Networked Multimedia for future KDE

Guest writes “Spin-Off company of Saarland University supports multimedia architecture of Linux desktop KDE

First results will be presented at LinuxTag, Germany, in May

Playback of audio and video files, but also Internet telephony and video conferencing are applications typically executed on home PCs. For upcoming versions of KDE – a desktop environment widely used on Linux PCs – these tasks will be provided by an updated and fundamentally extended multimedia architecture, called Phonon. Besides different other technologies, a new software for enabling networking among multimedia devices will be used. The so called „Network-Integrated Multimedia Middleware (NMM)“ will provide fundamental multimedia services for KDE. In addition, the integration of the NMM technology into KDE will enable completely new application scenarios, such as simultaneous audio and video presentations on all systems connected to the network – conveniently controlled by a single and central desktop application.

While the foundations of this architecture were researched at the Computer Graphics Lab at Saarland University in Germany, NMM is now further developed and brought to market by the spin-off company Motama. Due to the close collaboration of Motama with Open Source developers involved in the KDE project, first results will be presented with a talk and accompanying live demonstration at the upcoming LinuxTag on May 6. The LinuxTag is known as largest and most important convention and exhibition for Linux, Free Software and Open Source in Europe and will take place at the Rhein-Main-Hallen in Wiesbaden, Germany, on May 3 to 6.

Further information is available online

KDE http://www.kde.org/

Network-Integrated Multimedia Middleware (NMM) http://www.networkmultimedia.org/

Motama http://www.motama.com/

LinuxTag http://www.linuxtag.org/2006/en/home/news.html“