ffdshow tryouts project: Discussion & Development

[clsid]

Originally Posted by XhmikosR

@devs:
How about commenting out the code regarding the donates? The link doesn't work anymore.

It can be removed.

[XhmikosR]

Done. How about the other stuff I asked?

[STaRGaZeR]

Originally Posted by XhmikosR

And also the build scripts are kinda of useless and obviously we don't need 10 batch files for simply building ffdshow. And I'm pretty sure everyone is using their scripts since the ones in the svn do not work as expected in all cases and they do not cover all the compilers.

Agree.

And what do you think about renaming libavcodec.dll and associated stuff to ffmpeg.dll? Our libavcodec is not libavcodec anymore.

[XhmikosR]

I'm fine with it as long as the installer deletes the old dlls on install if it's an upgrade.
How about the translated readme files? They are not used as far as I can tell and the root directory is too populated in my opinion.

Oh, by the way, is anyone going to update x264, tremor or unrar? The current unrar source is butchered and it's hard for me to update it. sansnom05 updated unrar but he didn't commit it though it worked. I can't remember the reason.

EDIT: I want to apply astyle formatting in ffdshow's own code only since right now its code it's practically unreadable for the most people. What do you prefer, tabs or spaces? Right now I have used 4 spaces for indentation.

[STaRGaZeR]

I don't know how to do that with InnoSetup, but why do it? It wasn't done with libmplayer.dll and since nothing is going to use the dll it should be fine to leave it there.
I'm all for deletion, but if other devs don't want to do it one solution would be to not delete them, create a doc directory and put everything there.

I won't update x264. IMO it has no reason to be there but I know a lot of people use it and will complain, so meh. I asked about Tremor some time ago and there were no responses, libavcodec has been the default decoder for vorbis audio for quite some time with no complaints. So I'll delete it when I have time. I don't care about unrar either.

Spaces of course. If possible try to mimic ffmpeg's style. Just open any of its files and look at it, very easy to read, very well organized, looks really good...

BTW, there's something wrong with debug builds with VS2010. It compiles fine, but when you hit debug I get this warning:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets(990,5): warning MSB8012: TargetPath(E:\ffdshow\obj\Debug_Win32_VC2010\ffdshow.ax) does not match the
Linker's OutputFile property value (E:\ffdshow\bin\ffdshow.ax). This may cause your project to build incorrectly. To correct this, please make sure that $(OutDir), $(TargetName)
and $(TargetExt) property values match the value specified in %(Link.OutputFile).
Creating library E:\ffdshow\obj\Debug_Win32_VC2010\/ffdshow.lib and object E:\ffdshow\obj\Debug_Win32_VC2010\/ffdshow.exp
ffdshow_2010.vcxproj -> E:\ffdshow\obj\Debug_Win32_VC2010\ffdshow.ax

Then an error popup "Unable to start program "E:\ffdshow\obj\Debug_Win32_VC2010\ffdshow.ax"". Can you take a look at it?

[XhmikosR]

It's easy to do it with Inno Setup in the [InstallDelete] section but I'll leave it to clsid to decide about it.

As for the VS2010 warnings, they are caused because the OutDir is different that the linker outdir etc. Cause the dlls and the ax files are output in the bin dir while all other files are output in different dirs. That's why I said in the past that I don't like this approach. I would prefer if everything used one outdir based on the config/compiler.

And also the template configs should be removed since they are useless.

As for astyle, check this and tell me what you think, or suggest any specific options http://pastebin.com/qJtD1XsM
I used 4 spaces for that and all other options are the default ones.

[clsid]

Renaming libavcodec.dll to ffmpeg.dll

I don't mind this change if you guys would really like it. But I don't consider this very important. I do would like to keep the name libavcodec in the GUI though, as changing it would confuse people, and of course the decoders are part of libavcodec, so it is still correct.
Deleting files with InnoSetup is easy. Just one line in [InstallDelete] section.

Translated text files

Unused ones could be removed.

Build scripts

I would like to keep these. They are also useful for non-dev builders and serve as a good example for create custom scripts. The ICL one could be removed though.

Astyle formatting

I prefer these settings:
--style=kr
--indent-switches
--indent-namespaces
--add-brackets
--convert-tabs

The formatting should be applied just a few files at a time (25 max?) and a build should be made before each commit. This to avoid errors and make it simpler to track down any possible regressions.

The formatting should only be applied to files belonging directly to ffdshow. Files from external sources should not be touched, for example the various codec libs, zlib, etc.

Removing tremor

I am not aware of any bugs/limitations in the current libavcodec Vorbis decoder. So unless anyone can come up with a good reason to keep tremor, I agree that it may be removed.

Removing x264

I don't mind if this would be removed. It is not really being maintained anymore, and alternatives such as x264vfw as available. Although I agree that some users may not be happy if it were to be removed, but we can't make everybody happy.

We could also consider removing other encoders from ffdshow. FFV1 and FFVHUFF are useful, but what about the others? Is there any good reason for anyone to use for example the libavodec MPEG4 encoder instead of Xvid?

