xmfbin experiments, ixmfmux

This is the third report for the iXMF GSoC project. In this phase I've done experiments on an element called xmfbin, that would implement similar behavior of an iXMF engine. Me and my mentor have discussed the difficulties and aspects of this element for defining what we'll do next.

The experiments were all about learning more about the runtime environment required for ixmf. xmfbin was able to play simultaneously mp3 files embedded in a xmf file, created using our own xmfmux component. We had some problems when playing a mp3 file two times while using pulsesink, debug shows there may be a problem with discontinuity but alsasink did not present the same problem. We're still looking into it.

There are also other ideas regarding how ixmf playback could be done using GStreamer, we have stashed them and we'll probably revisit them on the next few weeks.

Now I'll start coding ixmfmux, which is just an extension of xmfmux. The addition is that it embeds special data structures used for ixmf effects (e.g fading, transitions, volume control, etc).

Project Schedule

Week	Date	Event	Status
0	May 18th	First component delivered	xmfdemux delivered
1	May 24th	GSoC officially begins	Designing xmfmux
2	May 31th	Coding xmfmux	xmfmux, unit tests
3	Jun 7th	Coding xmfmux	muxing of complex folder structures
4	Jun 14th	Second component delivered	xmfmux delivered, start designing ixmf playback engine and muxing requirements
5	Jun 21th	iXMF bin design and prototype	extended
5	Jun 28th	xmfbin experiments	xmfbin initial implementation
6	Jul 5th	xmfbin experiments	simultaneous playback tests with formats other than (e.g. mp3)
7	Jul 12th	xmfbin experiments	seeking, samplebin-like behavior
8	Jul 16th	GSoC Mid-term	GSoC midterm evaluations
8	Jul 19th	ixmf startup	start coding ixmfmux component for samples generation