[vlc-devel] [PATCH 01/12] decoder: add decoder_OnOutputReady

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

On Tuesday 01 September 2015 21:37:45 Thomas Guillem wrote:
> > They are supposed to be callable from any thread. libavcodec uses both
> > from other threads. Of course the decoder is responsible for ensuring
> > sane ordering and updating the output format adequately. That's
> > unavoidable and your draining approach won't change anything in that
> > respect.
> 
> OK, I didn't know that these functions were callable from any thread. I
> was mislead by my first and too complicated version of my async decoder.
> I'll try with the "decoder_QueuePicture" way.

Oh, there are issues with threaded decoding. I know at least two:

1) There is confusion about fmt_out being the format of following buffer 
allocations, or the format of following output buffers. It assumes both are 
identical. That is not true with threaded decoding, at least not for H.264 and 
H.265.

We need to dedicated fmt_out to one, the other, or neither, but not both. (My 
personal preference would be neither, as it is unambiguous, but it is also the 
most disruptive to the code base.)

2) The rules for changing fmt_in when a packetizer is used are under-
specified. This is bad especially in threaded case as the decoder threads 
might access fmt_in asynchronously (such that fmt_in should be read-only).

Nevertheless, I do not see how draining works around those issues in any way, 
let alone solve them.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/