Flock 2025 Multimedia In Fedora: Why We Can't Have All The Nice Things?

All right. Uh I think we can start. Um Wow, so many people. Uh good morning, everyone. Um welcome to the multimedia in Fedora talk. Um So, uh here's what I'm going to talk about. I hope there will be a lot of questions. They usually are. Um So, um first, a few words about me. Um well, I've been within this community for a very long time, but uh there probably are still people uh hopefully there are and many people who still don't know me, so I'll tell you. Um Then, we'll go uh on a journey through the history of multimedia software in Fedora. Uh it's quite a long one and then with many twists. Um Then, I will tell you uh what we can't have in Fedora yet uh due to various reasons. Um and then, I will show you what we already have, and it's quite a lot. Uh when I was preparing this uh kind of jumped at me. Wow, we have so many things in Fedora already, which is great. And then, uh if you're interested, I'll uh suggest a few ways to assist, help, and uh participate in uh making community multimedia in Fedora better. All right. So, let's roll. Um about myself. Yeah, so um for those who don't know me, um I've been uh an open source computer contributor for like 25 years now. Um If you go to the Open Hub, you can see that uh for example, my uh Fedora contributions started around 2006, but before that, uh it was actually multimedia that got me into open source contributing contribut- uh contributing because uh the the first thing I worked on was MPlayer. So, who in the room used MPlayer? Yes, thank you. So, um Yeah, that that kind of got me into into into open source a lot cuz it was a fantastic community. Sometimes a bit rough, but yeah, I still remember it fondly. Nowadays, MPlayer is a bit like How do you call it? Unmaintained, let's say. MPV, I think, took the place of MPlayer. But yeah, I also contributed to a little bit to FFmpeg, the DVD access libraries, the extended module player. Who in the room knows what modules are, music music modules are? Okay, there are some. Great. Yeah, back in the day when multimedia on PC was still becoming a thing. Before that, we had like the personal computers of that era, Amiga, Commodore. So, there was there were many people who created music on those and I think they are Amiga demo scene or music scene became the most vibrant and the modules come from >> [clears throat] >> that space. They they had those uh software programs, applications we call them now, called trackers, let you create sheet music and uh there there were like tens of different formats uh that uh music was stored in, so this there are quite a few uh programs on for Linux, for example, that that can play those, and XMMS is one of the best. So, when I found it, I I did a little little bit of work there as well. So, uh then uh I start I I I start to studying, then I I even worked at the university, so that's where I got the scientific software uh part. I was friends with many scientists, [clears throat] and they used some software with they used Fedora, and the software wasn't packaged, so naturally >> [clears throat] >> uh I helped with that. Um so, there are a few software packages [clears throat] still in Fedora uh that were originally created by me. Nowadays, I don't I don't work for the university. Uh I don't uh meet the the scientists so much anymore, so there was no point in me maintaining them anymore. I gave them over. There are quite a few uh people still doing scientific software, so they are in good hands. Uh so, now nowadays, my main area is multimedia. So, I actually established a multimedia SIG. And uh I also served on the Fedora packaging committee, uh did a one term uh FASCo. A very interesting experience. Uh I recommend everyone to try. Um yeah, um professionally, I'm have over 20 years of experience. Uh as I mentioned, I worked for the University of Warsaw, I did a one and a half years at CERN. I also recommend that place if you can go there. And uh now I work for Citi which like one of our previous CEO said is an IT company with a banking license. So, also great place to work. Um so, yeah. I've I've got a bit of experience especially in this community. So, multimedia is my favorite topic. So, how did we get here? It's a long story. Uh it starts much earlier than this uh table shows, but let's start we have to start somewhere because otherwise I can talk for hours about this. So, uh we didn't have everything we wanted even back then especially back then in Fedora. So, uh a few people here and there established like third-party repositories with packages that weren't in Fedora. So, one of those was FreshRPMS. Another was Livna. Uh there were quite a few people in those two communities. And they were established in the early 2000s. Um Around the same time the streamer got into Fedora also the first uh royalty-free or unencumbered and not encumbered by patents codex like Theora or