GStreamer - aleslab/Psychtoolbox-3-aleslab-fork GitHub Wiki

[GStreamer](GStreamer) - Installation instructions for the [GStreamer](GStreamer) media framework.

Psychtoolbox uses the [GStreamer](GStreamer) multi-media framework for all multi-media
related operations. On Windows with Matlab, [GStreamer](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](GStreamer). These functions won't work without a
working [GStreamer](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 1.2 of [GStreamer](GStreamer) on Linux and version 1.4
on Windows or OSX, but we recommend to use the latest available stable
release of the version 1 series.

Any recent 2013 Linux distribution will include support for [GStreamer](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](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]((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.

You must install [GStreamer](GStreamer) if you want to use multi-media functions!
You must also install [GStreamer](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](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](GStreamer) regardless if you want to use multi-media
functionality or not, as the Screen() mex file won't work at all without [GStreamer](GStreamer)
installed.

NOTE: Many Matlab versions on MS-Windows show instable behavior with [GStreamer](GStreamer),
e.g., crashing in SimpleMovieDemo and other demos that use [GStreamer](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

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](GStreamer) packages for installation, so restart the
installer and repeat installation with the full set of packages.