Pipeline

A Pipeline is where all the media processing takes place in PiTiVi.

In order to hide the complexity of the underlying GStreamer pipeline, we only have to work with 3 concepts:

• Producer(s), responsible for providing data streams and the associated GStreamer elements
• Consumer(s), responsible for consuming data streams and the associated GStreamer elements
• Action(s), which brings in the combination of:
  • Which Consumer(s) and Producer(s) to use, and how to link the associated GStreamer elements
  • What the overall Action is, useful for the UI to provide the adequate interface for each action

Pipeline

Properties

• Actions, the list of Actions currently being used in the pipeline
• Producers, the list of Producers being used
• Consumers, the list of Consumers being used

Signals

• action-added, a new Action was added to the pipeline
• action-removed, an Action was removed to the pipeline

Producer

Properties

• Factory, the ObjectFactory being controlled by this Producer
• Pipeline, the Pipeline in which this Producer is being used

Class Properties

• CompatibleFactory, a list of ObjectFactory types this Producer can manage

Signals

• factory-changed

Consumer

Properties

• Factory, the ObjectFactory being controlled by this Consumer
• Pipeline, the Pipeline in which this Consumer is being used

Class Properties

• CompatibleFactory, a list of ObjectFactory types this Consumer can manage

Signals

• factory-changed

Action

Properties

• Pipeline, on which it is being used, or going to be used
• Producers, that this Action is controlling
• Consumers, that this Action is controlling
• State, whether it is activated or not

Class Properties

• CompatibleProducer, a list of Producer types this Action can handle
• CompatibleConsumer, a list of Consumer types this Action can handle

Signals

• state-changed

Use Cases

Viewing a File

This is the simplest use-case for a Pipeline, which is viewing a File.

As can be seen in the Schema, there is only one action (ViewAction) which connects a SourceProducer to a LocalSinksConsumer.

Rendering a Timeline

In this example, we are doing 2 actions at the same time:

• Viewing the Timeline and,
• Rendering the Timeline.

Setting up the render

Supposing we already had our Timeline Pipeline (With the TimelineProducer, LocalSinksConsumer and ViewAction), we just had to:

• Create a 'RenderAction' with our existing TimelineProducer as that action's producer,
• Set that Action on the Timeline
  • UI: We get notified of a new Action set on the Pipeline, we open the adequate UI for that Action (if needed).
• Configure the newly created 'LocalRenderConsumer' which is the Consumer to which our RenderAction is linked to.
  • UI: The Render Timeline interface linked to our action has access to the configured Consumer and can open the adequate Configuration Widget for that Consumer.

Actually Rendering

• We activate the Action on the pipeline
  • The pipeline gets reconfigured with all activated actions
• We set the pipeline to PLAYING

Finish rendering

When we are done rendering (because we got an EOS or such), we can then:

• Remove that Action from the Pipeline (which will deactivate the action first, resetting the pipeline internally at the same time)
  • UI: We get notified an action has been removed, we close the related interface/widgets.

Relationship with GStreamer