[vlc-devel] [PATCH] rework the video frame skipping/dropping strategy in the avcodec decoder

[Steve Lhomme]

Bump.

Is this patch OK ? I think it was tested on Android successfully with
visible improvements.

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 11:21 AM, Steve Lhomme <robux4 at videolabs.io> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 11:08 AM, Rémi Denis-Courmont <remi at remlab.net> wrote:
>> Le 2015-02-27 12:33, Steve Lhomme a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> This may be less prevalent now than when the code was written, but
>>>> rendering
>>>> a picture can consume a lot of CPU (for filters and conversions) and/or a
>>>> lot of time (if the video output is slow). Also 50ms is already longer
>>>> than
>>>> the typical frame period (assuming more than 20 fps), so there should
>>>> already be a newer picture to render.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, but in the case of CPU overload each coming frame is later than
>>> the previous one.
>>
>>
>> Who cares about that case? If the delay keeps increasing, palliation at the
>> video output is impossible anyway.
>
> I just think it's a waste of CPU to have the data ready to be
> displayed and just drop it because it was a tiny bit late. At least in
> the case we know we're not going to do any more memory copies/heavy
> processing to render.
>
>>> And in the end nothing is displayed at all. Maybe if
>>> nothing has been displayed in 100ms or we dropped 5 frames we could
>>> decided to display it anyway ? It's better than having the file being
>>> decoded and never showing anything. That could improve the playback
>>> experience on low spec devices.
>>
>>
>> And rendering late frames will make recovery from transient hiccups more
>> difficult and less likely. That seems like a terrible idea.
>
> If this is about CPU usage, that could be a blocker. But if we know
> it's not going to be heavy, we should do it. I don't know if there are
> flags or way to tell that, but that could be handy.
> _______________________________________________
> vlc-devel mailing list
> To unsubscribe or modify your subscription options:
> https://mailman.videolan.org/listinfo/vlc-devel