The Khronos Group has officially released its OpenMax AL 1.0 specification. According to Khronos spokesperson Jonathan Hirshon, OpenMax is a cross-platform, C-language API for “high-performance” MID multimedia applications.
“Khronos is very excited to be launching OpenMAX AL, which delivers cross-platform multimedia to any mobile phone or device – we are making it possible for companies to really take mobile multimedia to the next level with AL,” Hirshon told TG Daily.
“It’s new integration with OpenSL ES, the 3D positional audio API from Khronos, will enable some amazing new mobile games as well as applications for mobile videoconferencing enhanced with positional sound on your phone.”
Hirshon explained that OpenMax allows native applications to be easily ported across multiple operating systems and hardware platforms. The standard also helps developers control player and recorder objects by connecting them to configurable input or output objects.
“Inputs and outputs [comprises] content readers and writers, headphones, loudspeakers, microphones, display windows, cameras, broadcast radios, LEDs and other types of A/V devices,” said Hirshon.
He added that OpenMAX AL was the “highest layer” of the OpenMAX family of APIs for multimedia acceleration and application development.
Additional OpenMAX AL multimedia functionality includes:
- Playback of audio, video, still images and MIDI.
- Recording of audio and video from a microphone or camera.
- Still image shooting that supports extensive controls for the camera such as exposure settings, zooming and focusing.
- Extraction and insertion of content metadata.
- General audio controls, including volume, rate and equalizer.
- Visual controls – brightness, contrast, gamma, resizing and mirroring.
- Visual effects – monochrome, emboss and negative.
- Analog radio controls – RDS.
- Support for LED and vibrator control.
The OpenMAX AL specification can be download here.
See Also
Khronos Group details cross-platform WebGL initiative
Khronos Group releases OpenGL 3.2
