Xine
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- The correct title of this article is xine. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
| xine | |
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|---|---|
 xine-ui running on PlayStation 2 Linux |
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| Maintainer: | xine team |
| Stable release: | 1.1.4 (29 January 2007) [+/-] |
| Preview release: | none (none) [+/-] |
| OS: | Cross-platform |
| Use: | Media player |
| License: | GPL |
| Website: | xinehq.de |
xine (officially pronounced [ksi:n], like the name "Maxine" without "Ma"[1]) is a multimedia playback engine for Unix-like operating systems released under the GNU General Public License. xine is built around a shared library (xine-lib) that supports different frontend player applications. Another important feature of xine is the ability to manually correct the synchronization of audio and video streams. xine uses libraries from other projects such as liba52, libmpeg2, FFmpeg, libmad, FAAD2, and Ogle.[2] xine also uses binary Windows codecs through a wrapper, bundled as the w32codecs, for playback of some media formats that are not handled natively.[3]
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[edit] History
xine was started in 2000 by Guenter Bartsch shortly after LinuxTag. At that time playing DVDs in Linux was described as a torturous process[4] since one had to manually create audio and video named pipes and start their separated decoder processes.
Guenter realized the OMS (Open Media System) or LiViD approach had obvious shortcomings in terms of audio and video synchronization, so xine was born as an experiment trying to get it right. The project evolved into a modern media player multi-threaded architecture[5].
During xine development some effort was dedicated to making a clear separation of the player engine (xine-lib) and frontend (xine-ui). Since the 1.0 release (2004-12-25) the API of xine-lib is considered stable and several applications and players rely on it.
Guenter left the project in 2003 when he officially announced the new project leaders, Miguel Freitas, Michael Roitzsch, Mike Melanson and Thibaut Mattern.
[edit] Supported media formats
- Physical media: CDs, DVDs, Video CDs
- Container formats: 3gp, AVI, ASF, FLV, Matroska, MOV (QuickTime), MP4, NUT, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia
- Video codecs: Cinepak, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, RealVideo, Sorenson, Theora, WMV
- Audio codecs: AAC, AC3, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, MP3, RealAudio, Shorten, Speex, Vorbis, WMA
[edit] DVD Issues
Since xine is not a member of DVD Forum, the xine project are not contractually obliged to insert user operation prohibition such as disallowing fast-forward or skipping during trailers and ads. However, without membership in the Forum, they also cannot support DVD CSS encryption without the libdvdcss library, which was created by reverse engineering. The legal status of libdvdcss is questionable in several nations; in the United States, for example, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act arguably prohibits reverse-engineering of CSS.
[edit] See also
- List of multimedia (audio/video) codecs
- Comparison of (audio/video) container formats
- FFmpeg, cross-platform, open source, audio and video codecs suit/library
- List of other software video players
- List of other software media players
- Comparison of (audio/video) media and DVD-Video players
- Kaffeine, a player for KDE that can use xine
- Totem, a player for GNOME that can use xine
- XinePlayer (Mac OS X frontend)
- MPlayer and MEncoder (use libavcodec and libavformat from FFmpeg, share some code/libraries with xine)
- Amarok, a music player that can use xine as one of its playback engines
- VLC media player/VideoLAN (uses libavcodec from FFmpeg, share some code/libraries with xine)
- Screencast
[edit] Reference
- ^ xine FAQ, How do I pronounce "xine"?. Retrieved on August 3, 2006.
- ^ About xine. Retrieved on November 14, 2006.
- ^ xine Features. Retrieved on November 14, 2006.
- ^ Ancient Linux DVD HOWTO (How DVDs were played in Linux at the twentieth century). Retrieved on February 6, 2007.
- ^ The xine hacker's guide - Engine architecture and data flow. Retrieved on February 6, 2007.
[edit] External link
- xinehq.de Home Page
