The Phonon Library API Reference

4.3

Overview | Development

Phonon provides a Qt-style interface for audio and video. It is aimed at the average desktop application, whether that is a game that needs sound effects or a full-blown multimedia playback application like Amarok or Dragon Player.

If you writing a Qt program and want audio or video playback, then Phonon is almost certainly the right choice for you. It provides an API that any Qt developer will be comfortable with, and uses the native sound systems on Windows and MacOS. On UNIX systems, where there is no one standard multimedia system, it offers GStreamer and Xine backends, and more (such as VLC) are available from third parties.

However, Phonon is not aimed at professional audio applications (in the style of Audacity, say). For these applications, you will probably want more control over the audio layer than Phonon will give you, and you should probably be using something like JACK.

Author(s):

Matthias Kretz <kretz@kde.org>
Ricardo Villalba <rvm@escomposlinux.org>
Ian Monroe <ian@monroe.nu>
Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies)

Maintainer(s):

Matthias Kretz <kretz@kde.org>

License(s):

Libraries: LGPLv2
Examples:
Backends: LGPLv2 or GPLv2