[gst-devel] Re: Combining V4l and V4l2? (was: Re: gstreamer-devel digest, Vol 1 #2102 - 9 msgs)

[Ronald S. Bultje]

Hi,

On Thu, 2005-12-22 at 16:39 +0800, Rob Kramer wrote:
> I've spend a day trying to revive v4l2src, and it basically comes down to 
> copying *lots* of code from v4lsrc. Much of the code is identical. (I guess 
> v4l2 src was copied from v4lsrc, but v4l2src was left to rot). Instead of 
> doing all this work and ending up with a v4l2src that is going to break at 
> the next API change, wouldn't it be a good idea to combine the two? Perhaps 
> still allowing selection by means of a property or so, or otherwise just at 
> compile time.

No. It's a different API. So a different plugin. The code copying is
mostly boilerplate code to make the two integrate the same way with
GStreamer, which allows seemless switching between the two (ideally).
It's the same issue as ximagesink vs. xvimagesink.

> Why do people still use v4l1 anyway, for old kernels? Or does it offer 
> something v4l2 doesn't have?

Because lots of drivers aren't ported. They aren't ported because lots
of apps aren't ported. It's a vicious circle.

Cheers,
Ronald