Multimedia Renderer Architecture

The multimedia rendering component, mm-renderer, allows multimedia applications to request and control the playback of audio and video media from files and devices.

mm-renderer provides mechanisms for:

  • specifying the set of media to play
  • issuing playback control commands
  • retrieving the current playback status
  • requesting notifications when the status changes
  • providing dynamic metadata (such as position in a track or playlist) for some media content

The multimedia renderer API lets you control playback and recording of media, and receive events to see the status of your media operations.

To gather information about the current playback status, use the BPS library header file, renderer.h. For more information, see Monitoring the context state .

The multimedia renderer uses the client's user ID and group IDs when performing permission-sensitive operations such as opening files.

Related links

  • Supported media

    The multimedia renderer supports playback of tracks and playlists.

  • Abstraction layers

    The multimedia renderer uses a layered architecture to process playback commands and manage the flow of media content from input to output.

  • Contexts

    The multimedia renderer provides contexts, each of which can play stream of media content concurrently with and independently of other contexts. Each context can direct output to a different set of output devices, creating independent zones of operation.

  • Outputs

    Each context has to have one or more outputs attached before it can play anything, so that it can determine where to send the content.

  • Inputs

    Each context has to have one input attached, so it knows what to play.

  • Plugins

    Engine plugins are the components used by the multimedia renderer to process the flow of media data from an input to one or many outputs.