GStreamer In-Band Metadata for MPEG Transport Stream/Getting Started/Building natively

GStreamer In-Band Metadata for MPEG Transport Stream
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Overview

In order to compile the meta plugin and install it directly, we need to patch some GStreamer libraries, so we need to:

1. Get gst-metadata source code
2. Install needed dependencies
3. Download gstreamer, gst-plugins-base and gst-plugins-bad source code
4. Patch gstreamer and gst-plugins bad source code
5. Compile these three packages in order
6. Overwrite system packages (Not required: Backup the files in case something goes wrong)
7. Compile gst-metadata
8. Install gst-metadata

NOTE: This assumes you already have GStreamer installed, if this is not the case, please proceede to install it in your system first.

Installation guide

Before proceeding with each step, we are gonna need some general variables and steps to set up the building environment:

export BRANCH=$(gst-inspect-1.0 --version | awk 'NR==2 {print $2}')                                # This gets the version of GStreamer installed in the system
export BRANCH_PATCHES=$(echo $BRANCH | cut -d'.' -f 1-2)                                           # This gets only the Major and Minor from the GStreamer version, we will need it later
export LIBRARY_VERSION=$(echo $BRANCH | awk -F "." '{f=$2; l=$3} END{if(l < 10)l=0l; print f l}')  # This sets the Minor and Patch from the version in GStreamer as 1405 for example for version v1.14.5

Then we set the GStreamer installation path from your system, please check the table below to set it:

Table 1. GStreamer's installation path

Platform	Path
Ubuntu 64-bits	/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
RidgeRun's Embedded FS	-/usr
Jetson TX1 TX2 Xavier Nano	/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu

In the case of the Jetson boards, you can set:

cd ~
export BUILD_DIR=`pwd`/gst-build # We will build all the packages inside of this folder
mkdir -p $BUILD_DIR
mkdir -p $BUILD_DIR/prefix

Then we can set our environment, you can change to any folder where you will like to start building the packages, for example, you can switch to home, this guide builds them inside the gst-build folder:

export INSTALL_PATH=/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu

Download gst-metadata

You can get the gst-metatada source code in place, for this you should clone the repo:

cd $BUILD_DIR
YOUR_NAME=your_name # Change this with your name in the repo
REPO_URL=https://gitlab.com/RidgeRun/orders/$YOUR_NAME/gst-metadata
git clone $REPO_URL

Install needed dependencies

This is the list of dependencies required to compile GStreamer

sudo apt-get install \
pkg-config bison flex git \
libglib2.0-dev liborc-0.4-dev \
libtool autopoint autoconf \
gettext yasm build-essential \
autotools-dev dpkg-dev automake

You may also need the development version of different libraries:

sudo apt-get install \
liborc-dev autopoint gtk-doc-tools libgstreamer1.0-dev \
libxv-dev libasound2-dev libtheora-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev \
libbz2-dev libv4l-dev libvpx-dev libjack-jackd2-dev libsoup2.4-dev libpulse-dev \
faad libfaad-dev libfaac-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
libx264-dev libmad0-dev

Download gstreamer source code

To start the building process, we need the source code of gstreamer, gst-plugins-base and gst-plugins-bad, for this we can run the following lines in bash:

cd $BUILD_DIR
MODULES="gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-bad"
for m in $MODULES
do
    if [ ! -f "$m-$BRANCH.tar.xz" ]; then
        wget http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/src/$m/$m-$BRANCH.tar.xz
        tar -xf $m-$BRANCH.tar.xz
        mv $m-$BRANCH $m
    else 
        echo "$m-$BRANCH source found!"
    fi
done

This will download each package and decompress it, then changes each name to remove the -$BRANCH from each of their names.

