phonon backend: xine or gstreamer?

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1

Hi everybody… i am enjoying my new laptop setup with opensuse 11 and kde4… on my work comp i use gnome… which looks and works great too…

i updated to kde 4.1… had 4.1 beta… and the notifications sounds werent working, with gstreamer phonon backend… i thought it happened cause it was beta… but with 4.1 stable still no luck… even i had a crash warning… so i changed to xine backend… i was using gstreamer cause it made my sound card get louder sound… so i use amarok-yauap (gstreamer) too…

My question is if its ok to use gstreamer on amarok and xine on notifications and other stuff… and how to choose between them…
Hope i made myself clear… thanks!

2

Menu -> Configure Desktop -> Sound -> Backend

Here you can switch between both…

Hope i help… :smiley:

3

My concern is more about founding criteria to help me choose between them… what works better… what is more kde integrated… what suits better my sound card… etc…

4

On different places I read something about GStreamer being the “ultimate” Phonon backend, even of the Phonon author.

I can give you only a practical view from my experience:
I haven’t never seen phonon-backend-gstreamer running on the two computers I use at work and at home, with Intel audio hardware (ICH5, ICH8), although I did install all good/bad/ugly things that the gstreamer libs should need to work.

Live-switching to phonon-backend-xine my KDE sound immediately starts to work. So I would say: Xine is the ultimate backend that works well for me until now.

My environment at the moment (always up to date with the according repositories):

  • openSUSE 11.0 with the latest online updates
  • Qt 4.4.1 (from Qt4 repo for openSUSE 11.0)
  • KDE 4.1.1 (from KDE4 Factory Desktop repo for openSUSE 11.0)
    Uses Phonon 4.2.0.
  • latest ALSA libs and kernel modules for the current update kernel (from Multimedia Audio and Multimedia Audio KMP repos for openSUSE 11.0)

I wonder which experiences have made others. :sarcastic:

5

For the past 4 years of using Linux, I’ve always used the Xine backend whenever I get the choice. The reason is because I find that Xine is a lot more matured than GStreamer and the fact that Xine plugins are usually better in quality than GStreamer. Another thing is that the amarok-yauap plugin doesn’t work with the Amarok Equalizer and I need my equalizer.

My current configuration:

  • openSUSE 11
  • KDE 3.5.10 (KDE4 is still too experimental and I have a lot of problems with it. Felt to me like a step backwards in terms of desktop organization)
  • Amarok 1.4.10 (xine backend)

xboxrulz

6

I chose the xine backend because the gstreamer backend simply refuses to work. I too have an Intel integrated soundcard (ICH5). I also like xine in general because its faster. Gstreamer is way too slow for my tastes.

7

Why is it that when I use xine the volume is a heck of a lot lower than when I use yauap (gstreamer) in Amarok?

In Windows, my sound levels are the about the same volume/levels as yauap.

So how can I get get an extra boost to the volume levels overall in my 11.0 using KDE 3.5.x ?

8

I don’t really have an answer to your question, but I have noticed from experience in kubuntu, fedora, and opensuse that Xine has always been quieter. UNTIL, kde 4.x My xine is now louder than anything else has been for my computer. I’m not sure why, but thats the way its worked.

9

Gstreamer skips .wma files and Xine crashes on these. So I use mplayer backened and wait for next stable vlc to use the new vlc-backened.

Don’t know if there is a fix for .wma files with Xine/Gstreamer… Do you experience that crash too?

10

You might want to start a new thread this one is over 2 years old and speaks about 11.0 I believe.

11

Why is it that when I use xine the volume is a heck of a lot lower than
when I use yauap (gstreamer) in Amarok?

In Windows, my sound levels are the about the same volume/levels as
yauap.

So how can I get get an extra boost to the volume levels overall in my
11.0 using KDE 3.5.x ?

–
Kilzool

Kilzool’s Profile: http://forums.opensuse.org/member.php?userid=1341
View this thread: http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php?t=391527

12

I don’t really have an answer to your question, but I have noticed from
experience in kubuntu, fedora, and opensuse that Xine has always been
quieter. UNTIL, kde 4.x My xine is now louder than anything else has
been for my computer. I’m not sure why, but thats the way its worked.

–
ahager

ahager’s Profile: http://forums.opensuse.org/member.php?userid=18738
View this thread: http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php?t=391527