An important building block of a modern desktop environment is a multimedia architecture. The main requirement for such an architecture is to provide an easy-to-use interface for applications to integrate general multimedia functionality, such as media playback.

Phonon (formerly known as KDEMM) aims at fulfilling this role for the upcoming KDE 4. Internally, the Phonon architecture will be based on available full-featured multimedia frameworks. One backend will be implemented for NMM, the Network-Integrated Multimedia Middleware. As a unique feature, NMM allows for controlling and connecting local and remote multimedia devices and software components. This kind of network transparency enables new application scenarios for the desktop that extend the traditional ways of interacting with multimedia: Media content can be played out on remote devices seamlessly, handed over between running applications, or presented to all connected users in a network simultaneously and synchronously.

• Jan 2006: First meeting: NMM work group and Matthias Kretz from KDE
• Feb - Jun 2006: Bernhard Fuchshumer develops Phonon-NMM backend, sponsored by Motama
• Jun - Sept 2006: Vincenzo Di Massa continues development of Phonon-NMM backend as Google Summer of Code project

• Phonon homepage
• Phonon-NMM developer mailing-list
• Homepage of Matthias Kretz, project lead of Phonon
• Vincenzo's blog about the Google Summer of Code project

• Bernhard Fuchshumer
  Integration of the Network-Integrated Multimedia Middleware in KDE Phonon
  2006-06 [pdf]
  

• Bernhard Fuchshumer, Matthias Kretz, Michael Repplinger, Marco Lohse
  Phonon and NMM -- Multimedia Architectures for the Desktop and Beyond
  LinuxTag 2006, Wiesbaden, Germany, May 2-6, 2006
  [pdf]

• Bernhard Fuchshumer, Matthias Kretz, Michael Repplinger, Marco Lohse
  Phonon and NMM -- Multimedia Architectures for the Desktop and Beyond
  LinuxTag 2006, Wiesbaden, Germany, May 2-6, 2006
  [pdf]