Kostya's Boring Codec World

More than two years ago I’ve posted what I considered should be high priority Libav projects. Let’s see what has been finished, what’s left and what should probably be added.

User tools

• Working avserver — fixed in the clean way (by removing it completely);
• Proper filter system. When I say “proper” I mean the one that allows dynamic reconfiguring, handles errors and works for arbitrary inputs and outputs — some claim it’s been fixed;
• libswscale replacement. The one that doesn’t sap sanity when you look at its code. Maybe with a nicer API too. And better pixel format support.

RealMedia support

• Improve RM demuxer or maybe rewrite it from scratch — there’s a demuxer reimplementation from scratch is in the works, hopefully it will succeed;
• Add proper support for multirate RM streams — hopefully will be handled;
• Add IVR format demuxer — noone cares;
• Add ClearVideo decoder (that’s the last codec in RM that we don’t support, hopefully not for long) — noone cares and I lost interest too.

Other Intel codecs support

• Improve Indeo4 decoder (it still has some features lacking) — B-frames support was added, transparency support is still not there;
• Improve Intel Audio Coder decoder — fixed too.

On2 codecs support

• On2 VP7 decoder (we still can implement it faster than certain Baidu rival releases its source code) — nothing to say except “many thanks, Peter!” and “Baidu, I’ve not expected anything else from you”(and indeed we got what we expected, i.e. total lack of support);
• On2 VP4 decoder;
• On2 AVC decoder (that stands for “Audio for Video Codec”) — done.

Micro$oft (screen) codecs support

• Add M$ Screen Codec 1 decoder;
• Add M$ Screen Codec 2 decoder;
• Add M$ Expression Encoder Screen Codec decoder;
• Add beta Windows Media Video 9 interlaced decoding — maybe it’s better left unfixed.
• Fix beta Windows Media Video 9 P-frames decoding — again, it’s unlikely to ever happen because there are not so many people who can RE intended behaviour and even less people who can RE libavcodec/vc1dec.c to put the fix there.

QuickTime codecs support

• Add Rottenfruit Intermediate Codec decoder;
• Add any other codec decoder — noone cares about Pixlet, noone cares enough to add QDesign Music 1 etc..

Other codecs

• Add GoToMeeting 2-4 decoder — GoToWebinary aka G2M4 is done, the rest is permanently stalled (and I’ve passed stalling duties to Diego);
• Add more screen codec decoders — someone asked for FIC Video and got it;
• Add more game format decoders (especially Discworld Noir BMV) — I should return to it;
• Add more audio (especially speech) codec decoders — Opus decoder is enough.

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So, if the tast was moderately interesting it was done, fringe stuff was not taken, serious stuff was not taken either (most people I know agree that swscaler should be replaced yet noone wants to work on the replacement).

And what high priority projects for Libav do I see in the future? None really. Just none.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2014 at 10:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.