What are the components? 1) Audio system ? drivers, API, device management tools 2) Audio record/playback/edit apps 3) Mixer control apps 4) MIDI playback/record/edit apps 5) Video Playback/Record/Edit Apps 6) Conferencing apps 7) Encoding tools 8) Streaming servers 9) Browser plugins 10) Audio Libraries 11) Speech tools 12) Java Audio 13) BrandZ (Linux Compatibility) 14) Desktop (JDS) Integration 15) Personal Audio Player (iPOD) support
So now let?s look at each of the categories and see what applications can be used for Solaris: [b]Audio System:[/b] 1) Open Sound System drivers and API for Solaris with management tools. [b]Audio Playback/Record Apps:[/b] 1) XMMS ? GUI playback app for wav/au/mp3/ogg/CD Audio formats 2) Ossplay/ossrecord ? command line to play/record wav/au/raw audio files 3) Audacity ? GUI based multitrack audio recording and editing app. Notes: The ?SADA? based audiotool, sdtaudio audioplay and audiorecord must be deprecated and/or removed from Solaris. [b]Mixer Control apps[/b] 1) ossmix ? command line mixer control app 2) ossxmix ? GUI based mixer control app 3) JDS volume control rewritten to support the new OSS Mixer extensions Notes: sdtaudiocontrol SADA API apps must be deprecated and/or removed from Solaris. [b]MIDI Apps:[/b] 1) Timidity ? playback of MIDI files 2) OSS MIDI tools ? recording and playback [b]Video Playback Apps:[/b] 1) Ogle ? playback of DVDs/MPEG1/MPEG2 2) Mplayer ? playback of Microsoft/Apple AVI/Quicktime (via Wine Plugin) Notes: LinDVD (From Intervideo) via Brandz is a fallback option [b]Conferenceing Apps:[/b] 1) GnomeMeeting ? audio/video conferencing app (H323 + SIP) 2) VoIP app ? Skype, 3) Telephony ? Asterix 4) Chat ? GAIM Notes: Skype via Brandz is a fallback option [b]Encoding Tools:[/b] 1) Grip/Lame ? to encode in Mp3, Ogg formats ? will need a license for MP3 encoding 2) RealEncoder ? to encode into RealAudio/RealVideo formats [b]Streaming Servers:[/b] 1) RealAudio server ? for streaming real audio formats ? including live input from OSS audio devices 2) Icecast ? for streaming MP3/Ogg formats ? live streaming via OSS audio devices [b]Browser Plugins:[/b] 1) Macromedia Flash - flash player 2) Real Audio/Real Video ? real audio plugin for Mozilla 3) MozPlugger ? Mozilla browser plugin system for configuring helper apps for media formats like mp3, midi, wav, au, aiff, etc. 4) Windows Media - use Mplayer?s browser plugin Notes: Talk to Real about WMA support ? they plan to support WMA in Linux. [b]Audio Libraries:[/b] 1) SDL ? popular library used by many games (need to be compiled for OSS) 2) OpenAL ? 3D audio library used by many games 3) Jack ? RealTime library used by many Linux/ALSA apps ? which also works on OSS drivers 4) Ogg/Vorbis, MPEGlib, Audiofile ? libraries for various audio formats. [b]Speech Tools[/b] 1) Festival TTS 2) CMU Sphinx for Voice recognition 3) Java Speech API configured for OSS [b]Java Audio[/b] 1) Java audio playback and recording must have OSS bindings rather than SADA bindings. Brandz Audio 1) Brandz must be converted to support OSS Audio ioctls. Currently Brandz converts OSS Audio ioctls into SADA audio and there is loss of functionality and performance (according to some of the apps tested via Brandz) [b]Desktop (JDS) Integration[/b] 1) ESD must be modified to use the OSS API rather than the SADA API. ESD must be only used for JDS?s window manager event sounds. 2) Gstreamer should be modified to use the OSS API directly rather than rely on ESD. 3) The Volume Mixer applets in Gnome must be modified to pop up the ossxmix application (or a new Gnome/JDS mixer application should be written in the even ossxmix is not JDS compliant). 4) Gnome-CD-Player must be removed from the system and either XMMS or Xine should be configured to play CDs using the CD-DA digital audio extraction mode (like how Windows plays CDs by ripping the audio in real time and playing it out a digital audio port). This solves the problem when some computers don?t ship the CDROM connected to the soundcard card with a analog audio cable. 5) Gnome-Session-Manager should not be allowed to control audio devices at all. This usually prevents the system from updating the drivers since the drivers are locked by gnome-session-manager and only a reboot will allow JDS to update the drivers. 6) All multimedia apps on the Solaris Companion CD must be configured for OSS API. 7) JDS Accessibility must be configured 8) Brandz [b]Personal Audio Player (iPOD/MP3 players)[/b] Ability to ?rip-n-load? music into mp3 and iPods is a requirement. Several Music management programs like Rhythmbox, Banshee or Amarok are good alternatives for handling ripping and loading music into Mp3 players. Sun could also discuss with Real on how to incorporate Real?s Rhapsody Music store where people can purchase music and download it directly to their systems. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
