Linux question: where to read about multimedia playback pgm?

**GuyWithDogs** · 29-03-2007, 07:14 PM

That's supposed to say "Where to read about multimedia playback programming?"

What I'd like to find out about are the libraries, tools, etc. that are available and used/recommended for developing programs to run on Linux (I've got no preference on "distro", so I'm open to recommendations and suggestions about that, too)

I'm looking to run almost anything, where possible - video (AVI, WMV, MPEG1, MPEG2, whatever), audio, Flash (SWF), Quicktime, and whatever else is around. I've done some fooling with DSPack in Delphi on Windows, and used ActiveX controls to play Quicktimes and Flash.

What I'd like to get an idea about is whether making something work under Linux makes sense. I'm not even really particular about language to use - I can use Pascal, but if something else makes sense, I can pick that up. I was looking for a time at Java and/or the MONO project as being potential targets for making somethiing that could run on Windows AND Linux -- that would be interesting to try.

I realize that there are lots of programs that play all these formats. I'm not interested in watching stuff - I want to write the thing that plays the file back.

Thanks for any input...

**jdarling** · 29-03-2007, 08:49 PM

Well, FPC with SDL is an easy solution to implement that will allow for a lot of options when it comes to visual and audio playback. Then again, FPC with just about any linked .so will give you a great deal of flexibility. In theory, you should even be able to link Flash into an FPC application and use it.

**GuyWithDogs** · 30-03-2007, 03:53 PM

[quote="jdarling"]Well, FPC with SDL is an easy solution to implement that will allow for a lot of options when it comes to visual and audio playback. Then again, FPC with just about any ]

I've looked at SDL very briefly, and I didn't see a lot there as far as video playback (as in MPEG-1, etc) went. Would I be better off looking at this startnig at FPC (which I'm assuming in FreePascal?) and finding things that it works with, and code examples for same?

Thanks.