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@@ -1 +1,786 @@ -This is GStreamer 1.7.91 +# GStreamer 1.8 Release Notes + +**GStreamer 1.8.0 was released on 24 March 2016.** + +The GStreamer team is proud to announce a new major feature release in the +stable 1.x API series of your favourite cross-platform multimedia framework! + +As always, this release is again packed with new features, bug fixes and other +improvements. + +See [https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/releases/1.8/][latest] for the latest +version of this document. + +*Last updated: Thursday 24 March 2016, 10:00 UTC [(log)][gitlog]* + +[latest]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/releases/1.8/ +[gitlog]: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/www/log/src/htdocs/releases/1.8/release-notes-1.8.md + +## Highlights + +- **Hardware-accelerated zero-copy video decoding on Android** + +- **New video capture source for Android using the android.hardware.Camera API** + +- **Windows Media reverse playback** support (ASF/WMV/WMA) + +- **New tracing system** provides support for more sophisticated debugging tools + +- **New high-level GstPlayer playback convenience API** + +- **Initial support for the new [Vulkan][vulkan] API**, see + [Matthew Waters' blog post][vulkan-in-gstreamer] for more details + +- **Improved Opus audio codec support**: Support for more than two channels; MPEG-TS demuxer/muxer can now handle Opus; + [sample-accurate][opus-sample-accurate] encoding/decoding/transmuxing with + Ogg, Matroska, ISOBMFF (Quicktime/MP4), and MPEG-TS as container; + [new codec utility functions for Opus header and caps handling][opus-codec-utils] + in pbutils library. The Opus encoder/decoder elements were also moved to + gst-plugins-base (from -bad), and the opus RTP depayloader/payloader to -good. + + [opus-sample-accurate]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-base-libs/html/gst-plugins-base-libs-gstaudiometa.html#GstAudioClippingMeta + [opus-codec-utils]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-base-libs/html/gst-plugins-base-libs-gstpbutilscodecutils.html + +- **GStreamer VAAPI module now released and maintained as part of the GStreamer project** + + [vulkan]: https://www.khronos.org/vulkan + [vulkan-in-gstreamer]: http://ystreet00.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/vulkan-in-gstreamer.html + +## Major new features and changes + +### Noteworthy new API, features and other changes + +- New GstVideoAffineTransformationMeta meta for adding a simple 4x4 affine + transformation matrix to video buffers + +- [g\_autoptr()](https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/glib-Miscellaneous-Macros.html#g-autoptr) + support for all types is exposed in GStreamer headers now, in combination + with a sufficiently-new GLib version (i.e. 2.44 or later). This is primarily + for the benefit of application developers who would like to make use of + this, the GStreamer codebase itself will not be using g_autoptr() for + the time being due to portability issues. + +- GstContexts are now automatically propagated to elements added to a bin + or pipeline, and elements now maintain a list of contexts set on them. + The list of contexts set on an element can now be queried using the new functions + [gst\_element\_get\_context()](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/GstElement.html#gst-element-get-context) + and [gst\_element\_get\_contexts()](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/GstElement.html#gst-element-get-contexts). GstContexts are used to share context-specific configuration objects + between elements and can also be used by applications to set context-specific + configuration objects on elements, e.g. for OpenGL or Hardware-accelerated + video decoding. + +- New [GST\_BUFFER\_DTS\_OR\_PTS()](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/GstBuffer.html#GST-BUFFER-DTS-OR-PTS:CAPS) + convenience macro that returns the decode timestamp if one is set and + otherwise returns the presentation timestamp + +- New GstPadEventFullFunc that returns a GstFlowReturn instead of a gboolean. + This new API is mostly for internal use and was added to fix a race condition + where occasionally internal flow error messages were posted on the bus when + sticky events were propagated at just the wrong moment whilst the pipeline + was shutting down. This happened primarily when the pipeline was shut down + immediately after starting it up. GStreamer would not know that the reason + the events could not be propagated was because the pipeline was shutting down + and not some other problem, and now the flow error allows GStreamer to know + the reason for the failure (and that there's no reason to post an error + message). This is particularly useful for queue-like elements which may need + to asynchronously propagate a previous flow return from downstream. + +- Pipeline dumps in form of "dot files" now also show pad properties that + differ from their default