Multiplatform

GStreamer has been ported to a wide range of operating systems, processors and compilers. This include but are not limited to Linux on i86,PPC, ARM using GCC. Solaris on x86 and SPARC using both GCC and Forte, MacOSX, Microsoft Windows using MS Visual Developer and IBM OS/400.

Comprehensive Core Library

• Graph-based structure allows arbitrary pipeline construction
• Based on GLib 2.0 object model for object-oriented design and inheritance
• Compact core library of less than 500KB, about 65 K lines of code
• Multi-threaded pipelines are trivial and transparent to construct
• Clean and simple API for both plugin and application developers
• Extremely lightweight data passing means very high performance/low latency
• Complete debugging system for both core and plugin/app developers
• Clocking to ensure global inter-stream synchronization (a/v sync)
• Quality of service (qos) to ensure best possible quality under high CPU load

Intelligent Plugin Architecture

• Dynamically loaded plugins provide elements and media types, demand-loaded via an XML registry, similar to ld.so.cache
• Element interface handles all known types of sources, filters, sinks
• Capabilities system allows verification of element compatibility using MIME types and media-specific properties
• Autoplugging uses capabilities system to complete complex paths automatically
• Pipelines can be saved to XML and loaded back to working state
• Resource friendly plugins don't waste RAM

Extensive Development Tools

• gst-launch command-line tool for quick prototyping and testing, similar to ecasound
• A lot of documentation, including partially completed manual and plugin writer's guide
• Large selection of test programs and example code
• Access to GStreamer API with various programming languages
• Graphical editor allows pipelines to be built quickly, run, and saved as XML (not ported to 0.10)

GStreamer is rapidly approaching a stable API. There is still a number of items on our TODO list.