OpenBeOS Media Kit Alpha 1

This is the first alpha release of the new OpenBeOS Media Kit.
A large number of functionality is already present, but it is not feature complete.
However, you already have the possibility to run a few selected applications, since they do not depend on the media kit codec interface, or any other APIs that have not been implemented yet. Anything else will not work, see the known problems list below!

This media kit release already replaces 4 core components, but still uses some of the BeOS R5 media-add-ons and soundcard drivers.

You must run the file runserver.sh from a Terminal

Only the 4 supported applications have been tested, others may not work.

It is important that SoundPlay and CL-Amp do use their own mp3 codec, and not the media kit.

You may run the supported applications from a Terminal

Expect Alpha 2 release in two or three weeks, I'm working on a improved audio mixer, the current one doesn't work very well, you may get nothing else than silence.

Discussion of media kit problems, issues, comments, etc. should be done by
sending mail to the OpenBeOS Media Kit mailinglist.
You can subscribe to it here.

Supported Applications:

• CL-Amp (mp3 playback only)
• SoundPlay (up to version 4.7.3, NOT THE BETA VERSIONS, mp3 playback only)
• Cortex
• BeOS R5 TV application (no control panel)

Replaced Components:

• media_server (the main server application)
• media_addon_server (used by the server to load media add-ons)
• libmedia.so (main library providing the API to applications)
• mixer.media_addon (system audio mixer replacement)

Known Problems:

• If you have more than one soundcard, one of them is picked randomly as default audio output
• Emu10k chipset based soundcards (SoundBlaster Live, SoundBlaster 512PCI) will crash the media_addon_server
• You can't change the default audio output with the Media Preference panel
• The current SoundPlay beta versions use undocumented APIs and can't be used
• The media kit may fail to recognize the soundcard
• The new audio mixer only supports 44.1 kHz, if the soundcard needs 48 kHz it will remain silent
• The mixer does only support float and int16 data formats
• Due to other unknown reasons, the mixer sometimes doesn't work, you only get silence
• System sound events, like startup and shutdown sounds, are not played
• Parameter Controls have known bugs and don't work (StampTV failes because of this)
• Media Themes, representing the the Parameter Controls, are not implemented
• The media_server crashes when you quit it.
• The BMediaFile and BMediaTrack API are not implemented (BeOS R5 MediaPlayer failes because of this)
• The Game Kit depends on some not implemented functions, applications using it will not work (Video Lan Client (VLC) failes because of this)
• The BeOS R5 encoder media-add-on can't be used
• The BeOS R5 decoder media-add-on can't be used
• The BeOS R5 mixer media-add-on can't be used
• Some BTimeSource nodes have negative port numbers, and are not correctly handled by Cortex
• Very often connections between the mixer and applications are not shown in Cortex
• You can't change the master
• The Deskbar volume control replicant won't work
• Volume control using the Media Preferences is not possible
• StampTV doesn't work
• VideoLanClient doesn't work
• BeOS R5 MediaPlayer doesn't work

Have Fun!
Marcus Overhagen