value, the same as it does for elements. This is + useful for elements with pad subclasses that provide additional properties, + e.g. videomixer or compositor. + +- Pad probes are now guaranteed to be called in the order they were added + (before they were called in reverse order, but no particular order was + documented or guaranteed) + +- Plugins can now have dependencies on device nodes (not just regular files) + and also have a prefix filter. This is useful for plugins that expose + features (elements) based on available devices, such as the video4linux + plugin does with video decoders on certain embedded systems. + +- gst\_segment\_to\_position() has been deprecated and been replaced by the + better-named gst\_segment\_position\_from\_running\_time(). At the same time + gst\_segment\_position\_from\_stream\_time() was added, as well as \_full() + variants of both to deal with negative stream time. + +- GstController: the interpolation control source gained a new monotonic cubic + interpolation mode that, unlike the existing cubic mode, will never overshoot + the min/max y values set. + +- GstNetAddressMeta: can now be read from buffers in language bindings as well, + via the new gst\_buffer\_get\_net\_address\_meta() function + +- ID3 tag PRIV frames are now extraced into a new GST\_TAG\_PRIVATE\_DATA tag + +- gst-launch-1.0 and gst\_parse\_launch() now warn in the most common case if + a dynamic pad link could not be resolved, instead of just silently + waiting to see if a suitable pad appears later, which is often perceived + by users as hanging -- they are now notified when this happens and can check + their pipeline. + +- GstRTSPConnection now also parses custom RTSP message headers and retains + them for the application instead of just ignoring them + +- rtspsrc handling of authentication over tunneled connections (e.g. RTSP over HTTP) + was fixed + +- gst\_video\_convert\_sample() now crops if there is a crop meta on the input buffer + +- The debugging system printf functions are now exposed for general use, which + supports special printf format specifiers such as GST\_PTR\_FORMAT and + GST\_SEGMENT\_FORMAT to print GStreamer-related objects. This is handy for + systems that want to prepare some debug log information to be output at a + later point in time. The GStreamer-OpenGL subsystem is making use of these + new functions, which are [gst\_info\_vasprintf()][gst_info_vasprintf], + [gst\_info\_strdup\_vprintf()][gst_info_strdup_vprintf] and + [gst\_info\_strdup\_printf()][gst_info_strdup_printf]. + +- videoparse: "strides", "offsets" and "framesize" properties have been added to + allow parsing raw data with strides and padding that do not match GStreamer + defaults. + +- GstPreset reads presets from the directories given in GST\_PRESET\_PATH now. + Presets are read from there after presets in the system path, but before + application and user paths. + +[gst_info_vasprintf]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/gstreamer-GstInfo.html#gst-info-vasprintf +[gst_info_strdup_vprintf]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/gstreamer-GstInfo.html#gst-info-strdup-vprintf +[gst_info_strdup_printf]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/gstreamer-GstInfo.html#gst-info-strdup-printf + +### New Elements + +- [netsim](): a new (resurrected) element to simulate network jitter and + packet dropping / duplication. + +- New VP9 RTP payloader/depayloader elements: rtpvp9pay/rtpvp9depay + +- New [videoframe_audiolevel]() element, a video frame synchronized audio level element + +- New spandsp-based tone generator source + +- New NVIDIA NVENC-based H.264 encoder for GPU-accelerated video encoding on + suitable NVIDIA hardware + +- [rtspclientsink](), a new RTSP RECORD sink element, was added to gst-rtsp-server + +- [alsamidisrc](), a new ALSA MIDI sequencer source element + +### Noteworthy element features and additions + +- *identity*: new ["drop-buffer-flags"](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer-plugins/html/gstreamer-plugins-identity.html#GstIdentity--drop-buffer-flags) + property to drop buffers based on buffer flags. This can be used to drop all + non-keyframe buffers, for example. + +- *multiqueue*: various fixes and improvements, in particular special handling + for sparse streams such as substitle streams, to make sure we don't overread + them any more. For sparse streams it can be normal that there's no buffer for + a long period of time, so having no buffer queued is perfectly normal. Before + we would often unnecessarily try to fill the subtitle stream queue, which + could lead to much more data being queued in multiqueue than necessary. + +- *multiqueue*/*queue*: When dealing with time limits, these elements now use the + new ["GST_BUFFER_DTS_OR_PTS"](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/GstBuffer.html#GST-BUFFER-DTS-OR-PTS:CAPS) + and ["gst_segment_to_running_time_full()"](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/GstSegment.html#gst-segment-to-running-time-full) + API, resulting