Vorbis. Theora's for video, Vorbis for audio. Uh yeah, I was looking up some interesting software that's people might recognize. So, uh who who in the room used XMMS for playing music? Yes. Sorry? Yeah, okay. Uh yeah, but in 2005 it got into Fedora and we could play some music. Then next year we got design. Um and following year we got a new uh royalty free codec called Dirac. I think it was funded by the BBC, but I don't think it went anywhere. It didn't become popular. Too bad. Uh same year uh a project that I'm still part of RPM Fusion, the third party like the most popular or essential third party repository these days. So, we started back in 2007. It was a merger of uh those two that are listed FreshRPMS and Livna and one another called Dribble. Uh but that was primarily for games. Um Yeah, we we tried to get other like RPM Forge like ATRPMs, but there were some let's say creative differences uh that caused that not to happen. Um Yeah, but this is mostly where the history begins. Um then we got more and more multimedia software like the second edition of XMMS and QMP. I think that's a player for with the QT framework. Uh then new codecs appeared. Finally, the those that got more popular VP8, VP9 they there were some there was some thought about them that they may be still patented or covered by the same patterns for that are there for H.264, but uh nobody challenged them in court, fortunately. So, yeah, they they are still with us to this day. VP9 especially is like I think most of the videos on YouTube are encoded to VP9 by Google. Uh and an audio codec Opus uh was also added to Fedora next year. Uh so, now you could actually watch all YouTube because Google started re-encoding everything to the royalty-free codecs. Uh And now all material is available in those uh free formats. Um so, then there was a little gap and not much happened in the multimedia area. Then uh Cisco came along and bought everyone uh a license. So, the whole world could use their code their binaries uh to decode and encode uh H.264. Uh this is This is open H.264 uh which we have in Fedora. Nowadays, it's causing us a little trouble, which probably some of you are aware of, but yeah, we're thinking of how to deal with that. Um next year, MP3 came along. Finally, we could have it in Fedora proper. Yay. Uh that was important from RPM Fusion, of course. Uh yeah, that's the first part and I'm going to take a small break to drink. Okay. Um so, um this is my favorite. So, that then uh started getting more and more codecs that were previously not possible to have in Fedora like uh AC3, which is uh mostly found on DVDs, uh MP2, which is MPEG-1 layer two, uh a version of AAC a little stripped down um because it doesn't play correctly some of the files encoded with um a high efficiency profile. But, uh yeah, I was initially I did the package review of FDK-AAC free. It was a bit controversial. Uh some people were were against it. I was against it uh because silently played the files wrong, but Fasco decided it's better than to have something than nothing, and it also unblocked some other things, so well, there was no technical reason to uh to block it, so it went in. Uh of course, at the same time we did a counterpart in uh RPM Fusion that provided the full version that was parallel installable. Uh and then major development AV1. Uh it's like think it's it's actually gaining popularity a lot. Uh it's it's present in hardware decoders on GPUs, modern GPUs. So, um in my opinion, that's a lot. Okay. So, um then then we got some other codecs like uh the the Bluetooth one LDAC, uh MPEG-1 and two was possible as well. And then Andreas came and figured out together with some other folks what we have to strip from FFmpeg to be able to get it into Fedora. So and finally in February 2022 we got FFmpeg in Fedora. And that's like a game-changer for me because now practically everything that wants to do multimedia uses FFmpeg one way or another. So that unblocked like the whole world for us and we we could start bringing in stuff from RPMfusion and package new stuff that was depending on FFmpeg. So we got the MPV, the best player ever or at least so far. We got video editors uh more codex were also possible due to patents expiring. Um Yeah, and like we got a big like big names like OBS Open Broadcaster Studio. Uh VLC SMPlayer is a front end for MPV actually. Uh we got yeah all those other uh major software like OpenShot Shotcut Uh I know many people use >> [clears throat] >> So we got all of those. Uh there are still some but I'll talk about it later. Uh an interesting development this this year, uh there are some new codex royalty free. And one is called Open APV. It's supposed to be like the replacement or competitor to ProRes. And there and then there is MPEG-5. It has two profiles. One is that we have in Fedora. It's all royalty free and not covered by any patterns that are still valid. So, we got that part in