From Amarok Wiki
Feature Table
| Engine
| Actively Maintained
| Crossfading
| KIO-Streaming†
| Scope
| Equalizer
| Formats Supported
|
| xine
| Yes
| Yes
| HTTP only, with 1.1.4 smb
| Yes
| Yes
| xine features
|
| Helix
| Yes
| Yes in 1.4
| http, rtsp
| Yes
| Yes
| Lots, with Real almost everything‡
|
| NMM
| No
| No
| No
| No
| No
| Lots
|
† this means streaming from any protocol (eg FTP, SSH, FISH, etc.), this is also required for AudioCD playback
‡ yes, we really do mean every format known to man, yes even WMA
Engine Specific Texts
xine-engine
- Can play using a selection of installed xine-lib output plugins, such as OSS, ALSA, aRts, or ESD.
- Has gapless playback
Helix Engine
- Supports native outport to alsa with current realplayer nightly builds and soon--realplayer 11. Now also supports direct alsa output even with realplayer 10.
- Requires either Helixplayer 1.0+ or Realplayer 10.0+. Realplayer 10.0+ is recommended; Helixplayer is the same codebase as Realplayer, but without many of the more popular plugins (for example, no mp3 plugins).
- Doesn't work on AMD64 platform (works only on i386 and SUN Sparc).
NMM-engine