in more accurate levels, especially when dealing with non-raw + streams (where reordering happens, and we want to use the increasing DTS as + opposed to the non-continuously increasing PTS) and out-of-segment input/output. + Previously all encoded buffers before the segment start, which can happen when + doing ACCURATE seeks, were not taken into account in the queue level calculation. + +- *multiqueue*: New ["use-interleave"](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer-plugins/html/gstreamer-plugins-multiqueue.html#GstMultiQueue--use-interleave) + property which allows the size of the queues to be optimized based on the input + streams interleave. This should only be used with input streams which are properly + timestamped. It will be used in the future decodebin3 element. + +- *queue2*: new ["avg-in-rate"](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer-plugins/html/gstreamer-plugins-queue2.html#GstQueue2--avg-in-rate) + property that returns the average input rate in bytes per second + +- audiotestsrc now supports all audio formats and is no longer artificially + limited with regard to the number of channels or sample rate + +- gst-libav (ffmpeg codec wrapper): map and enable JPEG2000 decoder + +- multisocketsink can, on request, send a custom GstNetworkMessage event + upstream whenever data is received from a client on a socket. Similarly, + socketsrc will, on request, pick up GstNetworkMessage events from downstream + and send any data contained within them via the socket. This allows for + simple bidirectional communication. + +- matroska muxer and demuxer now support the ProRes video format + +- Improved VP8/VP9 decoding performance on multi-core systems by enabling + multi-threaded decoding in the libvpx-based decoders on such systems + +- appsink has a new ["wait-on-eos"](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-base-plugins/html/gst-plugins-base-plugins-appsink.html#GstAppSink--wait-on-eos) + property, so in cases where it is uncertain if an appsink will have a consumer for + its buffers when it receives an EOS this can be set to FALSE to ensure that the + appsink will not hang. + +- rtph264pay and rtph265pay have a new "config-interval" mode -1 that will + re-send the setup data (SPS/PPS/VPS) before every keyframe to ensure + optimal coverage and the shortest possibly start-up time for a new client + +- mpegtsmux can now mux H.265/HEVC video as well + +- The MXF muxer was ported to 1.x and produces more standard conformant files now + that can be handled by more other software; The MXF demuxer got improved + support for seek tables (IndexTableSegments). + +### Plugin moves + +- The rtph265pay/depay RTP payloader/depayloader elements for H.265/HEVC video + from the rtph265 plugin in -bad have been moved into the existing rtp plugin + in gst-plugins-good. + +- The mpg123 plugin containing a libmpg123 based audio decoder element has + been moved from -bad to -ugly. + +- The Opus encoder/decoder elements have been moved to gst-plugins-base and + the RTP payloader to gst-plugins-good, both coming from gst-plugins-bad. + +### New tracing tools for developers + +A new tracing subsystem API has been added to GStreamer, which provides +external tracers with the possibility to strategically hook into GStreamer +internals and collect data that can be evaluated later. These tracers are a +new type of plugin features, and GStreamer core ships with a few example +tracers (latency, stats, rusage, log) to start with. Tracers can be loaded +and configured at start-up via an environment variable (GST\_TRACER\_PLUGINS). + +Background: While GStreamer provides plenty of data on what's going on in a +pipeline via its debug log, that data is not necessarily structured enough to +be generally useful, and the overhead to enable logging output for all data +required might be too high in many cases. The new tracing system allows tracers +to just obtain the data needed at the right spot with as little overhead as +possible, which will be particularly useful on embedded systems. + +Of course it has always been possible to do performance benchmarks and debug +memory leaks, memory consumption and invalid memory access using standard +operating system tools, but there are some things that are difficult to track +with the standard tools, and the new tracing system helps with that. Examples +are things such as latency handling, buffer flow, ownership transfer of +events and buffers from element to element, caps negotiation, etc. + +For some background on the new tracing system, watch Stefan Sauer's +GStreamer Conference talk ["A new tracing subsystem for GStreamer"][tracer-0] +and for a more specific example how it can be useful have a look at +Thiago Santos's lightning talk ["Analyzing caps negotiation using GstTracer"][tracer-1] +and his ["GstTracer experiments"][tracer-2] blog post. There was also a Google +Summer of Code project in 2015 that used tracing