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I'm a bit confused about what Gstreamer does.

  • Does it come installed by default with Ubuntu ?
    • If so which version is the default for 14.04?

  • Does it provide hardware accelerated video playback (decoding) ?

    • If so does it work with VA-API and VDPAU or is it an alternative to those?

Thanks for your help

sdrubish
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1 Answers1

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Gstreamer 1.0 is installed by default on 14.04 (See the desktop image manifest)

But you need to install additional plugins to get VA-API support.

Install the following package in a Terminal:

sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-vaapi

For VDPAU, check this answer: How to enable VDPAU on GStreamer?

Community
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Sylvain Pineau
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  • Thanks for clearing up a few things - is Gstreamer a framework on which media playing software is built? - If so which softwares use it? - Is it capable of hw accelerated decoding without VDPAU or VA API? – sdrubish May 01 '14 at 00:15
  • Gstreamer is used by Totem (the default) media player, clementine and many more. Gstreamer won't use GPU acceleration without those additional plugins (Visit this [page](http://docs.gstreamer.com/display/GstSDK/Playback+tutorial+8%3A+Hardware-accelerated+video+decoding) for further details) – Sylvain Pineau May 01 '14 at 07:40