Fedora. And yeah. >> [laughter] >> This This month I'm talking to you, which is great. So, what we can't have yet. The things I kind of hinted at. So, H.264, the only thing we can have is the Cisco implementation. There are still patents covering it. There some of I think most of them are expiring in about two or three years. But, you know, with patents it it's tricky. Sometimes there are some that are not >> [clears throat] >> listed anywhere, but or someone haven't found them yet. And we we have to be careful and just wait for the legal opinion that we that it is allowed. H.265, that's going to take a a bit more time because the patents are still there for for many years. And it's it's kind of sucks because like iPhone produces stuff encoded with 265. It's part of the DVB-T2 standard. So, we're going to see material encoded in this for many years to come. And we still can't have it in Fedora yet. Then there are some new standards like H.266, aka VVC. There are some older and like VC-1 that are I put an an asterisk there and also with some audio codecs, the Bluetooth ones, aptX for example. Uh and DTS that's for also Blu-ray uh audio um because um I heard rumors that they are they might be acceptable uh quite soon. So, we'll see. Um All right. So, what we already have in Fedora. Uh as I mentioned initially, it's quite a lot. So, we have the major uh multimedia libraries and frameworks. So, FFmpeg, GStreamer, Qt Multimedia. Everything builds on top of those. So, we have that Well, FFmpeg doesn't have some codecs, but doesn't doesn't matter that much. Um we have almost all the video players, MPV, VLC, Caffeine. There's one that I like very much that's for GNOME. Uh it's called Clapper. Uh it's like very small. I I don't know. Uh 2 MB or something because it it uses GStreamer, it uses GTK. So, it's just a wrapper around everything we already have and it's very nice. Uh if you like minimal uh players. Then, we have tons of audio players. Uh I won't be enumerating the names. Okay. Uh everyone has their own favorite. We have video editors. We have audio editors. We even have subtitle editors and uh Aegisub I don't know how to pronounce it. Aegisub is a new addition uh I think last month. Uh we have the the DLNA servers. I use MiniDLNA personally, for example. And it works very very well. So, as I said, we we have a lot. Uh of course, there is stuff out there that you can help bring in. So, uh oh but first, tell people to use non-proprietary codecs, please. You can also uh come and join us uh in the multimedia SIG. Uh we try to co-maintain all the multimedia packages in Fedora. Um so, there is also always work to do. Um we could use some help with getting the missing codecs in Fedora. Uh like those with the asterisk that I mentioned. For example, for aptX, there is a package in RPM Fusion, of course, but uh from what I heard, there is an implementation that Qualcomm donated to the Android open-source project, and that could be brought into Fedora. Uh but yeah, that needs to be researched. Uh of course, uh we try to work with upstreams. Uh for example, with the MPD 5 uh codecs, [clears throat] uh they build only on x86-64. And I think on ARM, but there were some issues. So, I had to actually go and fix the C make files so that they would build on s390x uh and and PPC uh 64 LE. So, uh I managed to upstream that, which is great. Um so, we need help with that kind of stuff as well. Um and of course, uh whenever uh anything is updated, new new releases, please come, test the stuff, play your favorite videos, uh and report issues if you find any. So, right. Time for questions. >> Wow. I guess I stunned you. Yes. >> I think I think you mentioned Apple. Um what about photos HEIC, I think it is, that Apple cameras take now? That doesn't seem to be usable on Fedora. >> Um all right, so you mentioned HEIC, yes. So uh it is usable if you if they because I think Apple uses H.265 as the encoder for the because HEIC actually it's called HEIF uh although they call it HEIC. Uh but you can use different codecs inside. And Apple uses the patented one by default, but you can use others. If you want to decode those, you'll need to get the at the free world package from RPM Fusion. And once you install that, magically it all starts working. Yes. Yes, it's it's supported. Is that you just need the the package that links lib have to to the H.265 decoder. For H.265, I honestly haven't checked because they are years It was still valid for many years. I only checked H.264 because that's close by, like we we might be able to get H.264 other implementations even quite soon, like next couple of years. But H.265, sorry. But yeah, survive on that. That's That's what I even mentioned in the in the description of this talk that yeah, and the iPhone videos out of the box don't work, but it's you're just one package away from from getting all the all that to work. Okay. >> So, uh you mentioned there were a few