20010328 MacOS X/Darwin port status

[Samuel Hocevar]

1. Have vlc compile & run with dummy outputs - DONE
2. Have x11 plugin work - FAILED
    or alternatively have sdl plugin work - DONE [A]
3. Write a native audio output plugin - DONE
4. Port DeCSS-like features - IN PROGRESS [B]
5. Write a native video output plugin - DELAYED [C]
6. Write a native aqua interface - TODO [D]
7. Write AltiVec optimizations - IN PROGRESS [E]
8. Fix AC3 playback under OS X - IN PROGRESS [F]

* Status:

As Christophe reported earlier, the latest cvs should compile flawlessly
under MacOS X (untested under Darwin), provided you have installed the
dl library: <http://fink.sourceforge.net/files/dlcompat-20010123.tar.gz>

vlc can then play .mpg or unencrypted .vob files.

* Detailed comments:

[A] The SDL plugin not working was simply due to missing compilation
flags, thanks to Colin for fixing this. Performances are more than
acceptable, MPEG-1 files play at full speed on a G4 at 333, while MPEG-2
files play at about 10fps, which isn't that bad considering only pure C
routines are being used at this time.

[B] I'm still working on it. I managed to create a special character
device which takes a DVD device and a few additional arguments, and
performs key negociation with the drive. However, I'm not fully
satisfied with it since we'll need to access two separate devices, one
for the key negociation and one for the data access. Plus, accessing
the raw data requires root privileges and an unmounted DVD. I'm
investigating on whether it's possible to merge the two devices and get
rid of all known problems.

[C] Since the SDL plugin now works, the importance of a native video
output plugin is more discutable. Colin suggested to focus on more
important issues, and I have to agree with him.

[D] Again, a native Aqua interface isn't absolutely required since
most interface commands can be made available through the video output
plugin, but it would be a plus.

[E] AltiVec iDCT committed but not working, Christophe is on it
but any help will be appreciated. If you don't know what to do,
you can have a look at the motion compensation or the YUV to RGB
transformation, I think that an AltiVec YUV2RGB can give us a 50% speed
increase. A very interesting tutorial on AltiVec was announced on
comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc:

   http://www.alienorb.com/AltiVec/Altivec.pdf
   http://www.alienorb.com/AltiVec/AltiVec_Tutorial_w_Source.sit

[F] AC3 decoding seems to produce garbage on certain boxes, like
Colin's. Eujenio doesn't seem to have this problem, nor do Linux
PPC boxes. This is being investigated, and any feedback would be
appreciated.

Regards,
-- 
Sam.