Patch gstreamer and gst-plugins bad

The next step before compilation of gstreamer, is patching it, for this we should copy the patches and apply them in their respective package as follows:

echo "Patching GStreamer core"
# Copy GStreamer patch to gstreamer folder
cd $BUILD_DIR
cp gst-metadata/extras/gstreamer-$BRANCH_PATCHES.x/fix-sparse-flag-setting-up.patch gstreamer/
# Apply GStreamer patch
cd gstreamer
git apply fix-sparse-flag-setting-up.patch

echo "Patching GStreamer Plugins Bad core"
# Copy GStreamer plugins bad patches to gstreamer-plugins-bad folder
cd $BUILD_DIR
cp gst-metadata/extras/gstreamer-$BRANCH_PATCHES.x/mpegtsmux-reference-clock-on-waiting-pad.patch gst-plugins-bad/
cp gst-metadata/extras/gstreamer-$BRANCH_PATCHES.x/mpegtsmux-meta-specific-pad-templates.patch gst-plugins-bad/
cp gst-metadata/extras/gstreamer-$BRANCH_PATCHES.x/tsmux-demux-update-klv-support.patch gst-plugins-bad/
# Apply GStreamer plugins bad patches
cd gst-plugins-bad
git apply mpegtsmux-reference-clock-on-waiting-pad.patch
git apply mpegtsmux-meta-specific-pad-templates.patch
git apply tsmux-demux-update-klv-support.patch

Compiling GStreamer

To compile GStreamer, is enough to get inside each of the packages' folder and compile inside, just as below:

cd $BUILD_DIR
MODULES="gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-bad"
for m in $MODULES
do
    cd $m
    ./autogen.sh --disable-gtk-doc --disable-tests --disable-nls && make -j8
    export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=`pwd`/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH
    cd ..
done

Overwrite GStreamer system packages

From the compilation stage, we need to copy some libraries into the system libraries, so for this is highly recommended to backup the original ones first just in case anything goes wrong:

sudo cp $INSTALL_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0 $INSTALL_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0.bk
sudo cp $INSTALL_PATH/libgstcodecparsers-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0 $INSTALL_PATH/libgstcodecparsers-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0.bk
sudo cp $INSTALL_PATH/libgstmpegts-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0 $INSTALL_PATH/libgstmpegts-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0.bk
sudo cp $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegpsdemux.so $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegpsdemux.so.bk
sudo cp $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsmux.so $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsmux.so.bk
sudo cp $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsdemux.so $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsdemux.so.bk

Then we can update them by installing the ones we just compiled:

sudo cp $BUILD_DIR/gstreamer/libs/gst/base/.libs/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0 $INSTALL_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0
sudo cp $BUILD_DIR/gst-plugins-bad/gst-libs/gst/codecparsers/.libs/libgstcodecparsers-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0 $INSTALL_PATH/libgstcodecparsers-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0
sudo cp $BUILD_DIR/gst-plugins-bad/gst-libs/gst/mpegts/.libs/libgstmpegts-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0 $INSTALL_PATH/libgstmpegts-1.0.so.0.$LIBRARY_VERSION.0
sudo cp $BUILD_DIR/gst-plugins-bad/gst/mpegdemux/.libs/libgstmpegpsdemux.so $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegpsdemux.so
sudo cp $BUILD_DIR/gst-plugins-bad/gst/mpegtsmux/.libs/libgstmpegtsmux.so $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsmux.so
sudo cp $BUILD_DIR/gst-plugins-bad/gst/mpegtsdemux/.libs/libgstmpegtsdemux.so $INSTALL_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsdemux.so

Installing the evaluation binary

The layout of the evaluation binary is as follows:

gst-metadata-1.4.1-gst-1.16.2-x86-eval
└── usr
    └── lib
        └── x86_64-linux-gnu
            ├── gstreamer-1.0
            │   ├── libgstmeta.so
            │   ├── libgstmpegpsdemux.so
            │   ├── libgstmpegtsdemux.so
            │   └── libgstmpegtsmux.so
            ├── libgstbase-1.0.so.0.1405.0
            ├── libgstcodecparsers-1.0.so.0.1405.0
            └── libgstmpegts-1.0.so.0.1405.0

In order to install and use the element, copy or replace the files as part of your system. The installation process depends on your GStreamer environment:

• Installing in the system
• Installing on custom GStreamer Environment (Recommended)

Follow the instructions according to your requirements

Installing in the System

The GStreamer's installation path depends on the target platform:

