[FFmpeg-devel] Re: [RFC] libavdevice

[Nicolas George via ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>]

Michael Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel (HE12025-10-29):
> 1. merge libavdevice and libavformat

Of course we should do that. The split into multiple libraries serves no
purpose, it only makes our work more complicated; the benefits people
think they get from it either are nonexistent or could be obtained more
efficiently with less intrusive solutions.

IIRC, in the case of libavdevice, it was done under the pressure of
people who hated it and wanted to get rid of it, just like they managed
to put pressure on you to get rid of libpostproc.

> 2. make libavdevice actually great again, aka a seperate API designed for devices

That would not make libavdevice great, that would kill it.

The fact that devices can pass as muxers / demuxers is the key to the
usefulness of libavdevice: people write code for plain files, and thanks
to the magic of having the same API, this code can be used as is with
ALSA playback or desktop capture.

If libavdevice gets its own API, then the only code that works with it
is code that was specifically written for it, and who would write code
specifically for a mishmash of devices whose sole common point is that
they used to have the same API.

> (3. maybe a bunch of flags checks version whatever can be used to make it work as is)

We could also consider making libavdevice API evolve towards the one of
libavfilter.

That would require the driving code to work with non-buffersink sinks,
though, and we are not there yet.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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