Overview

It is a window system called X, not a system called X Windows
(MIT)

We use the terms X Window (System) and X11
(X-Software)

Functionality

The Pose technology is used for exactly and totally recording (capture) and later or simultaneous playback of X11 sessions or individual applications, optionally together with audio, video, or arbitrary binary data streams. The recording may be converted to video formats, too.

The recording functionality is available in two flavors: on the one hand as a stand-alone product XposeXrecord and on the other hand as Pose option of the XmetaX product.

For later or simultaneous playback and video conversion the separate product XposeXplay is used.

XposeXrecord provides a virtual X Window server for establishing a virtual, invisible X11 session, which can be transferred to a real X Window server.

Options

The functionality of the XposeXrecord base product may be enhanced by additional options. Throughout this document these enhancements are highlighted by color.

The option Channel increases the maximum number of output channels — screens or Pose connections — supported by the XposeXrecord proxy by one channel each. Without option the proxy supports not more than three channels.

The option VisEmu allows to display X Window clients designed for older graphics systems of depths of 4 and 8 on modern hardware often supporting 24 bits depth only (Emulation of visuals).

The option GLXplus allows X Window clients to use the full OpenGL acceleration provided by modern graphics cards as well as new technologies like shaders and vertex programs (Option GLXplus: Tunneling OpenGL through GLX).

The option Multimedia allows to capture, transport, store, and replay audio, video, or arbitrary binary data streams simultaneously and synchronously to the Pose data stream.

The XposeXrecord base product already implements all options. An individual option is enabled by a suitable license key.

X Window proxy

XposeXrecord is not a stand-alone X Window server. The XposeXrecord proxy is stacked between the X Window server of the workstation and the X Window clients via inter-process communication. It is executed instead of the X Window server and calls the server.

At this central position between server and clients, the XposeXrecord proxy is able to record the X11 protocol stream for later or simultaneous playback by means of XposeXplay.

This is totally transparent for any X Window server. XposeXrecord flawlessly cooperates with workstation or terminal vendor supplied servers, with Xorg and Xfree86 servers as well as with many specialized servers. Furthermore, clients cannot detect any differences to the standard X Window server. Thus, you may use the usual window managers.

X11 protocol and protocol extensions

XposeXrecord is based on the Meta technology for decoding, encoding and transport of the X11 protocol. The software supports the complete X11R7 protocol.

XposeXrecord supports the protocol extensions BIG-REQUESTS 2.0, DOUBLE-BUFFER 1.0, DPMS 1.1, FBPM 1.1, Generic Event Extension 1.0, GLX 1.4 (plus about 15 extensions, OpenGL 2.1 plus about 125 extensions, please contact support@x-software.com for a up-to-date list), HPExtension 1.0, MIT-SCREEN-SAVER 1.0, MIT-SHM 1.1, Multi-Buffering 1.1, RENDER 0.9, SCREEN-SAVER 1.0, SHAPE 1.0, SUN_ALLPLANES 1.0, SYNC 3.0, XC-MISC 1.1, XINERAMA 1.1, XInputExtension 1.3, X-SOFTWARE POSE 8.3, XpExtension 1.0, XTEST 2.2, and XVideo 2.2. The protocol extensions MIT-SHM and XINERAMA are always offered to the X Window clients, even if the controlled X Window server does not support them. In the case of MIT-SHM the extension requests are translated into the corresponding X11 core protocol requests automatically. The protocol extension XTEST is offered to the X Window clients provided that the controlled X Window server supports at least one of the extensions DEC-XTRAP, XTEST, and XTestExtension1.

The software implements the additional protocol extension X-SOFTWARE POSE.

XposeXrecord supports the X Display Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP) as well as the authorization methods host access control, MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1, SUN-DES-1, and XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1.

Configuration

The XposeXrecord proxy can be configured from the command line and through configuration files. The product can be integrated in X Window environments very easily.

XposeXrecord includes the configuration tool XposeXtool, which is used to create configuration files or to configure and control recording, playback, and conversion — through the graphical user interface or scriptable from the command line.

Improvements and enhancements of version 8.0

Following are the most important modifications of the version 8.0 of XposeXrecord.

The installation directories (Installation directories) were unified for all architectures.

Messages (Miscellaneous statements) are now written into the directory /var/opt/XSOXposeXrecord/logs by default.

The number of supported protocol extensions were increased and the version levels were updated (X11 protocol and protocol extensions).

The configuration language now unifies concepts like lists, points of time and periods of time (Configuration language).

The new option VisEmu allows to display X Window clients designed for older graphics systems of depths of 4 and 8 on modern hardware often supporting 24 bits depth only (Emulation of visuals).

The new option GLXplus allows X Window clients to use the full OpenGL acceleration provided by modern graphics cards as well as new technologies like shaders and vertex programs (Option GLXplus: Tunneling OpenGL through GLX).

For better utilizing modern multi-core or multi-processor architectures the XmetaX proxy gets more and more multi-threaded. The number of used threads can be configured (Miscellaneous statements).

You find further improvements and enhancements related to recording, playback, copying, and conversion in another chapter (Improvements and enhancements of version 8.0). 

Supported architectures

XposeXrecord is available for the following operating systems:

Hewlett-Packard HP-UX (PA-RISC and Itanium) 11,

IBM AIX (PowerPC) from 5 on,

Linux (x86_32: iA-32 from Pentium Pro on, x86_64/x64/AMD64),

Linux (x86_64: iA-32 from Pentium Pro on, iA-64, x86_64/x64/AMD64),

Oracle/Sun Solaris 8, 9, 10, 11 (SPARC from V7+ on),

Oracle/Sun Solaris 8, 9, 10, 11 (x86: iA-32 from Pentium Pro on, x86_64/x64/AMD64).

If you need the software for another Unix platform please feel free to contact sales@x-software.com.

Order information

You can download the XposeXrecord software in form of an installation package from the X-Software Internet server.

Without a license key the software runs in evaluation mode with full functionality (Execution without license key).

A license key allows to use the software either on one individual computer (node-locked) or overall in a local network (floating) (Execution with a license key). The separate, free of charge, product Xlicense is used for licensing of all X-Software products.

There are two ways for updating to the current version. With the update product you get the license key for the current version once, whereas the maintenance plan entitles you to receive the license keys for the then current versions during one year.

For ordering please refer to the price list and contact sales@x-software.com.