Xine

Infobox Software
name = xine project
developer = [http://xinehq.de/index.php/authors xine team]
programming language = C
operating system = Cross-platform
genre = Media player
license = GPL
website = [http://xinehq.de/ xinehq.de] Infobox Software
name = xine-lib
frequently_updated = yes Infobox Software
name = xine-ui


frequently_updated = yes Infobox Software
name = gxine


frequently_updated = yes Infobox Software
name = xine-plugin
frequently_updated = yes

xine (officially pronounced|ksi:ncite web | url=http://xinehq.de/index.php/faq#PRONOUNCE | title=xine FAQ, "How do I pronounce "xine"?" | accessdate=2006-08-03] ) 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.cite web | url=http://xinehq.de/index.php/about | title=About xine | accessdate=2006-11-14] xine can also use binary Windows codecs through a wrapper, bundled as the w32codecs, for playback of some media formats that are not handled natively.cite web | url=http://xinehq.de/index.php/features | title=xine Features | accessdate=2006-11-14]

History

xine was started in 2000 by Günter Bartsch shortly after LinuxTag. At that time playing DVDs in Linux was described as a tortuous processcite web | url=http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/DVD-HOWTO.html | title=Ancient Linux DVD HOWTO (How DVDs were played in Linux at the twentieth century) | accessdate=2007-02-06] since one had to manually create audio and video named pipes and start their separated decoder processes.

Günter 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.cite web | url=http://xinehq.de/index.php/hackersguide#AEN467 | title=The xine hacker's guide - Engine architecture and data flow | accessdate=2007-02-06]

During xine development, some effort was dedicated to making a clear separation of the player engine (xine-lib) and front-end (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.Fact|date=March 2008

Günter left the project in 2003 when he officially announced the new project leaders, Miguel Freitas, Michael Roitzsch, Mike Melanson and Thibaut Mattern.Fact|date=March 2008

= Supported media formats cite web | url=http://www.thelinuxblog.com/linux-man-pages/5/xine | title=Xine(5) MRL Man Page | accessdate=2008-06-09] =

* Physical media: CDs, DVDs, Video CDs
* Container formats: 3gp, AVI, ASF, FLV, Matroska, MOV (QuickTime), MP4, NUT, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia
*Audio formats: AAC, AC3, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, MP3, RealAudio, Shorten, Speex, Vorbis, WMA
*: Cinepak, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, RealVideo, Sorenson, Theora, WMV (partial, including WMV1, WMV2 and WMV3; via FFmpeg)
*Video devices: V4L, DVB, PVR
*Network protocols: HTTP, TCP, UDP, RTP, SMB, MMS, PNM, RTSP

DVD issues

Since xine is not a member of DVD Forum, the xine project is 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.Fact|date=March 2008

See also

*List of multimedia (audio/video) codecs
**Open source codecs and containers
**Comparison of video codecs
**Comparison of audio codecs
*Comparison of (audio/video) container formats
**FFmpeg, cross-platform, open source, audio and video codecs suit/library
*List of other software 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 (uses libavcodec from FFmpeg, share some code/libraries with xine)
*List of other software media players
*Comparison of (audio/video) media and DVD-Video players

*Screencast

References

External links

* [http://xinehq.de/ Home Page]
* [http://www.thelinuxblog.com/linux-man-pages/1/xine Xine Man Page]