DART-MX8M GSTREAMER

DART-MX8M - Streaming Video

Introduction to GStreamer

GStreamer is a powerful pipeline-based multimedia framework.
It allows programmers to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing.
This is not a GStreamer reference manual but an overview for using it on the Variscite i.MX8 products.
This release uses the gstreamer-imx set of GStreamer 1.0 plugins for Freescale's i.MX platform, which make use of the i.MX multimedia capabilities.

Major GStreamer commands

There are two major commands:
gst-inspect - allows you to to get documentation on available elements and detailed information on a specific element.
gst-launch - allows you to create and execute GStreamer pipelines.

gst-inspect

Lists all available elements:

$ gst-inspect-1.0

Lists all available sink elements:

$ gst-inspect-1.0 | grep sink

For example:

root@imx8m-var-dart:~# gst-inspect-1.0 | grep sink
alsa:  alsasink: Audio sink (ALSA)
waylandsink:  waylandsink: wayland video sink
shm:  shmsink: Shared Memory Sink
decklink:  decklinkaudiosink: Decklink Audio Sink
decklink:  decklinkvideosink: Decklink Video Sink
ximagesink:  ximagesink: Video sink
soup:  souphttpclientsink: HTTP client sink
autodetect:  autovideosink: Auto video sink
autodetect:  autoaudiosink: Auto audio sink
gdkpixbuf:  gdkpixbufsink: GdkPixbuf sink
playback:  playsink: Player Sink
video4linux2:  v4l2sink: Video (video4linux2) Sink
fbdevsink:  fbdevsink: fbdev video sink
tcp:  tcpclientsink: TCP client sink
tcp:  tcpserversink: TCP server sink
...

Detailed help information on a specific element:

$ gst-inspect-1.0 vpudec

For example:

root@imx8m-var-dart:~# gst-inspect-1.0 vpudec
Factory Details:
  Rank                     primary + 1 (257)
  Long-name                VPU-based video decoder
  Klass                    Codec/Decoder/Video
  Description              Decode compressed video to raw data
  Author                   Multimedia Team <shmmmw@freescale.com>

Plugin Details:
  Name                     vpu.imx
  Description              VPU video codec
  Filename                 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/libgstvpu.so
  Version                  4.3.4
  License                  LGPL
  Source module            imx-gst1.0-plugin
  Binary package           Freescle Gstreamer Multimedia Plugins
  Origin URL               http://www.freescale.com

GObject
 +----GInitiallyUnowned
       +----GstObject
             +----GstElement
                   +----GstVideoDecoder
                         +----GstVpuDec

Pad Templates:
  SINK template: 'sink'
    Availability: Always
    Capabilities:
      video/x-h265
      video/x-vp9
      video/x-vp8
      video/x-vp6-flash
      video/x-h264
      video/mpeg
           systemstream: false
            mpegversion: { (int)1, (int)2 }
      video/mpeg
            mpegversion: 4
      video/x-h263
      video/x-flash-video
             flvversion: 1
      video/x-divx
            divxversion: 3
      video/x-divx
            divxversion: 4
      video/x-divx
            divxversion: { (int)5, (int)6 }
      video/x-xvid
      video/x-cavs
      video/x-wmv
             wmvversion: 3
                 format: WMV3
      video/x-wmv
             wmvversion: 3
                 format: WVC1
      video/x-pn-realvideo
      image/jpeg
      image/webp

  SRC template: 'src'
    Availability: Always
    Capabilities:
      video/x-raw
                 format: { (string)NV12, (string)I420, (string)YV12, (string)Y42B, (string)NV16, (string)Y444, (string)NV24, (string)NV12_10LE }
                  width: [ 1, 2147483647 ]
                 height: [ 1, 2147483647 ]
              framerate: [ 0/1, 2147483647/1 ]


Element Flags:
  no flags set

Element Implementation:
  Has change_state() function: gst_video_decoder_change_state

Element has no clocking capabilities.
Element has no URI handling capabilities.

Pads:
  SINK: 'sink'
    Pad Template: 'sink'
  SRC: 'src'
    Pad Template: 'src'

Element Properties:
  name                : The name of the object
                        flags: readable, writable
                        String. Default: "vpudec0"
  parent              : The parent of the object
                        flags: readable, writable
                        Object of type "GstObject"
  output-format       : set raw video format for output (Y42B NV16 Y444 NV24 only for MJPEG)
                        flags: readable, writable
                        Enum "GstVpuDecOutputFormat" Default: 0, "auto"
                           (0): auto             - enable chroma interleave. (default)
                           (1): NV12             - NV12 format
                           (2): I420             - I420 format
                           (3): YV12             - YV12 format
                           (4): Y42B             - Y42B format
                           (5): NV16             - NV16 format
                           (6): Y444             - Y444 format
                           (7): NV24             - NV24 format
  frame-drop          : enable adaptive frame drop for smoothly playback
                        flags: readable, writable
                        Boolean. Default: true
  frame-plus          : set number of addtional frames for smoothly playback
                        flags: readable, writable
                        Unsigned Integer. Range: 0 - 16 Default: 3 
  use-vpu-memory      : use vpu allocate video frame buffer
                        flags: readable, writable
                        Boolean. Default: true

Test Pattern Stream

Test pattern allows you to display pre-built image/video patterns on the display. It is very useful when you don't have a camera but still want to test GStreamer.
Default test pattern:

$ gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! kmssink

Test pattern with specific parameters on the input element

$ gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc pattern=circular ! kmssink 

Camera Loopback

Stream video from a camera to a display

$ gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! kmssink

Video Recording

Save video stream from camera as an MJPEG-encoded AVI file

$ gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 num-buffers=100 ! video/x-raw,width=1920,height=1080 ! jpegenc ! avimux ! filesink location=./test0.avi

Video Playback

Example of a video file playback using the playbin element (making use of the i.MX8M VPU decoder)

$ gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file:/run/media/sda1/big_buck_bunny.mp4 

Example of a video file playback while explicitly specifying a pipeline (making use of the i.MX8M VPU decoder)

$ gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=/run/media/sda1/big_buck_bunny.mp4 typefind=true ! video/quicktime ! aiurdemux ! queue max-size-time=0 ! vpudec ! kmssink

RTP Video streaming

Encode video stream from camera using a software jpeg encoder and stream it over RTP

$ gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! video/x-raw,width=1280,height=720 ! jpegenc ! rtpjpegpay ! udpsink host=192.168.20.60 port=1223

References

• The GStreamer website
• NXP BSP Linux Users Guide, Multimedia section download link