[XhmikosR]

I always test before committing, and I was thinking about the same thing, apply astyle in one dir at a time and check things. I'll try your suggested settings and I'll let you know. And of course I'm not going to apply it in 3rd party code, I know how painful it's to update them after that

I do believe that the current scripts are bad. The last time I tried them just for the fun of it, it simply failed. I could share my script but it's not completely silent at the moment, since I use some choice commands to choose what to build. If you could at least remove most of them and simply update the base script to use a few arguments that would be better. Also the Inno Setup path is simply wrong. See the mpc-hc batch file for how to get its path correctly.

EDIT: I'm not sure about the --add-brackets option though I do see the purpose of it. I agree with the rest and also using 4 spaces.

[dann23]

Originally Posted by clsid

We could also consider removing other encoders from ffdshow. FFV1 and FFVHUFF are useful, but what about the others? Is there any good reason for anyone to use for example the libavodec MPEG4 encoder instead of Xvid?

As I remember, drevil_xxl used to update x264 and if I'm remembering correctly it happend 3 or 4 months ago. Maybe I'm wrong about this. Also I'm using libavcodec mpeg4 encoder instead of xvid.

[clsid]

Yes, but WHY are you using the libavcodec MPEG4 decoder?

[dann23]

I have no special reason. It's just that I need to make something with dx50 as fourcc and some time ago xvid seemed to be dead. As decoder I don't know anyone to use xvid. that's why I didn't use the xvid encoder.

[STaRGaZeR]

@clsid

The name change only affects the dll. Changing the GUI would be wrong, because as you say the decoder itself is libavcodec.

I'll remove Tremor then.

So do we remove x264? I vote yes. Also a list fo encoders I'd remove: all libavcodec ones except HuffYUV, FFV1 and maybe DV. And about xvid, xvid also has a vfw codec that works perfectly well, so the same x264 argument could be applied here.

Originally Posted by dann23

I have no special reason. It's just that I need to make something with dx50 as fourcc and some time ago xvid seemed to be dead. As decoder I don't know anyone to use xvid. that's why I didn't use the xvid encoder.

xvid can also encode with DX50 FOURCC.

[clsid]

ffdshow also has a DirectShow encoder in addition to its VFW one. But there also is an alternative for that in case of x264. I don't know if it is good though.

Here is a list of encoders in ffdshow, with my votes/comments:
MPEG4 => remove
Xvid => remove
H.264 => remove
DivX3 => remove
MS MPEG4 => remove
MPEG2 => Remove from VFW, keep in DS? Any free DS alternatives?
MPEG1 => Remove from VFW, keep in DS? Any free DS alternatives?
H.261/3/3+ => Any VFW alternatives?
Windows Media * => remove
FFV1 => keep
Huffyuv => keep
DV => keep
MJPG => keep?
Lossless JPG => keep? Any advantage over for example Huffyuv?

We could possibly only disable stuff now, await feedback, and then decide in a few months what to remove.

[dann23]

for me it's ok but how to use directshow encoder with virtualdub?
I can quit using vfw completly. I have no problem with this. But I need a similiar tool like virtualdub that is capable to use directshow encoder. Any suggestions?

[CruNcher]

Could somebody check Karls Matroska RV9 testcase for me it drops heavily frames with ffdshows RV40 libavcodec decoder in MPC-HC im not sure why it seems strange as CPU utilization is very low obviously, you can find it here http://www.mediafire.com/?tc6tb131m1i677z.
Tried it also in graphstudio same result it drops frames heavily on both Gabest and Haalis Splitter with the ffdshow decoder. No problems with mplayer,vlc only ffdshow and also the ffplay builds from http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/autobuilds/ show this performance issue.

Maybe some Optimization is missing @ compilation in ffdshow as well as those ffplay builds ?

[XhmikosR]

Astyle formatting should be completed. If I applied it in a couple of 3rd files feel free to revert the changes, I tried to review most of the files just in case they are 3rd party code. If I missed any source file, feel free to apply astyle to it.

EDIT: Why exactly do we have to call update_version.bat from the IS script? Isn't it enough to get the needed stuff from svn_version.h? You must have compiled ffdshow before building the installer which means you already have svn_version.h anyway.

[clsid]

There may be changes committed unrelated to building ffdshow.ax, so that is why is never hurts to update version from IS as well.

The RV40 issue is a known FFmpeg bug:
https://roundup.ffmpeg.org/issue814

[XhmikosR]

I'm sorry but this is impossible. The revision will be the last committed rev so calling update_version.bat is pointless. Or at least give me one example where this is needed. Cause it beats me

[clsid]

I already gave the example. Commit something does does not affect ffdshow directly. Don't (re)compile ffdshow.ax. Build installer. Yes, I know that the version in the .ax will then be somewhat 'outdated'. But it is masochistic to compile again it just to update a mostly meaningless number.

Please focus on things that actually make ffdshow better in terms of functionality/stability/performance.

[XhmikosR]

OK so you want to keep the case where the wrong revision will be used? That's simply wrong. I will focus where I can and have interest atm.

PS. STaRGaZeR, update your Inno Setup version