Fluendo announces Windows Media and MPEG codec support for GNU/Linux and Solaris

Fluendo announces an extensive set of plug-ins enabling Windows Media, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 support for GNU/Linux and Solaris systems.

Fluendo, leader in GNU/Linux and Unix multimedia solutions, is expanding its offerings with the general availability of a wide range of codecs for the GNU/Linux and Solaris desktop and server systems. The Fluendo codecs plug directly into the popular and widely used GStreamer multimedia framework available on all the major GNU/Linux and Solaris systems.

Users of GNU/Linux and Solaris operating systems have previously lacked solutions which enabled them to license and use popular media formats such as Windows Media, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 in accordance with the laws of their country. Through Fluendo's agreements with Microsoft and MPEG LA such a solution is now available.

By closely integrating with the GStreamer multimedia framework, Fluendo's new plugins enable support for these widely used codecs in popular GNU/Linux and Solaris applications such as Totem Video Player, Rhythmbox music player, Banshee Music player, Elisa Media Center and the Jokosher sound editor. The close cooperation between Fluendo and the Totem media player project means that the plugins automatically enable support for media enabled websites such as cnn.com which use Windows Media formats and streaming protocols.

With this announcement Fluendo makes available plug-ins to handle Windows Media Audio, Windows Media Video, Windows Media MMS streaming protocol handling, MPEG-2 video decoding, MPEG-4 Part 2 video decoding, ASF container format demuxing, MPEG-2 Program and Transport Stream container format demuxing, MPEG-4 ISO container format demuxing and MP3 audio. Further codecs are planned for release over the course of 2007.

We are very happy to be able to provide the GNU/Linux and Solaris communities with this set of multimedia codecs. We have had these codecs in development for quite some time, to ensure they are of the highest quality possible and that all legal aspects are properly covered. By offering this drop-in solution we hope to increase the competitiveness of the GNU/Linux and Solaris platforms., says Fluendo co-founder Pascal Pegaz.