system for a graphical +GStreamer debugging tool ["gst-debugger"][tracer-3]. + +This is all still very much work in progress, but we hope this will provide the +foundation for a whole suite of new debugging tools for GStreamer pipelines. + +[tracer-0]: https://gstconf.ubicast.tv/videos/a-new-tracing-subsystem-for-gstreamer/ +[tracer-1]: https://gstconf.ubicast.tv/videos/analyzing-caps-negotiation-using-gsttracer/ +[tracer-2]: http://blog.thiagoss.com/2015/07/23/gsttracer-experiments/ +[tracer-3]: https://git.gnome.org/browse/gst-debugger + +### GstPlayer: a new high-level API for cross-platform multimedia playback + +GStreamer has had reasonably high-level API for multimedia playback +in the form of the playbin element for a long time. This allowed application +developers to just configure a URI to play, and playbin would take care of +everything else. This works well, but there is still way too much to do on +the application-side to implement a fully-featured playback application, and +too much general GStreamer pipeline API exposed, making it less accessible +to application developers. + +Enter GstPlayer. GstPlayer's aim is to provide an even higher-level abstraction +of a fully-featured playback API but specialised for its specific use case. It +also provides easy integration with and examples for Gtk+, Qt, Android, OS/X, +iOS and Windows. Watch Sebastian's [GstPlayer talk at the GStreamer Conference][gstplayer-talk] +for more information, or check out the [GstPlayer API reference][gstplayer-api] +and [GstPlayer examples][gstplayer-examples]. + +[gstplayer-api]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-bad-libs/html/player.html +[gstplayer-talk]: https://gstconf.ubicast.tv/videos/gstplayer-a-simple-cross-platform-api-for-all-your-media-playback-needs-part-1/ +[gstplayer-examples]: https://github.com/sdroege/gst-player/ + +### Adaptive streaming: DASH, HLS and MSS improvements + +- dashdemux now supports loading external xml nodes pointed from its MPD. + +- Content protection nodes parsing support for PlayReady WRM in mssdemux. + +- Reverse playback was improved to respect seek start and stop positions. + +- Adaptive demuxers (hlsdemux, dashdemux, mssdemux) now support the SNAP_AFTER + and SNAP_BEFORE seek flags which will jump to the nearest fragment boundary + when executing a seek, which means playback resumes more quickly after a seek. + +### Audio library improvements + +- audio conversion, quantization and channel up/downmixing functionality + has been moved from the audioconvert element into the audio library and + is now available as public API in form of [GstAudioConverter][audio-0], + [GstAudioQuantize][audio-1] and [GstAudioChannelMixer][audio-2]. + Audio resampling will follow in future releases. + +- [gst\_audio\_channel\_get\_fallback\_mask()][audio-3] can be used + to retrieve a default channel mask for a given number of channels as last + resort if the layout is unknown + +- A new [GstAudioClippingMeta][audio-4] meta was added for specifying clipping + on encoded audio buffers + +- A new GstAudioVisualizer base class for audio visualisation elements; + most of the existing visualisers have been ported over to the new base class. + This new base class lives in the pbutils library rather than the audio library, + since we'd have had to make libgstaudio depend on libgstvideo otherwise, + which was deemed undesirable. + +[audio-0]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-base-libs/html/gst-plugins-base-libs-GstAudioConverter.html +[audio-1]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-base-libs/html/gst-plugins-base-libs-GstAudioQuantize.html +[audio-2]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-base-libs/html/gst-plugins-base-libs-gstaudiochannels.html#gst-audio-channel-mix-new +[audio-3]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-base-libs/html/gst-plugins-base-libs-gstaudiochannels.html#gst-audio-channel-get-fallback-mask +[audio-4]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-base-libs/html/gst-plugins-base-libs-gstaudiometa.html#GstAudioClippingMeta + +### GStreamer OpenGL support improvements + +#### Better OpenGL Shader support + +[GstGLShader][shader] has been revamped to allow more OpenGL shader types +by utilizing a new GstGLSLStage object. Each stage holds an OpenGL pipeline +stage such as a vertex, fragment or a geometry shader that are all compiled +separately into a program that is executed. + +The glshader element has also received a revamp as a result of the changes in +the library. It does not take file locations for the vertex and fragment +shaders anymore. Instead it takes the strings directly leaving the file +management to the application. + +A new [example][liveshader-example] was added utilizing the new shader +infrastructure showcasing live shader edits. + +[shader]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-bad-libs/html/gst-plugins-bad-libs-gstglshader.html +[liveshader-example]: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gst-plugins-bad/tree/tests/examples/gtk/glliveshader.c + +#### OpenGL GLMemory rework + +[GstGLMemory] was extensively reworked to support the addition of multiple +texture targets required for zero-copy integration with the Android +MediaCodec elements. This work was also used to provide IOSurface based +GLMemory on OS X for zero-copy with OS X's VideoToolbox decoder (vtdec) and +AV Foundation video source (avfvideosrc). There are also patches in bugzilla +for GstGLMemoryEGL specifically aimed at improving the decoding performance on +the Raspberry Pi. + +[GstGLMemory]: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-bad-libs/html/gst-plugins-bad-libs-gstglmemory.html + +A texture-target field was added to video/x-raw(memory:GLMemory) caps to signal +the texture target contained in the GLMemory. Its values can be 2D, rectangle +or external-oes. glcolorconvert can convert between the different formats as +required and different elements will accept or produce different targets. e.g. +glimagesink can take and render external-oes textures directly as required for +effecient zero-copy on android. + +A generic GL allocation framework was also implemented to support the generic +allocation of OpenGL buffers and textures which is used extensively by +GstGLBufferPool. + +#### OpenGL DMABuf import uploader + +There is now a DMABuf uploader available for automatic selection that will +attempt to import the upstream provided DMABuf. The uploader will import into +2D textures with the necesarry format. YUV to RGB conversion is still provided +by glcolorconvert to avoid the laxer restrictions with external-oes textures. + +#### OpenGL queries + +Queries of various aspects of the OpenGL runtime such as timers, number of +samples or the current timestamp are not possible. The GstGLQuery object uses a +delayed debug system to delay the debug output to later to avoid expensive calls +to the glGet\* family of functions directly after finishing a query. It is +currently used to output the time taken to perform various operations of texture +uploads and downloads in GstGLMemory. + +#### New OpenGL elements + +glcolorbalance has been created mirroring the videobalance elements. +glcolorbalance provides the exact same interface as videobalance so can be used +as a GPU accelerated replacement. glcolorbalance has been added to glsinkbin so +usage with playsink/playbin will use it automatically instead of videobalance +where possible. + +glvideoflip, which is the OpenGL equiavalant of videoflip, implements the exact +same interface and functionality as videoflip. + +#### EGL implementation now selects OpenGL 3.x + +The EGL implementation can now select OpenGL 3.x contexts. + +#### OpenGL API removal + +The GstGLDownload library object was removed as it was not used by anything. +Everything is performed by GstGLMemory or in the gldownloadelement. + +The GstGLUploadMeta library object was removed as it was not being used and we +don't want to promote the use of GstVideoGLTextureUploadMeta. + +#### OpenGL: Other miscellaneous changes + +- The EGL implementation can now select OpenGL 3.x contexts. This brings + OpenGL 3.x to e.g. wayland and other EGL systems. + +- glstereomix/glstereosplit are now built and are usable on OpenGL ES systems + +- The UYVY/YUY2 to RGBA and RGBA to UYVY/YUY2 shaders were fixed removing the + sawtooth pattern and luma bleeding. + +- We now utilize the GL\_APPLE\_sync extension on iOS devices which improves + performance of OpenGL applications, especially with multiple OpenGL + contexts. + +- glcolorconvert now uses a bufferpool to avoid costly + glGenTextures/glDeleteTextures for every frame. + +- glvideomixer now has full glBlendFunc and glBlendEquation support per input. + +- gltransformation now support navigation events so your weird transformations + also work with DVD menus. + +- qmlglsink can now run on iOS, OS X and Android in addition to the already + supported Linux platform. + +- glimagesink now posts unhandled keyboard and mouse events (on backends that + support user input, current only X11) on the bus for the application. + +### Initial GStreamer Vulkan support + +Some new elements, vulkansink and vulkanupload have been implemented utilizing +the new Vulkan API. The implementation is currently limited to X11 platforms +(via xcb) and does not perform any scaling of the stream's contents to the size +of the available output. + +A lot of infrasctructure work has been undertaken to support using Vulkan in +GStreamer in the future. A number of GstMemory subclasses have been created for +integrating Vulkan's GPU memory handling along with VkBuffer's and VkImage's +that can be passed between elements. Some GStreamer refcounted wrappers for +global objects such as VkInstance, VkDevice, VkQueue, etc have also been +implemented along with GstContext integration for sharing these objects with the +application. + +### GStreamer VAAPI support for hardware-accelerated video decoding and encoding on Intel (and other) platforms + +#### GStreamer VAAPI is now part of upstream GStreamer + +The GStreamer-VAAPI module which provides support for hardware-accelerated +video decoding, encoding and post-processing on Intel graphics hardware +on Linux has moved from its previous home at the [Intel Open Source Technology Center][iostc] +to the upstream GStreamer repositories, where it will in future be maintained +as part of the upstream GStreamer project and released in lockstep with the +other GStreamer modules. The current maintainers will continue to spearhead +the development at the new location: + +[http://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer-vaapi/][gst-vaapi-git] + +[gst-vaapi-git]: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer-vaapi/ + +GStreamer-VAAPI relies heavily on certain GStreamer infrastructure API that +is still in flux such as the OpenGL integration API or the codec parser +libraries, and one of the goals of the move was to be able to leverage +new developments early and provide tighter integration with the latest +developments of those APIs and other graphics-related APIs provided by +GStreamer, which should hopefully improve performance even further and in +some cases might also provide better stability. + +Thanks to everyone involved in making this move happen! + +#### GStreamer VAAPI: Bug tracking + +Bugs had already been tracked on [GNOME bugzilla](bgo) but will be moved +from the gstreamer-vaapi product into a new gstreamer-vaapi component of +the GStreamer product in bugzilla. Please file new bugs against the new +component in the GStreamer product from now on. + +#### GStreamer VAAPI: Pending patches + +The code base has been re-indented to the GStreamer code style, which +affected some files more than others. This means that some of the patches +in bugzilla might not apply any longer, so if you have any unmerged patches +sitting in bugzilla please consider checking if they still apply cleany and +refresh them if not. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. + +#### GStreamer VAAPI: New versioning scheme and supported GStreamer versions + +The version numbering has been changed to match the GStreamer version +numbering to avoid confusion: there is a new gstreamer-vaapi 1.6.0 release +and a 1.6 branch that is roughly equivalent to the previous 0.7.0 version. +Future releases 1.7.x and 1.8.x will be made alongside GStreamer releases. + +While it was possible and supported by previous releases to build against +a whole range of different GStreamer versions (such as 1.2, 1.4, 1.6 or 1.7/1.8), +in the future there will only be one target branch, so that git master will +track GStreamer git master, 1.8.x will target GStreamer 1.8, and +1.6.x will target the 1.6 series. + +[iostc]: http://01.org +[bgo]: http://bugzilla.gnome.og + +#### GStreamer VAAPI: Miscellaneous changes + +All GStreamer-VAAPI functionality is now provided solely by its GStreamer +elements. There is no more public library exposing GstVaapi API, this API +was only ever meant for private use by the elements. Parts of it may be +resurrected again in future if needed, but for now it has all been made +private. + +GStreamer-VAAPI now unconditionally uses the codecparser library in +gst-plugins-bad instead of shipping its own internal copy. Similarly, +it no longer ships its own codec parsers but relies on the upstream +codec parser elements. + +The GStreamer-VAAPI encoder elements have been renamed from vaapiencode_foo +to vaapifooenc, so encoders are now called vaapih264enc, vaapih265enc, +vaapimpeg2enc, vaapijpegenc, and vaapivp8enc. With this change we now follow +the standard names in GStreamer, and the plugin documentation is generated +correctly. + +In the case of the decoders, only the jpeg decoder has been split from the +general decoding element vaapidecode: vaapijpegdec. This is the first step to +split per codec each decoding element. The vaapijpegdec has also been given +marginal rank for the time being. + +#### GStreamer VAAPI: New features in 1.8: 10-bit H.265/HEVC decoding support + +Support for decoding 10-bit H.265/HEVC has been added. For the time being +this only works in combination with vaapisink though, until support for the +P010 video format used internally is added to GStreamer and to the +vaGetImage()/vaPutimage() API in the vaapi-intel-driver. + +Several fixes for memory leaks, build errors, and in the internal +video parsing. + +Finally, vaapisink now posts the unhandled keyboard and mouse events to the +application. + +### GStreamer Video 4 Linux Support + +Colorimetry support has been enhanced even more. It will now properly select +default values when not specified by the driver. The range of color formats +supported by GStreamer has been greatly improved. Notably, support for +multi-planar I420 has been added along with all the new and non-ambiguous RGB +formats that got added in recent kernels. + +The device provider now exposes a variety of properties as found in the udev +database. + +The video decoder is now able to negotiate the downstream format. + +Elements that are dynamically created from /dev/video\* now track changes on +these devices to ensure the registry stay up to date. + +All this and various bug fixes that improve both stability and correctness. + +### GStreamer Editing Services + +Added APIs to handle asset proxying support. Proxy creation is not the +responsibility of GES itself, but GES provides all the needed features +for it to be cleanly handled at a higher level. + +Added support for changing playback rate. This means that now, whenever a +user adds a 'pitch' element (as it is the only known element to change playback +rate through properties), GES will handle everything internally. This change +introduced a new media-duration-factor property in NleObject which will +lead to tweaking of seek events so they have the proper playback range to be +requested upstream. + +Construction of NLE objects has been reworked making copy/pasting fully +functional and allowing users to set properties on effects right after +creating them. + +Rework of the title source to add more flexibility in text positioning, +and letting the user get feedback about rendered text positioning. + +Report nlecomposition structural issues (coming from user programing mistakes) +into ERROR messages on the bus. + +Add GI/pythyon testsuite in GES itself, making sure the API is working as expected +in python, and allowing writing tests faster. + +### GstValidate + +Added support to run tests inside gdb. + +Added a 'smart' reporting mode where we give as much information as possible about +critical errors. + +Uses GstTracer now instead of a LD\_PRELOAD library. + +## Miscellaneous + +- encodebin now works with "encoder-muxers" such as wavenc + +- gst-play-1.0 acquired a new keyboard shortcut: '0' seeks back to the start + +- gst-play-1.0 supports two new command line switches: -v for verbose output + and --flags to configure the playbin flags to use. + +## Build and Dependencies + +- The GLib dependency requirement was bumped to 2.40 + +- The -Bsymbolic configure check now works with clang as well + +- ffmpeg is now required as libav provider, incompatible changes were + introduced that make it no longer viable to support both FFmpeg and Libav + as libav providers. Most major distros have switched to FFmpeg or are in + the process of switching to it anyway, so we don't expect this to be a + problem, and there is still an internal copy of ffmpeg that can be used + as fallback if needed. + +- The internal ffmpeg snapshot is now FFMpeg 3.0, but it should be possible + to build against 2.8 as well for the time being. + +## Platform-specific improvements + +### Android + +- Zero-copy video decoding on Android using the hardware-accelerated decoders + has been implemented, and is fully integrated with the GStreamer OpenGL stack + +- ahcsrc, a new camera source element, has been merged and can be used to + capture video on android devices. It uses the android.hardware.Camera Java + API to capture from the system's cameras. + +- The OpenGL-based QML video sink can now also be used on Android + +- New tinyalsasink element, which is mainly useful for Android but can also + be used on other platforms. + +### OS/X and iOS + +- The system clock now uses mach\_absolute\_time() on OSX/iOS, which is + the preferred high-resolution monotonic clock to be used on Apple platforms + +- The OpenGL-based QML video sink can now also be used on OS X and iOS (with + some Qt build system massaging) + +- New IOSurface based memory implementation in avfvideosrc and vtdec on OS X + for zerocopy with OpenGL. The previously used OpenGL extension + GL_APPLE_ycbcr_422 is not compatible with GL 3.x core contexts. + +- New GstAppleCoreVideoMemory wrapping CVPixelBuffer's + +- avfvideosrc now supports renegotiation. + +### Windows + +- Various bugs with UDP and multicast were fixed on Windows, mostly related to + gst-rtsp-server. + +- A few bugs in directsoundsrc and directsoundsink were fixed that could cause + the element to lock up. Also the "mute" property on the sink was fixed, and + a new "device" property for device selection was added to the source. + +## Known Issues + +- Building GStreamer applications with the Android NDK r11 is currently not + supported due to incompatible changes in the NDK. This is expected to be + fixed for 1.8.1. + [Bugzilla #763999](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=763999) + +- vp8enc crashes on 32 bit Windows, but was working fine in 1.6. 