GStreamer Media Player

A basic command-line media player built with GStreamer that supports video and audio playback without a GUI.

Features

• Play video and audio files
• Display playback position and duration
• Automatic format detection
• Error handling and status messages
• Support for seeking-enabled streams

Prerequisites

Windows

Install GStreamer development packages:

1. Download GStreamer from https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/
2. Install both runtime and development installers
3. Add GStreamer bin directory to PATH

Linux

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev

# Fedora
sudo dnf install gstreamer1-devel gstreamer1-plugins-base-devel

macOS

brew install gstreamer

Building

Using CMake

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

Using GCC directly (Linux/macOS)

gcc main.c -o gst_player `pkg-config --cflags --libs gstreamer-1.0`

Using MSVC (Windows)

cl main.c /I"C:\gstreamer\1.0\msvc_x86_64\include\gstreamer-1.0" /I"C:\gstreamer\1.0\msvc_x86_64\include\glib-2.0" /I"C:\gstreamer\1.0\msvc_x86_64\lib\glib-2.0\include" /link gstreamer-1.0.lib glib-2.0.lib gobject-2.0.lib

Usage

# Using file path
./gst_player /path/to/video.mp4

# Using URI
./gst_player file:///path/to/video.mp4

# HTTP streaming
./gst_player http://example.com/video.mp4

Supported Formats

The player supports any format that GStreamer can decode, including:

• Video: MP4, AVI, MKV, MOV, WebM, FLV, etc.
• Audio: MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, WAV, etc.
• Streaming: HTTP, RTSP, etc.

Controls

• The player will automatically start playback
• Press Ctrl+C to stop playback
• Position and duration are displayed every second during playback

Troubleshooting

If you encounter errors:

1. Ensure GStreamer is properly installed
2. Check that the media file path is correct
3. Verify the file format is supported
4. Install additional GStreamer plugins if needed:
   • gstreamer1.0-plugins-good
   • gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
   • gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly