formats don`t define how video and audio are encoded
          but how the encoded data is mixed together (multiplexed). An AVI file, for
          example, may have DivX4 video and MP3 audio, MPEG2 video and AC3 audio, etc.
                      decoder plugins

          These plugins receive the encoded data (video, audio or subtitles) and deliver
          them uncompressed to the engine to be played or shown. Examples of encoding
          formats (also called " codecs" ) are MPEG2, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Windows Media
          Video 7/8/9.
                      output plugins

          xine runs on a wide variety of hardware and operating systems therefore it
          need to have different means of displaying video and audio. These plugins
          are like drivers, they talk directly to the system so xine-engine does not
          need to handle the details. Some video output plugins have been developed
          to utilize several hardware capabilities like color conversion, scaling and
          refresh sync to provide the best multimedia experience and at the same time,
          requiring less CPU processing.
                      post effect plugins

          These can be use to apply arbitrary effects to video and audio before
          they are sent to output. Examples include visual plugins like GOOM
          (generates colorful images from the music being played), audio filters
          like echo, equalizer or even a video picture-in-picture plugin playing
          more than one stream at the same time.
                 
                 
          Advantages of this design:
     
                 
                      xine is fast

          All included decoders are optimized to use MMX, MMXEXT, SSE and 3DNow! acceleration
          if available. The well designed architecture moves data efficiently across
          plugins without requiring extra memory copies to be made. Multi-threaded implementation
          provide big gains on SMP systems.
                      xine is extensible

          Plugins are probed on startup and new ones may be installed from third party
          (although the most important are already provided).
                      xine is reusable

          All described features are available from a library and may be called from
          other applications.
          A default X11 GUI (xine-ui)
          is available but any other frontend can use the xine-lib too. There are
          several of them already available:
          GTK+ 2 (gxine; sinek, GQoob),
          Gnome 2 (Totem),
          scriptable console (toxine),
          KDE (kxine),
          KDE multimedia (xine aRts plugin)
          and even a Netscape/Mozilla plugin. (Some frontends may be at beta
          stage. )
                 
                  General features
                 
                        Skinnable GUI
                        Download and installation of new skins from the internet
                        Navigation controls (seeking, pause, fast, slow, next chapter, etc)
                        Linux InfraRed Control support (LIRC)
                        On Screen Display features
                        DVD and external subtitles
                        DVD/VCD menus
                        Audio and subtitle channel selection
                        Closed Caption support
                        Brightness, contrast, audio volume, hue, saturation adjusting (requires hardware/driver support)
                        Playlists
                        Mediamarks
                        Image snapshot
                        Audio resampling
                        Software deinterlacing algorithms
                        2-3 pulldown detection (tvtime plugin)
                        Configuration dialog
                        Aspect ratio changing
                        Fullscreen display
                        DTS passthrough
                        TV fullscreen support using nvtvd
                        Streaming playback support
                 
                    Supported file formats
                 
                      This list is not guaranteed to be complete.
                 
                 
                     
                     
                         
                             
                                 
                                        File formats (System layer / media types)

            supported:
              direct DVD playback (of unlocked/unencrypted DVDs, see below)
                  Video CD  Audio CD  mpeg program streams (. mpg, . mpeg)  mpeg transport streams (. ts)  ogg (. ogg, . ogm)  avi (. avi)  asf (. asf, . wmv, . wma)  quicktime (. mov, . mp4)  mpeg-video (. mpv, . m2v)  mpeg-audio (. mp2, . mp3)  Sega Saturn FILM (. cpk)  Id Software RoQ (. roq)  wav (. wav)  Autodesk FLIC (. fli)  real (. rm, . ra, . ram)  raw dv (. dv)  network graphics format (. png, . mng)  Creative Voice (. voc)  Sun/NeXT SND/AU (. snd, . au)  Wing Commander III (. mve)  Westwood Studios files (. vqa, . aud)  Electronic Arts WVE (. wve)  AIFF (. aif, . aiff)  YUV4MPEG2 (. y4m)  SMJPEG (. mjpg)  raw AC3 (. ac3)  Dialogic VOX (. vox)  TechnoTrend PVA (. pva)  Playstation STR (. str)  Nullsoft Video (. nsv)  4X Technologies (. 4xm)

                                      Audio codecs

            supported:
              mpeg audio (layer 1, 2, 3)  a/52 (aka ac3, dolby digital)  aac (used in . mp4 files)  dts (via external decoder)  vorbis  pcm  adpcm (MS/IMA/DVI/Dialogic)  mu-law and A-law  roq dpcm  Real Media dnet audio  Real Media 28. 8 audio  DivX audio (WMA)  GSM 6. 10  FLAC  NSF (NES sound format)  Speex
            via external binary/win32 codecs (not included in xine):
              MS GSM  Intel Music Coder  Voxware Metasound  ACELP. net  Real Media Sipro/Cook/dnet  QDesign Music 1/2 (QDM1/QDM2)
            currently unsupported/untested Formats:
  some formats frequently found in quicktime streams
                (Qualcomm Pure Voice… )
                                 
                             
                              Video codecs

            supported:
              mpeg 1/2  mpeg 4 (aka OpenDivX)  ms mpeg 4  divx 3/4/5  windows media video 7 & 8 motion jpeg  Cinepak  DV  ms video 1 (msvc)  ms rle  Sorenson SVQ1/SVQ3 (often used in Quicktime trailers)  creative yuv (cyuv)  roq video  QT RLE, SMC, RPZA theora
            via external binary/win32 codecs (not included in xine):
              Indeo 3. 1-5. 0  Window Media Video 8, 9  On2 VP3. 1  I263  Real Media 2. 0, 3. 0, 4. 0
            currently unsupported/untested Formats:
              3ivx  h263 (aka Real Video 1. 0)

        Note: xine does not support locked/encrypted DVDs, as there seem to
        be legal problems in that area. At this point it is unclear what the
        legal implications of providing that functionality are.

        However, xine tries to support all features DVD or other enhanced media types offer.

        DVD menu support in xine would not have been possible
        without the kind support from ogle.
       
                         
                     
                 
                    Video drivers
                 
                      XVideo – Free extension providing hardware YUV->RGB conversion and
          scaling.
                      XShm – Standard X11 displaying with (optional) shared memory support.
                      OpenGL – usefull on workstations
                      SDL – Simple DirectMedia Library with multiplataform support.
                      ASCII Art library – render video using console caracters.
                      Syncfb – Matrox G200/G400 hardware overlay with color conversion, scaling
          and refresh sync using a special kernel module.
                      Linux Framebuffer device – provide direct access to videocard memory through
          kernel drivers.
                      VIDIX – Provides direct
          access to hardware including Matrox G200/400, ATI Mach64, 3DRage,
          Radeon and Rage128, 3DLabs Permedia3. (may only work as root)
                      pgx64 – Sun PGX64/PGX24 output plugin.
                 
                    Audio drivers
                 
                        OSS (Open Sound System)
                        ALSA 0. 9 (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
                        Irix Audio
                        Sun Audio
                        aRts (KDE soundserver)
                        ESD (Enlightened Sound Daemon – not recommended)
                 
                    Supported network (Webcasting/Streaming) protocols
                 
                        MMS (Microsoft Media)
                        PNM (Real Media)
                        RTSP (Real Media and others)
                        HTTP
                        raw TCP socket streaming (tcp://-style mrls)
                 
                    Supported multimedia hardware boards
                 
                        DXR3 (EM8300) – MPEG 1/2 decoder with TV output
                        DVB (Digital TV) cards like the Hauppauge WinTV NOVA
                        Video 4 Linux (V4L) – video capturing board