64 bit + Windows is unaffected. + [Bugzilla #763663](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=763663) + +## Contributors + +Adam Miartus, Alban Bedel, Aleix Conchillo Flaqué, Aleksander Wabik, +Alessandro Decina, Alex Ashley, Alex Dizengof, Alex Henrie, Alistair Buxton, +Andreas Cadhalpun, Andreas Frisch, André Draszik, Anthony G. Basile, +Antoine Jacoutot, Anton Bondarenko, Antonio Ospite, Arjen Veenhuizen, +Arnaud Vrac, Arun Raghavan, Athanasios Oikonomou, Aurélien Zanelli, Ben Iofel, +Bob Holcomb, Branko Subasic, Carlos Rafael Giani, Chris Bass, Csaba Toth, +Daniel Kamil Kozar, Danilo Cesar Lemes de Paula, Dave Craig, David Fernandez, +David Schleef, David Svensson Fors, David Waring, David Wu, Duncan Palmer, +Edward Hervey, Egor Zaharov, Etienne Peron, Eunhae Choi, Evan Callaway, +Evan Nemerson, Fabian Orccon, Florent Thiéry, Florin Apostol, Frédéric Wang, +George Kiagiadakis, George Yunaev, Göran Jönsson, Graham Leggett, +Guillaume Desmottes, Guillaume Marquebielle, Haihua Hu, Havard Graff, +Heinrich Fink, Holger Kaelberer, HoonHee Lee, Hugues Fruchet, Hyunil Park, +Hyunjun Ko, Ilya Konstantinov, James Stevenson, Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig), +Jan Schmidt, Jason Litzinger, Jens Georg, Jimmy Ohn, Joan Pau Beltran, +Joe Gorse, John Chang, John Slade, Jose Antonio Santos Cadenas, Josep Torra, +Julian Bouzas, Julien Isorce, Julien Moutte, Justin Kim, Kazunori Kobayashi, +Koop Mast, Lim Siew Hoon, Linus Svensson, Lubosz Sarnecki, Luis de Bethencourt, +Lukasz Forynski, Manasa Athreya, Marcel Holtmann, Marcin Kolny, Marcus Prebble, +Mark Nauwelaerts, Maroš Ondrášek, Martin Kelly, Matej Knopp, Mathias Hasselmann, +Mathieu Duponchelle, Matt Crane, Matthew Marsh, Matthew Waters, Matthieu Bouron, +Mersad Jelacic, Michael Olbrich, Miguel París Díaz, Mikhail Fludkov, +Mischa Spiegelmock, Nicola Murino, Nicolas Dufresne, Nicolas Huet, +Nirbheek Chauhan, Ognyan Tonchev, Olivier Crête, Pablo Anton, Pankaj Darak, +Paolo Pettinato, Patricia Muscalu, Paul Arzelier, Pavel Bludov, Perry Hung, +Peter Korsgaard, Peter Seiderer, Petr Viktorin, Philippe Normand, +Philippe Renon, Philipp Zabel, Philip Van Hoof, Philip Withnall, Piotr Drąg, +plamot, Polochon\_street, Prashant Gotarne, Rajat Verma, Ramiro Polla, +Ravi Kiran K N, Reynaldo H. Verdejo Pinochet, Robert Swain, Romain Picard, +Roman Nowicki, Ross Burton, Ryan Hendrickson, Santiago Carot-Nemesio, +Scott D Phillips, Sebastian Dröge, Sebastian Rasmussen, Sergey Borovkov, +Seungha Yang, Sjors Gielen, Song Bing, Sreerenj Balachandran, Srimanta Panda, +Stavros Vagionitis, Stefan Sauer, Steven Hoving, Stian Selnes, Suhwang Kim, +Thiago Santos, Thibault Saunier, Thijs Vermeir, Thomas Bluemel, Thomas Roos, +Thomas Vander Stichele, Tim-Philipp Müller, Tim Sheridan, Ting-Wei Lan, +Tom Deseyn, Vanessa Chipirrás Navalón, Víctor Manuel Jáquez Leal, +Vincent Dehors, Vincent Penquerc'h, Vineeth T M, Vivia Nikolaidou, +Wang Xin-yu (王昕宇), William Manley, Wim Taymans, Wonchul Lee, Xavi Artigas, +Xavier Claessens, Youness Alaoui, + +... and many others who have contributed bug reports, translations, sent +suggestions or helped testing. + +## Bugs fixed in 1.8 + +More than [~700 bugs][bugs-fixed-in-1.8] have been fixed during +the development of 1.8. + +This list does not include issues that have been cherry-picked into the +stable 1.6 branch and fixed there as well, all fixes that ended up in the +1.6 branch are also included in 1.8. + +This list also does not include issues that have been fixed without a bug +report in bugzilla, so the actual number of fixes is much higher. + +[bugs-fixed-in-1.8]: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&classification=Platform&limit=0&list_id=107311&order=bug_id&product=GStreamer&query_format=advanced&resolution=FIXED&target_milestone=1.6.1&target_milestone=1.6.2&target_milestone=1.6.3&target_milestone=1.7.0&target_milestone=1.7.1&target_milestone=1.7.2&target_milestone=1.7.3&target_milestone=1.7.4&target_milestone=1.7.90&target_milestone=1.7.91&target_milestone=1.7.92&target_milestone=1.7.x&target_milestone=1.8.0 + +## Stable 1.8 branch + +After the 1.8.0 release there will be several 1.8.x bug-fix releases which +will contain bug fixes which have been deemed suitable for a stable branch, +but no new features or intrusive changes will be added to a bug-fix release +usually. The 1.8.x bug-fix releases will be made from the git 1.8 branch, which +is a stable branch. + +### 1.8.0 + +1.8.0 was released on 24 March 2016. + +### 1.8.1 + +The first 1.8 bug-fix release (1.8.1) is planned for April 2016. + +## Schedule for 1.10 + +Our next major feature release will be 1.10, and 1.9 will be the unstable +development version leading up to the stable 1.10 release. The development +of 1.9/1.10 will happen in the git master branch. + +The plan for the 1.10 development cycle is yet to be confirmed, but it is +expected that feature freeze will be around late July or early August, +followed by several 1.9 pre-releases and the new 1.10 stable release +in September. + +1.10 will be backwards-compatible to the stable 1.8, 1.6, 1.4, 1.2 and 1.0 +release series. + +- - - + +*These release notes have been prepared by Tim-Philipp Müller with +contributions from Sebastian Dröge, Nicolas Dufresne, Edward Hervey, Víctor +Manuel Jáquez Leal, Arun Raghavan, Thiago Santos, Thibault Saunier, Jan +Schmidt and Matthew Waters.* + +*License: [CC BY-SA 4.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)* |