GPAC Project on Advanced Content explained

GPAC
Logo Size:128
Logo Caption:GPAC Multimedia Open Source Project
Developer:Jean Le Feuvre, Romain Bouqueau, Aurélien David, People@GPAC
Operating System:Cross-platform
Genre:Multimedia framework
Programming Language:C
Language:English
License:LGPL v2.1

GPAC Project on Advanced Content (GPAC, a recursive acronym) is an open-source multimedia framework focused on modularity and standards compliance. GPAC was created as an implementation of the MPEG-4 Systems standard written in ANSI C and later extended in Streaming Media. GPAC provides tools to process, inspect, package, stream, media playback and interact with media content. Such content can be any combination of audio, video, subtitles, metadata, encrypted media, rendering and ECMAScript.[1]

GPAC provides three sets of tools based on a core library called libgpac:

GPAC is cross-platform. It is written in (almost 100% ANSI) C for portability reasons, attempting to keep the memory footprint as low as possible. It is currently running under Windows, Linux, MacOS X, iOS, Android, Solaris, and many other systems.

GPAC is best-known for its wide MP4/ISOBMFF capabilities and is popular among video enthusiasts, academic researchers, standardization bodies, and professional broadcasters.

History and standards

GPAC was founded in New York City in 1999.[2] In 2003, it became an open-source project, with the initial goal of developing from scratch, in ANSI C, clean software compliant with the MPEG-4 Systems standard, as a small and flexible alternative to the MPEG-4 reference software.

In parallel, the project has evolved and now supports many other multimedia standards, with support for X3D, W3C SVG Tiny 1.2, and OMA/3GPP/ISMA and MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) features. 3D support is available on embedded platforms through OpenGL-ES. The MPEG-DASH feature can be used to reconstruct .mp4 files from videos streamed and cached in this format (e.g., YouTube).[3] Various research projects used or use GPAC.[4]

Since 2013, GPAC Licensing has offered business support and closed-source licenses.[5] In 2022 Netflix announced using GPAC for their worldwide content operations [6] including the Netflix service, studio content, and merchandising material [7]

Multimedia content features

Packaging

GPAC features encoders and multiplexers, publishing and content distribution tools for MP4 files and many tools for scene descriptions (BIFS/VRML/X3D converters, SWF/BIFS, SVG/BIFS, etc....). MP4Box provides all these tools in a single command-line application, albeit with extremely arcane syntax. Current supported features are:[8]

Playing

GPAC supports many protocols and standards, among which:[8]

Streaming

As of version 0.4.5, GPAC has some experimental server-side and streaming tools:[8]

Contributors

The project is hosted at Télécom_Paris, a leading French engineering school. Current main contributors of GPAC are:[10]

Other (current or past) contributors are:[10]

Additionally, GPAC is used at Télécom Paris for pedagogical purposes. Students regularly participate in the development of the project.[10]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: GPAC, Toolbox for Interactive Multimedia Packaging, Delivery and Playback . 1947-4598 . Open Source Column . December 2012 . ACM SIGMM Records . Jean Le Feuvre . Cyril Concolato . 2014-01-28 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140129095710/http://records.sigmm.ndlab.net/2012/12/open-source-column-gpac/ . 2014-01-29.
  2. Web site: About us. GPAC. GPAC Licensing. 2013. 2014-01-28.
  3. Web site: VideoCacheView. Nir. Sofer. 2013. NirSoft.net. uses MP4Box installed as a part of GPAC package to convert the MPEG-DASH streams into a valid mp4. 2014-01-28.
  4. Web site: Other academic works using GPAC. People@GPAC. GPAC. Publications. 2014-01-28.
  5. Web site: GPAC Licensing. Romain. Bouqueau. 2013-05-09. GPAC Licensing. The GPAC and MP4Box trademarks are internationally registered by Telecom ParisTech. 2014-01-28.
  6. Web site: Netflix deploys GPAC as their primary packager. Romain. Bouqueau. 2013-05-09. GPAC Licensing. GPAC deployed by Netflix as their primary packager. 2024-07-25.
  7. Web site: NAB Streaming Summit 2023. Dan. Rayburn. 2013-05-09. NAB Streaming Summit. Netflix uses GPAC in all their packaging scenarios. 2024-07-25.
  8. Web site: GPAC features. People@GPAC. 2014-01-28.
  9. Design of an Efficient Scalable Vector Graphics Player for Constrained Devices. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics. 54. 2. Cyril Concolato. Jean Le Feuvre. Jean-Claude Moissinac. 10.1109/TCE.2008.4560176. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics (Vol. 54 issue 2). 895–903. May 2008. 2014-01-28. 10.1.1.648.6798. 1722027.
  10. Web site: About us. People@GPAC. 2014-01-28.
  11. GPAC: open source multimedia framework . 10.1145/1291233.1291452 . 2007 . . Jean Le Feuvre . Cyril Concolato . Jean-Claude Moissinac . Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Multimedia . 1009–1012 . 978-1-59593-702-5.
  12. Web site: 5000th commit, 10 years of open-source software. Romain Bouqueau. People@GPAC. 2014-01-22. 2014-01-28.

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