[vlc-devel] [PATCH] Patch to fix bug #1532, and improve http seek times.

[Bill C. Riemers]

Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> There are two big differences.
>
> First, HTTP is (most) commonly used over high-latency links, whereas NFS is 
> mostly (if not only) used over low-latency local area networks. Of course, if 
> you use HTTP and NFS between the same client and server pair, you may notice 
> identical performances (I suspect HTTP will even outperform NFS), but 
> the "normal" usage patterns are different.
>
> Second, NFS is a filesystem protocol, whereas HTTP is file transfer protocol. 
> With HTTP, you need to close the connection, open a new one, and start a 
> brand new request, because you cannot interrupt a running transfer otherwise. 
> HTTP simply sucks at random access. I bet the NFS performance degrades a lot 
> less from sequential to random access than that of HTTP.
>   

True you got me there.   Primary NFS is used over faster network
connections.

I guess I simply don't understand how CAN_FASTSEEK is supposed to be
used.   But it is pretty clear from this discussion, that AVI's
demux'ing is not an instance when FASTSEEK is needed.   Seek times on
the order of 3x ping times is good enough for avi demux.   So I will
correct the patch not to mark http has fastseek, and modify avi demux
not to require fast seek.

Bill