GNOME Videos

GNOME Videos

GNOME Videos 3.12
Developer(s) The GNOME Project
Initial release February 2003 (2003-02)
Stable release 3.22.2 (9 November 2016 (2016-11-09)[1]) [±]
Preview release 3.23.2 (23 November 2016 (2016-11-23)[2]) [±]
Repository git.gnome.org/browse/totem/
Written in C
Operating system Unix-like
Platform GTK+, Clutter
Type Media player
License GNU General Public License[3]
Website wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Videos

GNOME Videos, formerly known as Totem, is a media player (audio and video) for the GNOME computer desktop environment. GNOME Videos uses the Clutter and GTK+ toolkits. It is officially included in GNOME starting from version 2.10 (released in March 2005), but de facto it was already included in most GNOME environments. Totem utilizes the GStreamer framework for playback, though until version 2.27.1, it could alternatively be configured to use the Xine libraries instead of GStreamer.

GNOME Videos is free and open-source software subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License.[3]

Features

Until recently there were two distinct versions of Totem, though the difference was not visible at the user interface level. One of them was based on GStreamer, which is a plugin-based multimedia framework. This version has superior extensibility and supports a larger variety of media formats. The other one was based on xine, which is a regular multimedia library. At the time it had better encrypted DVD playback support, DVD navigation support and could play some files the GStreamer version couldn't handle. Due to enhancements in GStreamer including the ability to play back encrypted DVDs, the Totem development team dropped support for the xine backend.

Totem is closely integrated with the GNOME desktop environment and its file manager, Nautilus. This includes generating thumbnails of video files when browsing in Nautilus and a video plugin for Netscape-compatible browsers (e.g. Firefox).

Thanks to a large number of plugins developed for GStreamer, Totem is able to play all mainstream media formats, both open and proprietary ones. It also understands numerous playlist formats, including SHOUTcast, M3U, XML Shareable Playlist Format (XSPF), SMIL, Windows Media Player playlists and RealAudio playlists. Playlists are easily manageable using drag-and-drop features.

Full-screen video playback is supported on nearly all X configurations, including multi-head Xinerama setups, and on displays connected to the TV-Out. Brightness, contrast and saturation of the video can be dynamically adjusted during playback. 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1 and stereo sound is supported. On computers with an infrared port, Totem can be remotely controlled via LIRC. Stills can be easily captured without resorting to external programs. There is also a plugin for telestrator-like functionality using Gromit.[4] The loading of external SubRip subtitles, both automatic and manual (via the command-line), is also supported.

The player was known as Totem. With the release of version 3.5.90, the name was changed to Videos.[5] The name 'Totem', remained in 'de facto' use (the executable, for example, still uses the Totem name, as does its package in Debian).

GNOME 3.12 revamped the user interface radically and added support for direct playback from online video channels such as Guardian and Apple trailers.[6]

A screenshot of the player's old interface, used up to version 3.10.

Video acceleration

Whether GNOME Videos can offload computations for video decoding to SIP blocks such as PureVideo, UVD, QuickSync Video, TI Ducati through interfaces, like e.g. VDPAU, VAAPI, Distributed Codec Engine or DXVA depends entirely on the back-end. See GStreamer or Xine for such support.

References

  1. Clasen, Matthias (21 September 2016). "GNOME 3.22". gnome-announce-list (Mailing list). Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  2. Clasen, Matthias (21 September 2016). "GNOME 3.22". gnome-announce-list (Mailing list). Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  3. 1 2 https://git.gnome.org/browse/totem/tree/license_change
  4. Presenting programs with Gromit, retrieved 2011-12-10
  5. http://worldofgnome.org/totem-becomes-videos/
  6. https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.12/
Wikimedia Commons has media related to GNOME Videos.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 5/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.