Comment by jwells89

A fork wouldn't be explicitly required, but generally in established FOSS projects, when attempting to make changes that are either large or widely peppered throughout the project you're going to be fighting against headwinds from people who are happy with project as it is, which is understandable. You're likely going to find yourself spending more time on negotiating and politicking to get changes committed than actually making changes.

Audio/video has more to do the distribution being used than it does one's desktop environment, though the DEs can do things to smartly design configuration UI and surface the most commonly used A/V settings in the right places.