[Bf-committers] Is ffmpeg worth it?

Reuben Martin reuben.m at gmail.com
Fri Jul 21 04:15:04 CEST 2006


Hi,

I've been watching the ffmpeg development over the last development
cycle and I've been wondering if maybe it wouldn't be a better idea to
use gstreamer.

I don't want to be the type of a$$ who comes along after a big amount
of work has been done saying "you're doing it all wrong... this way is
better"  After all, I admire the initive and work done. I think it's
been a great way to open up codec support to Linux users.

There are several things about ffmpeg that worry me:
-Is it going to me a major hassle to fix the build system every time
there are changes in ffmpeg?
-What about all the differences in Linux distros and versions of
ffmpeg? Will that cause further build problems?
-Is compiling it statically going to result in monster sized downloads?


And gstreamer seems to offer several advantages:
-It supports all the seeking functions of ffmpeg, in fact you can even
use ffmpeg indirectly through gstreamer.
-It seems like it would be easier to maintain, especially when dealing
with multiplatform issues since it was intended to be multiplatform to
begin with.
-It has actual releases instead of CVS snapshots with erratic changes
to the API.
-Major versions can be installed in parallel.
-It can handle more than just video. You could also use it to handle
audio, image sequences, even as a frameserver. (which could unify the
frameserver interface across platforms) It claims to be able to pipe
just about any kind of data.
-It could replace other things as well, like openAL.

So am I crazy? I'm not bringing this up because I think ffmpeg is
"wrong", but because it currently seems like it is becoming a real
hassle to make it work. Of course it may be that once this is ironed
out in scons, it will be fixed for good. If that's the case just
ignore me. :)

Maybe this was already talked about on IRC and was ruled out because
of something I'm unaware of. Anyhoo, I'm writing this mostly out of
curiosity, so flame away.

I'm really enjoying the latest release.

Best,
-Reuben


More information about the Bf-committers mailing list