Issues with valves

[4ernov]

Hello, Hector,

> Hi everybody,
>
> I'm new in GStreamer but trying to move faster through it.
>
> I'm recording video with basic pipelines and now I'm trying to use valves to
> regulate the record (stop/pause/cut...).
> The problem is that the pipeline won't pass Prerolling when the valves are
> initialised dropping.

I'd say using valves is not the best way for your case as it's very
easy to drop some useful data (e.g. events or buffers) with them.
Dynamic changes in pipeline is better but they also have a bunch of
problems you need to solve.

>
> I've also try to change sinks on-the-move (Playing) but it didn't work as I
> expected.
>
> Any tips?

If I get it right what you're trying to do is to change the pipeline
dynamically. Well, it's not the easiest part of work with GStreamer, I
should say. There're several posts in the list about it here and
there, but to sum everything гз here're the problems one need to solve
to change the pipeline dynamically in proper way:
1. Branch synchronization if some of the sinks is in sync (e.g.
streaming video to ximagesink and capturing it to file
simultaneously): it's necessary to use queue for each branch.
2. To reconnect elements on the fly one need to look after the
remaining pipeline. It's done by either blocking pads of changing
branch or using valves (so dangerous).
Besides that you should take into account that with every problem the
pipeline is stalled hard without any messages even on DEBUG log level.
It make the debugging difficult very much. Also these instructions
work quite stable only for PLAYING state and have many issues for
others. For example, if you block pads in PAUSED state, it will stall
the pipeline forever as no buffers are streamed through the pipeline
in this state. And finally, remember that elements are not guaranteed
to be reusable i.e. if you create pipeline from scratch, set it to
PLAYING state, then set it to READY and again to PLAYING, it's not
guaranteed that the behavior is the same as if you create a new one
instead of setting the existing pipeline to READY and then to PLAYING.

So, there's some hope that it would be changed in the future releases,
but now it's not easy at all to change the pipeline dynamically.

Hope it helps.