Recent changes to Snowmix Guide

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 23:04:12 -0000

--- v29
+++ v30
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@
 Beginners Guide to Snowmix.
 =====
+
+####This Guide is obsolete and has been [replaced by this new FAQ on the new Snowmix website](http://snowmix.sourceforge.net/Intro/faq.html)
+
+-----
+

 #### Introduction ####

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 18:37:06 -0000

--- v28
+++ v29
@@ -209,10 +209,12 @@
   - [Snowmix Tutorials on text](Tutorials).

+---
 #### Where can I find Snowmix Videos ####
 See Snowmix in action on [Snowmix's YouTube Channel](http://www.youtube.com/user/Snowmix4video). Here you can also find the Snowmix Tutorials. If you have videos created with Snowmix, we would be happy to post such videos on Snowmix's YouTube channel. Contact us through the [support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/).
----
-
+
+
+---
 #### What are the different overlaying capabilities of feeds, virtual feeds, images, shapes and text compared? ####
 There is a table with explanation for comparison of all the [overlaying capabilities of feeds, virtual feeds, images, shapes and texts](Overlaying Capabilities).

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 18:34:45 -0000

--- v27
+++ v28
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
  - [Linux Mint](http://www.linuxmint.com/) amd64 and i386/i686.
  - [Linux OpenSUSE](http://www.opensuse.org/) amd64 and i386/i686.
  - [Linux Linaro](http://www.linaro.org/) ARMv7 \(tested on ODROID U2)
- - Mac OS X [Lion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion), [Mountain Lion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion), [Mavericks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mavericks) and [Mac OS X Yosemite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Yosemite) all 64bit \(no 32bit tested).
+ - Mac OS X [Mac OS X Yosemite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Yosemite), [Mavericks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mavericks), [Mountain Lion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion), [Lion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion).

@@ -93,7 +93,6 @@

 ---
 ####  What are the hardware requirements for running Snowmix? ####
-
 Snowmix is very relaxed with its hardware requirements and it has been tested successfully on a variety of older and newer computers with i386/i686, [amd64 \(x84-64)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64) and [ARMv7](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture) compatible processors.

 Snowmix is being developed by the author on an old 2007 [Lenovo Thinkpad T61](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad) with 2GB of RAM to ensure that Snowmix can run on a wide range of hardware including older hardware.

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 11:43:24 -0000

--- v26
+++ v27
@@ -16,7 +16,8 @@
  - What other software requirements does Snowmix have? 
  - How do I get Snowmix? 
  - How do I compile and install Snowmix? 
- - How do I test Snowmix? 
+ - How do I test Snowmix?
+ - How do I terminate/shutdown Snowmix?
  - How do I write my own ini file? 
  - How do I get mixed video out from Snowmix? 
  - How do I feed video and audio into Snowmix? 
@@ -134,6 +135,15 @@

 ---
+#### How do I shutdown/terminate Snowmix? ####
+Snowmix will terminate cleanly if the command *quit* is executed in either the Snowmix console window or through a control connection. If Snowmix on the other hand is killed either through an external kill signal or through sending a CTRL-C in the Snowmix console window, allocated shared memory will stay allocated and in a sense lost. If this happens a lot of times, Snowmix will eventually allocate all available shared memory in a system. This is bad and you will need to reboot your system or find another way to delete/free allocated shared memory. On Linux, you can see and free allocated shared memory using the following commands:
+
+    $ df -k /run/shm
+    $ rm /run/shm/shmpipe*
+
+
+
+---
 #### How do I write my own ini file? ####
 Snowmix requires an initilization file \(or ini file for short) with some specific Snowmix commands to run. Minimal examples of [ini files with explanation are available here](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/wiki/Snowmix%20Configuration/). See section on *Reference Manual* and *Manuals* further down this page for more information on commands for a Snowmix ini file. See also a list of [all Snowmix commands available](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/wiki/Reserved%20Commands/).