codecs that are not available in Fedora yet. So, where can one get them? In the RPM Fusion? >> Yeah. For now, the the answer is RPM Fusion, yeah. >> Yeah. That is uh the GStreamer something package or a specific one? >> So, uh basically, uh you need the either the libavcodec freeworld package, which is parallel installable to the libavcodec free at the present in Fedora, or you can just swap the whole FFmpeg implementation and install FFmpeg from RPM Fusion. Whichever you like, but you can just install the add-on. And the one for for lib have you need also to install to get iPhone videos playable. And uh I think there's much more. There are quite There are I think there's There are a couple of plugins for GStreamer, but they only Oh, they only add x264 encoding. There's one for VLC, I think, as well for x264 encoding. Uh one major thing that's in RPM Fusion that still not in Fedora is HandBrake, uh which I personally use for encoding or ripping, you used to call it, the DVDs. Uh I did a proof of concept uh to have HandBrake with only free codecs, um but well, when I mentioned it to the uh the upstream, they were against it because they said, "Oh, but mo- most of our profiles are for H.264 X H.264 encoder." So, um for for now, I'm keeping it in RPM Fusion, but I'm I'm a bit, you know, on the fence because uh I I kind of agree that it's better to have something in Fedora than nothing. >> Okay. And another one, I was always confused by the naming on the RPM Fusion codecs that there is GStreamer bad, GStreamer good. >> Oh, it's not the RPM Fusion naming. It's It's It's GStreamer naming. So, that that they they split their uh their code into several like subprojects. So, the There are plugins good, which w- uh which are in Fedora and which GStreamer upstream considers like production quality, let's say. And then there are there are bad, which are I I don't remember the the difference, but we but the There are different reasons why they are considered bad. And then there are ugly. It's uh One thing is, I think, licensing, and the other is uh code quality. So, uh it's actually GStreamer naming. And not not not something RPM Fusion invented. >> Yeah, thanks. >> You're welcome. >> Actually, there's one more question. >> There's one question in the back. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, thank you for the overview. Um you recommended to use Libre Codecs. Do you have a clear favorite that you say, "Okay, this one works reasonably well and uh maybe even has software support?" >> Favorite codec. So, I think I view I view one is that uh because it's gaining popularity with the anime fan subbing community. And like one of one of the uh and player on and FFmpeg developers said here many years ago uh codec development or is anime driven. >> [laughter] >> So, yeah, it's I've I've I've been watching that unfold over the last couple of years and AV1 is definitely gaining popularity there because it really it really cuts down the the size of of the videos and uh uh processing power caught up with uh with the demands of the codec and we have hardware decoding implementations of AV1 and even encoding in newest GPUs. So, yeah, I think AV1 at least for now if if if I had to say one now, it's it would be AV1. >> So, uh thank you for that. Uh I think it was a quite a great review of all uh the codings that are there. I have a question about the packaging in FFmpeg though because you know okay, so we have uh official let's say FFmpeg in Fedora and then we got FFmpeg 3D. Uh we got free world from RPM Fusion, but there's also another one from Jellyfin developers. Uh what's the status of all these? Do you plan to or try to put it all together at some point? Uh I assume uh Jellyfin would be mostly related to hardware acceleration, but I wanted to know if you knew what this was all about. >> Uh sorry, what what was the third one you mentioned? >> Jellyfin one. Did Jellyfin developers offer yet another FFmpeg package themselves? >> Jellyfin? >> Yeah. It's a basically it's a kind of a video application. It's a kind of >> Oh, okay. Uh I was not aware of that one. I mean, there we have Jellyfin in RPM Fusion. Someone is trying or was trying to get it into Fedora. There was was even a review request open. I didn't know it bundled FFmpeg on its own. Um so, okay, that's all that the split is like this. Uh We can ship some even some sources in uh, from FFmpeg in Fedora, so they are stripped and that's what we have in Fedora. Um, FFmpeg has the full I mean RPM Fusion has the full sources. Uh, but the difference is just the codex enabled in libavcodec. So, whenever we can have everything and I had rumors that we we will will be able to ship the whole sources in Fedora even, so it the only difference will be the build options. >> Good, so thank you. >> Um, yeah, that's it. Okay? >> Okay, we are running out of time. Thank you everybody. Um, let's go for some break. >> Thank you. >> [applause]