The EBU is gearing up to better help its Members learn about Open Source software to use in their operations. That was a key message presented at the Libre Software Meeting 2013, where the EBU organized a media-focused programme.

Project manager Michael Barroco (EBU) explained that in software development it is often easier to reuse than to reinvent code. "There are big benefits in sharing software publicly", he said, "so developers can benefit from the feedback of many eyes, instead of those of the programming team alone." Additionally open source software nowadays often is used as a type of de facto standard that can be used as a reference implementation for more formal specifications.

Later this year the EBU plans to launch a dedicated platform (ebu.io) to showcase existing Open Source solutions used by EBU Members, engineering blogs with code examples and a rating system to help identify most promising packages.

Promising developments

A highlight of the session at LSM was the presentation of VLC co-founder Christophe Massiot, who presented the uPipe media framework. This software project began a year ago and aims to benefit from the latest (super-scalar) hardware architectures. Christophe emphasized this is not about creating a platform that will playback anything, but rather about providing a professional-grade audio/video core for use in multimedia players, transcoders or streamers. uPipe is promising work in progress; version 0.1 is currently out.

An interesting development with big potential can be found in the audio domain, where the free Opus audio codec is gaining interest. The EBU is currently organizing listening tests, the results of which should be available this September.

Downloads