Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH v5 00/25] Subtitle Filtering 2022

[Soft Works <softworkz@hotmail.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Soft Works
> Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2022 6:02 AM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH v5 00/25] Subtitle Filtering 2022
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > Anton Khirnov
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2022 3:40 AM
> > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH v5 00/25] Subtitle Filtering
> 2022
> >
> > Quoting Soft Works (2022-08-27 00:48:01)
> > > 2. "There's no reason why this cannot be handled using the buffer
> > >     and data fields"
> > >
> > > I had explained the reasons and in conversation on IRC, Lynne was
> > > no longer insisting on this AFAIR.
> >
> > I did not see this explanation, can you restate it here?
> 

You had asked me to restate the explanation.

I did that (below) but you never responded.

Thanks,
softworkz



> Sure. Let's look at the AVSubtitleArea struct first:
> 
> 
>   typedef struct AVSubtitleArea {
> 
>     enum AVSubtitleType type;
>     int flags;
> 
>     int x;         ///< top left corner  of area.
>     int y;         ///< top left corner  of area.
>     int w;         ///< width            of area.
>     int h;         ///< height           of area.
>     int nb_colors; ///< number of colors in bitmap palette (@ref
> pal).
> 
>     /**
>      * Buffers and line sizes for the bitmap of this subtitle.
>      *
>      * @{
>      */
>     AVBufferRef *buf[AV_NUM_BUFFER_POINTERS];
>     int linesize[AV_NUM_BUFFER_POINTERS];
>     /**
>      * @}
>      */
> 
>     uint32_t pal[256]; ///< RGBA palette for the bitmap.
> 
>     char *text;        ///< 0-terminated plain UTF-8 text
>     char *ass;         ///< 0-terminated ASS/SSA compatible event
> line.
> 
>   } AVSubtitleArea;
> 
> 
> 
> These structs are stored in AVFrame like this:
> 
> 
>     /**
>      * Number of items in the @ref subtitle_areas array.
>      */
>     unsigned num_subtitle_areas;
> 
>     /**
>      * Array of subtitle areas, may be empty.
>      */
>     AVSubtitleArea **subtitle_areas;
> 
> 
> 
> The question was "why this cannot be handled using the buffer
> and data fields?" - there are multiple reasons:
> 
> 1. Area Count
> 
> In ASS subtitles it's not uncommon that animations are defined
> through subtitle events (regular ass events). This can go as
> far as that dust particles are flying around on the screen and
> each particle has its own subtitle event/line which defines
> how it flies from x to y and how fast, etc.
> Not yet, but in a future update, the ass decoder should be
> improved in a way that it doesn't emit an individual AVFrame
> for each event line but bundles subsequent events together
> when these would have the same start time and duration.
> As a result, we can have AVFrames with dozens or even a hundred
> AVSubtitleArea items in extreme cases.
> 
> The buffer and data fields are an array of fixed size (currently
> 8). Increasing to 16 or 32 would not help: there will still be
> cases where this does not suffice.
> 
> 2. What exactly should be stored in frame->buf[]?
> 
> Should we store the AVSubtitleArea structs as AVBuffer there?
> 
> Or should we only store data in those buffers? If yes, which
> data? The subtitle bitmap probably. How about the subtitle
> text - maybe and area has even both. And should we also
> store the palette in some frame->buf[n]?
> If yes, how to keep track of which data is stored in which
> buffer?
> Further, there's a documented convention that requires that
> non-zero buffers are contiguous, i.e. there must not be
> an empty buffer pointer between two other a non-empty buffer
> pointers. This would require to re-arrange the buffers to
> close any gap when some subtitle area data is removed, zeroed
> out or has been converted to another format.
> Closing such gap also require to update any mapping information
> ("which buffer is related to which area?")
> 
> That's a lot of tedious work and every API user (or codec/filter
> developer) would need to do it in the right way.
> 
> 
> 
> 3. AVFrame Code Logic Mistmatch
> 
> A subtitle frame can have 0 to N areas, which means that a
> frame without any area is still valid. Opposed to that, existing
> (code all over the place in ffmpeg) is treating an AVFrame
> as invalid when the first data buffer is empty,
> i.e. frame->buf[0] != NULL
> 
> To accommodate to this situation, subtitle frames are always
> creating a 1-byte buffer for buf[0].
> 
> When we would want subtitle data to be stored in those buffers,
> every developer would need to be aware about the requirement
> to have that dummy buffer in the first array element. When something
> is to be stored, the dummy buffer would need to be freed first
> before storing the actual data.
> And when the last buffer gets deleted, API users would need to
> know to create a new dummy buffer.
> 
> 
> That fixed size array might be a good fit for image data, but
> it's not for subtitle data.
> 
> 
> The approach in my patchset is simple, intuitive and everybody
> can easily work with it without needing any special knowledge:
> 
> 
>     unsigned num_subtitle_areas;
>     AVSubtitleArea **subtitle_areas;
> 
> IMHO, this is the most suitable pattern for this situation.
> 
> 
> 
> > If you claim the other points were addressed I will look at the
> > patches
> > again.
> 
> Oh cool, that would be great!
> 
> Thanks,
> softworkz
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