Table 1. GStreamer's default path

Platform	Path
Ubuntu 64-bits	/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
RidgeRun's Embedded FS	-/usr
Jetson TX1 TX2 Xavier	/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu

Before installing the binaries in the system, it is highly recommended to backup the default files: As example, for an x86_64 installation the GStreamer's path is /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/

GST_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

sudo cp $GST_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so $GST_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so.bk
sudo cp $GST_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so.0 $GST_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.bk
sudo cp $GST_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.1602.0 $GST_PATH/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.1602.0.bk

sudo cp $GST_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegpsdemux.so $GST_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegpsdemux.so.bk
sudo cp $GST_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsmux.so $GST_PATH/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsmux.so.bk

The evaluation binary will be provided according to the target platform needed. Install the binaries, from the root of the provided file run the next command:

 sudo cp -r usr/ /

Now the binaries are installed, proceed to Verify Installation to check the new plugins.

Installing on Custom GStreamer Environment

As an example, let's use a GStreamer 1.16 environment created in the section Creating Custom GStreamer environment:

Create plugin's folder on the environment

DEVDIR=~/GStreamer-versions
BRANCH=1.16 #version used in this guide. adjust to version required
mkdir -p $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/prefix/lib/gstreamer-1.0/

Install the libgstmeta.so binary from the provided evaluation in the plugin's path. EVAL_PATH should point to the root of the provided evaluation file

EVAL_PATH=/home/gfallas/gst-medatada-1.4.1-gst-1.16.2-x86-eval #example path
cp $EVAL_PATH/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmeta.so $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/prefix/lib/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmeta.so

The tree from DEVDIR should look similar to the next example:

gfallas@gfallas-G5-5587:~/Gst-versions$ tree $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/prefix
/home/gfallas/Gst-versions/1.16/prefix
└── lib
    └── gstreamer-1.0
        └── libgstmeta.so

2 directories, 1 file

Install the rest of the core libraries in the following paths inside the GStreamer environment, this step is required:

cp $EVAL_PATH/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegpsdemux.so $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/gst-plugins-bad/gst/mpegdemux/.libs/libgstmpegpsdemux.so
cp $EVAL_PATH/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsmux.so $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/gst-plugins-bad/gst/mpegtsmux/.libs/libgstmpegtsmux.so
cp $EVAL_PATH/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.1602.0 $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/gstreamer/libs/gst/base/.libs/libgstbase-1.0.so.0.1602.0

cp $EVAL_PATH/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgstmpegts-1.0.so.0.1602.0 $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/gst-plugins-bad/gst-libs/gst/mpegts/.libs/libgstmpegts-1.0.so.0.1602.0
cp $EVAL_PATH/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgstcodecparsers-1.0.so.0.1602.0 $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/gst-plugins-bad/gst-libs/gst/codecparsers/.libs/libgstcodecparsers-1.0.so.0.1602.0
cp $EVAL_PATH/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmpegtsdemux.so $DEVDIR/$BRANCH/gst-plugins-bad/gst/mpegtsdemux/.libs/libgstmpegtsdemux.so

Now the binaries are installed on the custom GStreamer environment.

Verify Installation

At this point, it should be possible to inspect the meta element:

Remember to launch the environment, in this guide GStreamer version 1.16 was used:

cd $DEVDIR
./gst-1.16

Expected output:

gfallas@gfallas-G5-5587:~/Gst-versions/1.16$ gst-inspect-1.0 meta
Plugin Details:
  Name                     meta
  Description              Elements used to send and receive metadata
  Filename                 /home/gfallas/Gst-versions/1.16/prefix/lib/gstreamer-1.0/libgstmeta.so
  Version                  1.4.1
  License                  Proprietary
  Source module            gst-plugin-meta
  Binary package           RidgeRun elements
  Origin URL               http://www.ridgerun.com

  metasrc: Metadata Source
  metasink: Metadata Sink

  2 features:
  +-- 2 elements

The plugin is ready to be used, Check the examples section to use the meta plugin.

Appendix

Here are the scripts used to configure the GStreamer environment, version 1.16 was used in this guide.

Script to create the enviroment

Variables used: BRANCH and UNINSTALLED_ROOT.