gst-device-monitor-1.0

List all current devices

$ gst-device-monitor-1.0

$ gst-device-monitor-1.0 [[-f|--follow]]

$ gst-device-monitor-1.0 [Audio|Video]/[Source|Sink]

gst-device-monitor-1.0 [OPTION...]

-h, --help
    Show general help options.

--help-all
    Show all help options, including GStreamer specific ones.

--help-gst
    Show only GStreamer specific options.

--monitor-all
    Monitor and display all types of GStreamer devices.

--monitor-audio-source
    Monitor and display audio input devices.

--monitor-audio-sink
    Monitor and display audio output devices.

--monitor-video-source
    Monitor and display video input devices.

--monitor-video-sink
    Monitor and display video output devices.

--add-types=TYPES
    Specify a comma-separated list of GstDeviceMonitor type names to monitor (e.g., Audio/Source,Video/Sink).

--remove-types=TYPES
    Specify a comma-separated list of GstDeviceMonitor type names to ignore.

--show-caps
    Display the detailed capabilities (formats, resolutions, etc.) for each detected device.

--unique
    Show only unique devices, preventing duplicate entries for the same physical hardware.

--version
    Show version information for gst-device-monitor-1.0 and GStreamer.

--gst-version
    Show GStreamer version.

--gst-debug-level=LEVEL
    Set the GStreamer debug level (0=none, 1=error, 2=warn, 3=fixme, 4=info, 5=debug, 6=log, 7=trace).

--gst-debug-no-color
    Disable colored debug output.

--gst-debug-disable
    Disable all GStreamer debug output.

--gst-debug-help
    Show GStreamer debugging options.

--gst-fatal-warnings
    Treat GStreamer warnings as fatal errors, causing the application to exit.

--gst-debug-categories=CATEGORIES
    Enable or disable specific GStreamer debug categories. Prefix with '-' to disable (e.g., GST_ELEMENT_FACTORY:-GST_PLUGIN_LOADING).

--gst-plugin-load=PLUGINS
    Force loading of specific GStreamer plugins (comma-separated list of plugin names).

--gst-plugin-path=PATH
    Add directories to the GStreamer plugin search path.

--gst-disable-registry-update
    Do not update the GStreamer plugin registry on startup.

--gst-disable-segtrap
    Disable the segmentation fault handler.

--gst-enable-segtrap
    Enable the segmentation fault handler (default).

--gst-license
    Show the GStreamer license information.

The gst-device-monitor-1.0 command is a powerful diagnostic and inspection tool within the GStreamer multimedia framework. It allows users and developers to list and monitor available audio and video capture devices (sources), as well as audio and video playback devices (sinks) that GStreamer can recognize and utilize on a system. It provides detailed information about each device, including its name, class, properties, and crucially, its capabilities (supported formats, resolutions, frame rates, etc.), which are essential for configuring GStreamer pipelines.

This tool is invaluable for troubleshooting device detection issues, verifying hardware compatibility, or simply understanding the multimedia device landscape of a Linux system from GStreamer's perspective. It offers options to filter by device type and to display comprehensive capability sets, making it a go-to utility for anyone working with multimedia applications built upon GStreamer.

gst-device-monitor-1.0 relies on GStreamer's installed plugins to detect devices. If specific hardware requires proprietary or non-standard plugins, they must be correctly installed and configured for the device to appear in the output.

The output can be very verbose, especially when displaying full capabilities or monitoring all device types, which might require piping to tools like grep or less for easier navigation.

Device detection is dependent on the underlying operating system's device management and driver support. If a device is not properly recognized by the kernel, GStreamer (and thus this tool) will not be able to see it.

The behavior of gst-device-monitor-1.0 can be influenced by standard GStreamer environment variables:

GST_DEBUG: Controls the debug output level and categories (e.g., export GST_DEBUG='*:4' for info level).

GST_PLUGIN_PATH: Specifies additional directories where GStreamer should search for plugins (e.g., export GST_PLUGIN_PATH=/usr/local/lib/gstreamer-1.0).

GST_REGISTRY_FORK: Can be set to no to disable forking during registry updates, sometimes useful for debugging.

The gst-device-monitor-1.0 command is part of the GStreamer 1.x series, which represents a significant evolution from the older GStreamer 0.10 series. Introduced to provide a more robust and consistent API, GStreamer 1.x brought improved device management capabilities. This command specifically emerged as a dedicated tool to centralize and simplify the process of identifying and inspecting multimedia hardware devices from a GStreamer perspective, making it easier for developers and users to diagnose issues and build pipelines without needing to write custom code. Its development reflects GStreamer's ongoing commitment to comprehensive and user-friendly debugging tools.

gst-inspect-1.0(1): Inspect GStreamer plugins and elements., gst-launch-1.0(1): Build and test GStreamer pipelines from the command line., gst-discoverer-1.0(1): Extract information from media files and streams., v4l2-ctl(1): Control Video4Linux2 devices (often relevant for video sources).