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 11:09:06 -0000

--- v25
+++ v26
@@ -10,8 +10,8 @@
 #### Content ####
  - What is Snowmix? 
  - Which features does Snowmix offers? 
- - Which OS platforms does Snowmix support? 
- - Which hardware is required to run Snowmix?
+ - Which OS platforms does Snowmix support?
+ - What are the hardware requirements for running Snowmix?
  - What about Snowmix for Windows?
  - What other software requirements does Snowmix have? 
  - How do I get Snowmix? 
@@ -81,9 +81,9 @@
  - [Linux Fedora Live Desktop](https://getfedora.org/) amd64 and i386/i686.
  - [Linux Mint](http://www.linuxmint.com/) amd64 and i386/i686.
  - [Linux OpenSUSE](http://www.opensuse.org/) amd64 and i386/i686.
+ - [Linux Linaro](http://www.linaro.org/) ARMv7 \(tested on ODROID U2)
  - Mac OS X [Lion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion), [Mountain Lion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion), [Mavericks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mavericks) and [Mac OS X Yosemite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Yosemite) all 64bit \(no 32bit tested).

-Some test for [Linux Linaro](http://www.linaro.org/) has also been successful.

 -----
@@ -91,11 +91,13 @@
 Snowmix **has not** been tested on Windows. While the code from version 0.4.6 is modified to be able to compile with Visual Studio, Snowmix depends on [**shmsrc/shmsink**](http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-bad-plugins/html/gst-plugins-bad-plugins-plugin-shm.html) modules of [GStreamer](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698657) and these modules depends on [POSIX socket based named pipes \(AF_UNIX)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_domain_socket), [mmap()](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmap) and [shm_open()](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_memory_%28interprocess_communication%29). POSIX socket based named pipes and POSIX shared memory are not available on native Windows. Nevertheless [efforts to port GStreamer shmsrc/shmsink to Windows is underway, but not there yet](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698657). When these efforts matrialize in a released binary of GStreamer for Windows, Snowmix is likely to be releasd for Windows as well.

 ---
-#### Which hardware is required to run Snowmix? ####
+####  What are the hardware requirements for running Snowmix? ####

 Snowmix is very relaxed with its hardware requirements and it has been tested successfully on a variety of older and newer computers with i386/i686, [amd64 \(x84-64)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64) and [ARMv7](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture) compatible processors.

 Snowmix is being developed by the author on an old 2007 [Lenovo Thinkpad T61](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad) with 2GB of RAM to ensure that Snowmix can run on a wide range of hardware including older hardware.
+
+Although Snowmix itself have very modest hardware requirements, a complete video mixer system with many input pipelines decoding HD video, Snowmix mixing HD video and an output pipeline aggressively encoding high quality low bandwidth video will require a substantial amount of both CPU power and CPU to memory bandwidth.

 The author is using Snowmix to produce Live TV [rocket launches from the Baltic Sea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADq5sOfq-lI&start=11010) for [Copenhagen Suborbitals](http://www.copsub.com/). The productions are in HD \([720p](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p) - 1280x720@25fps) with up to 10 camera input and up to 10 audio input on an old [Dell PowerEdge 1950 Generation III](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dell_PowerEdge_Servers) with with two [Xeon 2.33-2.5G0Hz E5420](http://ark.intel.com/products/33927/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5420-12M-Cache-2_50-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB) CPUs, each with 4 cores and 4-8GB RAM in total although less is required. This type of CPU was released for sale in 2007 so obviously Snowmix can run on older hardware as well as very well on newer hardware. Snowmix only uses a fraction of CPU as most CPU on a complete system goes to decoding video and audio streams for input as well as encoding the mixed audio and video stream for output.

@@ -199,7 +201,6 @@

 #### Where can I find Snowmix Videos ####
-
 See Snowmix in action on [Snowmix's YouTube Channel](http://www.youtube.com/user/Snowmix4video). Here you can also find the Snowmix Tutorials. If you have videos created with Snowmix, we would be happy to post such videos on Snowmix's YouTube channel. Contact us through the [support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/).
 ---

