[gst-devel] New gst-ffmpeg

[Edward Hervey]

Hehe, was expecting this one :)

  YES, there has been a lot of improvements and new features/codecs in
ffmpeg over the past year,
  YES, it does take a few days to make gst-ffmpeg compile correctly with
latest revisions, the API/ABI/build-system has changed a LOT since then,
  YES, people have been asking for it repeatedly and I feel bad about
not having a new release..

  ... but ...

  NO, making gst-ffmpeg compile correctly is NOT the only thing to do:
 * We also need to run insanely big/long regression tests to make sure
it behaves at least as 'well' as the current snapshot (add several days
to the estimate),
 * We need to run memory tests to make sure it doesn't leak like an 18th
century plumbing,
 * We need to modify completely (rewrite?) ffvideoscale to use the new
swscale API (I'd in fact like this to be a separate plugin since it only
depends on libswscale),
 * Add to all of that that we need to find the optimal revision checkout
to use (several runs of tests).

  Currently we have a heavily patched mirror of ffmpeg which we use in
gst-ffmpeg. This is becoming more of a burden than a help, adding a
couple of days to the task of updating that mirror.
  The current idea is in fact to store in gst-ffmpeg a revsion number
(in configure.ac but with an override option) so that the build system
can checkout a specific ffmpeg revision to build/use with gst-ffmpeg.
The biggest patch in the mirror is an autotools patch, which the ffmpeg
people have/will never accept. Their current build system is decent
enough for us to use at is (we just want it to be able to react properly
to 'configure'/'make'/'make dist').
 I have detailed more this system in
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=488913

 'Sahel' on IRC was also looking into it, so if you want to give a hand
contact him or myself (or reply to this thread or the bugzilla entry).

  The final goal with this move is to, when we make releases, certify
that the given release works with the given revision of ffmpeg. And also
allow us to more easily/frequently test ffmpeg revisions against
gst-ffmpeg and react quicker to new codecs/features and API/ABI changes.
  We will NOT, repeat NOT, release a gst-ffmpeg release for which we
haven't done enough testing. Once we've switched to this new revision
system, it should on the other hand speed up the process a lot.


  If you want this to happen fast... give us a hand.
  Comments and help welcome as usual,

    Edward, who would like to find an excuse not to wear his 'I hate
ffmpeg' t-shirt !

On Sun, 2007-10-28 at 19:43 +0100, Jens Persson wrote:
> Hello folks!
> 
> Well, tha last gst-ffmpeg is a tad dated now (released 6 dec 06) and 
> there has been a ton of improvements in ffmpeg since then so I'm 
> wondering if (or when) a new release is planned? I talked with David 
> Schleef on IRC and he told me (which I already found out some time ago 
> too :D) that you have to grab a new ffmpeg snapshot from svn and make it 
> play nice with gstreamer. He thought it was a matter of "a few days 
> work" so it doesn't sound that bloody hard to do. The main problem with 
> the current one is with x264 encoded files which works terribly 
> (unplayable) with gstreamer but works beutifully with latest mplayer rc. 
> Most other older formats seems to work just fine though but even they 
> will probably work even better with an uptodate ffmpeg snapshot. If I 
> had the knowledge I would be happy to donate some time and help out with 
> it but I suck terribly in C so I better stay out of the action, at least 
> for now. :D
> 
> Greets Jens
> 
> 
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