psychtoolbox-3-common 3.0.14.20170103+git6-g605ff5c.dfsg1-1build1 / usr / share / psychtoolbox-3 / PsychDocumentation / GStreamer.m

% GStreamer - Installation instructions for the GStreamer media framework.
%
% Psychtoolbox uses the GStreamer multi-media framework for all multi-media
% related operations. On Windows with Matlab, GStreamer is also needed for
% high quality text rendering via Screen('DrawText').
%
% All movie playback, movie creation, video capture and video recording
% operations are based on GStreamer. These functions won't work without a
% working GStreamer installation on your system (with the exception of video
% capture from firewire DCAM/IIDC machine vision cameras on Linux and OSX).
%
% You will need at least version 1.0 of GStreamer, but we recommend to
% use the latest available stable release of the version 1 series.
%
% Installation instructions:
%
%
% GNU/Linux:
%
% Any recent 2013 Linux distribution will include support for GStreamer-1 in its
% package management system, so you can easily install it via the software
% management tools of your system. If you install PTB via NeuroDebian, then most
% GStreamer packages will get automatically installed, with the possible exception
% of some optional packages with potential license or patent restrictions, so read on.
%
% You may need to install those extra plugin packages to play back all
% common audio and video file formats like MP3 and MP4. Video or movie
% recording with high quality (DivX, H.264) may also require recent
% versions of additional plugin packages which contain support for these
% formats. These may not installed by default due to licensing and patent
% clauses in place for some territories on this planet. You may want to
% specifically add them to your system depending on your format needs.
%
% An easy test is to run SimpleMovieDemo. If it fails or only plays sound,
% but not video, then some of the plugins are missing, e.g., the important
% "gst-libav" plugins.
%
%
% MS-Windows and Apple OSX:
%
% You must install GStreamer if you want to use multi-media functions!
% You must also install GStreamer if you want to use the high-quality text
% renderer on Windows with Matlab, which provides consistent text rendering
% with OSX and Linux, instead of the lower quality legacy GDI text renderer.
%
% If you don't intend to use such functionality then installation of
% GStreamer is optional. Screen will work normally, but abort with an error
% message if you try to use any multi-media functions. For use with Octave-4 on
% Windows you must install GStreamer regardless if you want to use multi-media
% functionality or not, as the Screen() mex file won't work at all without GStreamer
% installed.
%
% NOTE: Many Matlab versions on MS-Windows show instable behavior with GStreamer,
% e.g., crashing in SimpleMovieDemo and other demos that use GStreamer, unless
% they are used without the Graphical user interface and without Java. That means
% you need to start Matlab with the -nojvm command line switch, ie. matlab.exe -nojvm.
% See also: https://github.com/Psychtoolbox-3/Psychtoolbox-3/wiki/FAQ#how-to-resolve-gstreamer-problems
%
%
% Download and install the latest 64-Bit ("x86_64") GStreamer runtimes from:
%
% <http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/>
%
% You should check for and install the latest runtime packages available for your
% system for best reliability and performance. However, as a convenience, at time
% of this writing (January 2017) the required downloads would be:
%
% For MS-Windows: 64-Bit Intel runtime v1.10.2 for use with 64-Bit Matlab/Octave.
%
% <http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/pkg/windows/1.10.2/gstreamer-1.0-x86_64-1.10.2.msi>
%
% For Apple OSX: Runtime v1.10.2
%
% <http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/pkg/osx/1.10.2/gstreamer-1.0-1.10.2-x86_64.pkg>
%
%
% When the installer asks you to select the components it should install,
% select a "Custom installation" (instead of "Full installation" or "Basic
% installation" or such). Then, in the displayed check list of packages to
% install, select *all* components manually, if you want support for all
% video formats and all functionality. Without this, many popular video
% formats like H264 video will not play at all, or video recording / video
% capture and similar functions may not work. In fact, even our own demos,
% e.g., SimpleMovieDemo *will fail* if you don't have all codecs installed!
% -> If SimpleMovieDemo doesn't work, then the most likely cause is that
% you didn't select all GStreamer packages for installation, so restart the
% installer and repeat installation with the full set of packages.
%