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 10:59:12 -0000

--- v24
+++ v25
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@

 -----
 #### What about Snowmix for Windows? ####
-Snowmix **has not** been tested on Windows. While the code from version 0.4.6 is modified to be able to compile with Visual Studio, Snowmix depends on [**shmsrc/shmsink**](http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-bad-plugins/html/gst-plugins-bad-plugins-plugin-shm.html) modules of [GStreamer](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698657) and these modules depends on [POSIX socket based named pipes \(AF_UNIX)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_domain_socket), [mmap()](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmap) and [shm_open()](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_memory_%28interprocess_communication%29). POSIX socket based named pipes and POSIX shared memory are not available on Windows. Nevertheless [efforts to port GStreamer shmsrc/shmsink to Windows is underway, but not there yet](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698657). When these efforts matrialize in a released binary of GStreamer for Windows, Snowmix is likely to be releasd for Windows as well.
+Snowmix **has not** been tested on Windows. While the code from version 0.4.6 is modified to be able to compile with Visual Studio, Snowmix depends on [**shmsrc/shmsink**](http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-bad-plugins/html/gst-plugins-bad-plugins-plugin-shm.html) modules of [GStreamer](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698657) and these modules depends on [POSIX socket based named pipes \(AF_UNIX)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_domain_socket), [mmap()](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmap) and [shm_open()](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_memory_%28interprocess_communication%29). POSIX socket based named pipes and POSIX shared memory are not available on native Windows. Nevertheless [efforts to port GStreamer shmsrc/shmsink to Windows is underway, but not there yet](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698657). When these efforts matrialize in a released binary of GStreamer for Windows, Snowmix is likely to be releasd for Windows as well.

 ---
 #### Which hardware is required to run Snowmix? ####
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@

 The bootstrap script supplied with Snowmix will offer to check, download and install necessary tools, libraries and needed software for you.

-Snowmix uses a [shared memory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_memory) model for efficiently inputting to and outputting video from Snowmix. The shared memory model is compliant with GStreamer *shmsink* and *shmsrc* so GStreamer is recommended as required software too. All the scripts for inputting and outputting audio and video to and from Snowmix uses GStreamer.
+Snowmix uses a [shared memory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_memory) model for efficiently inputting to and outputting video from Snowmix. The shared memory model is compliant with GStreamer *shmsink* and *shmsrc* so [GStreamer](http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/) is recommended as required software too. All the scripts for inputting and outputting audio and video to and from Snowmix uses [GStreamer](http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/).

 ---

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 10:53:49 -0000

--- v23
+++ v24
@@ -28,9 +28,9 @@
  - How do I get started with Snowmix scripting? 
  - How do I get started with Advanced Snowmix scripting? 
  - What are Snowmix Libraries? 
- - Where can I found out more about synchronizing audio and video in Snowmix? 
+ - Where can I find out more about synchronizing audio and video in Snowmix? 
  - How can I get free help and support with Snowmix?
- - Is paid consultancy assistance available?
+ - Is paid consultancy available?
  - How can I contribute to Snowmix?
  - What are "End of Life Announcements"?
  - What has been written about Snowmix?
@@ -223,7 +223,7 @@

 ---
-#### Where can I found out more about synchronizing audio and video in Snowmix? ####
+#### Where can I find out more about synchronizing audio and video in Snowmix? ####
 There is a guide available for advanced information on [audio and video sync in Snowmix](AV Sync).

@@ -233,7 +233,7 @@

 ---
-#### Is paid consultancy assistance available? ####
+#### Is paid consultancy available? ####
 Yes paid consultancy on Snowmix, GStreamer, Streaming and networks is available. Please contact the author through the [support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/) for initial contact.

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 23:26:00 -0000

--- v22
+++ v23
@@ -32,7 +32,8 @@
  - How can I get free help and support with Snowmix?
  - Is paid consultancy assistance available?
  - How can I contribute to Snowmix?
- - What are "End of Life Announcements" ?
+ - What are "End of Life Announcements"?
+ - What has been written about Snowmix?

 ---
@@ -251,6 +252,9 @@
 #### What are "End of Life Announcements" ? ####
 Features of Snowmix that are being changed or removed from Snowmix in the next major release, are listed as  [EndOfLifeAnnouncements](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/wiki/End%20of%20Life%20Announcements/). A major release is a release where the *major version number* is changing. Releasing 0.5.0 after 0.4.x is a major release while releasing 0.4.5 after 0.4.4 is a minor release. If Snowmix is stopping supporting a specific syntax of its commands, this would result in a major release. When the command syntax is changed, normally both the new and the old syntax is available in a new minor release. If you are writing your own ini files or are using your own programs to send commands and queries to Snowmix, reading the End of Life Announcements are important to you.

