Multimedia, AV Archive

"Fluendo is expanding its offerings with the general availability of a wide range of codecs for the GNU/Linux and Solaris desktop and server systems. The Fluendo codecs plug directly into the popular and widely used GStreamer multimedia framework available on all the major GNU/Linux and Solaris systems. Users of GNU/Linux and Solaris operating systems have previously lacked solutions which enabled them to license and use popular media formats such as Windows Media, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 in accordance with the laws of their country. Through Fluendo's agreements with Microsoft and MPEG LA such a solution is now available."

"The Neuros OSD promises a lot - it claims to be the first open source Linux-based embedded media center and it 'records video and links your PC, portables and entertainment center'. Bold claims, but can it live up to them?"

Five years later and Apple now holds over 75% of the mp3 player market. Read why the iPod succeeded, why Gizmodo hates it and the generation tree at Engadget. Fatefully, today I happened to post a review of the 1st Gen Nano too.

Geeks.com were very generous sending us over their SupportPlus SP-PMP51C (aka Sorell SV-10) portable media player for a review. This PMP is unique because among extended media features (20GB, A/V playback/rec, line-in, fm radio/rec, voice rec, text viewer, OGG support, lots of accessories) it also includes a 1.3MP swivel camera (with VGA video recording) selling at the fair price of $199 (use the promo code "GEEKPLUS" to buy the item for just $149).

Here at OSNews we like to look at new, innovative products that push boundaries and create new markets. In the past year there were only 3-4 companies wordlwide that released video glasses (goggles) to accompany the exploding market of PMPs. MicroOptical is one of these pioneers and they kindly sent us in their MyVu video glasses to take them for a spin.

"MythTV is a Linux based, multimedia software that allows you to view and record TV shows to your hard drive in the manner of Tivo, Windows Media Center and Beyond TV. MythTV recently released 0.20 version of their awesome TV/PVR/Multimedia Frontend software. I installed the latest version to see if it was really as good as it looks."

Rockbox is a replacement firmware for various audio players, that opens up new features and fixes devices shortcomings. We don't think of these devices as personal computers, but they are; and Rockbox is an alternative operating system. This review focuses on Rockbox as a replacement "OS" for the iRiver player.

Magnatune has the right idea and we love their motto: "We Are Not Evil". They are a real record label but they give away 128 kbps mp3s of all their artist's songs for free. If you like what you hear you can purchase higher quality DRM-free FLAC, Mp3, OGG, AAC, WAV versions at a price you set! If you don't, you can always keep, share or delete your legally downloaded 128 kbps mp3, your choice. They are sharing revenues 50/50 with their signed artists and they allow consumers to share their purchased songs with 3 friends. What sets them apart from other "free music" web sites is that they actually sign artists that are able to produce high quality music and are serious about their work (rather than just being a random mp3 hosting site). Also, artists keep all of their work's rights.

"What follows is a list of the APIs that the current Linux Flash Player 9 development version is using. I debated whether it was appropriate to publish this information. Then I remembered that anyone who knows what they're doing should be able to figure this stuff out by themselves anyway once the final Player is released."

"This article introduces you to GStreamer, a universal multimedia processing library that makes multimedia handling easy. GStreamer can answer many problems, such as 'I need to store all audio samples coming from various sources in a common format'. Because all formats are treated alike, you only need to write one tool. This saves time and makes the solution more robust and easier to maintain. Moreover, after you learn the GStreamer concepts, there's almost no limit to what you can apply it to."

Millions of music fans will be given free music downloads or money to compensate for flawed anti-piracy software on CDs from label Sony BMG. The final approval to the settlement for lawsuits against the music giant was granted by a US judge on Monday. Sony BMG was accused of using copy protection program on CDs that left computers vulnerable to hackers. The episode caused much embarrassment for the world's second largest music label.

Gstreamer developer Christian Schaller explains why he thinks Phonon (announced a few days ago by the KDE project) is a broken wheel. "I have held back blogging about Phonon for some time to avoid flamewars, but I don't want to have efforts like OSDL delayed due to setups like Phonon being promoted or thought of as a workable solution for the issues faced. Let me start of with a brief introduction to the area of multimedia frameworks."

Currently, .mp3 players are all the hype. Everyone has one, and if you don't, you're old-fashioned. I do not have an .mp3 player. I tried to have one, but for various reasons it did not please me. I'm a MiniDisc guy. I've always been. MiniDisc has some serious advantages over .mp3 players, whether they be flash or HDD based. Note: Sunday Eve Column.

Engadget has two great articles (Part I & Part II) on Digital Television (mobile and normal). However, if all these new standards and acronyms were not enough, Sprint is trying to push one more on us.