+-----
+#### What has been written about Snowmix? ####
+There is a page on [Snowmix in the media](Snowmix in the media) with links to articles about Snowmix. If you find articles about Snowmix not listed on this page, please tell us in the [support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/).

 ...

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 23:21:32 -0000

--- v21
+++ v22
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@
  - Where can I find a Reference Manual for Snowmix commands? 
  - Where can I find Snowmix manuals? 
  - Where can I find Snowmix tutorials?
+ - Where can I find Snowmix videos?
  - What are the different overlaying capabilities of feeds, virtual feeds, images, shapes and text compared?
  - How do I get started with Snowmix scripting? 
  - How do I get started with Advanced Snowmix scripting? 
@@ -196,6 +197,9 @@
   - [Snowmix Tutorials on text](Tutorials).

+#### Where can I find Snowmix Videos ####
+
+See Snowmix in action on [Snowmix's YouTube Channel](http://www.youtube.com/user/Snowmix4video). Here you can also find the Snowmix Tutorials. If you have videos created with Snowmix, we would be happy to post such videos on Snowmix's YouTube channel. Contact us through the [support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/).
 ---

 #### What are the different overlaying capabilities of feeds, virtual feeds, images, shapes and text compared? ####
@@ -224,12 +228,12 @@

 ---
 #### How can I get free help and support with Snowmix? ####
-Snowmix comes with a [free support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/) were you can ask questions and share information. Please remember to create a new thread for new questions so we don't get very long threads with many different questions. That way hopefully we all can navigate the forum a lot easier and all benefit from questions and answers.
+Snowmix comes with a [free support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/) were you can ask questions and share information. Please remember to create a new thread for new questions so we don't get very long threads with many different questions. That way hopefully we all can navigate the [support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/) a lot easier and all benefit from questions and answers.

 ---
 #### Is paid consultancy assistance available? ####
-Yes paid consultancy on Snowmix, GStreamer, Streaming and networks is available. Please contact the author through the forum for initial contact.
+Yes paid consultancy on Snowmix, GStreamer, Streaming and networks is available. Please contact the author through the [support forum](https://sourceforge.net/p/snowmix/discussion/Snowmix_Support_Forum/) for initial contact.

 ---

Snowmix Guide modified by Peter Maersk-Moller

Peter Maersk-Moller — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:09:20 -0000

--- v20
+++ v21
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@
  - What is Snowmix? 
  - Which features does Snowmix offers? 
  - Which OS platforms does Snowmix support? 
- - Which hardware is required to run Snowmix? 
+ - Which hardware is required to run Snowmix?
+ - What about Snowmix for Windows?
  - What other software requirements does Snowmix have? 
  - How do I get Snowmix? 
  - How do I compile and install Snowmix? 
@@ -82,8 +83,10 @@

 Some test for [Linux Linaro](http://www.linaro.org/) has also been successful.

-Snowmix **has not** been tested on Windows mostly due to the author missing a suitable machine to test on. If Snowmix were to be ported to Windows, only a few lines of extra codes is needed for WinSock and Shared Memory.
-
+
+-----
+#### What about Snowmix for Windows? ####
+Snowmix **has not** been tested on Windows. While the code from version 0.4.6 is modified to be able to compile with Visual Studio, Snowmix depends on [**shmsrc/shmsink**](http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-bad-plugins/html/gst-plugins-bad-plugins-plugin-shm.html) modules of [GStreamer](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698657) and these modules depends on [POSIX socket based named pipes \(AF_UNIX)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_domain_socket), [mmap()](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmap) and [shm_open()](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_memory_%28interprocess_communication%29). POSIX socket based named pipes and POSIX shared memory are not available on Windows. Nevertheless [efforts to port GStreamer shmsrc/shmsink to Windows is underway, but not there yet](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698657). When these efforts matrialize in a released binary of GStreamer for Windows, Snowmix is likely to be releasd for Windows as well.

 ---
 #### Which hardware is required to run Snowmix? ####