[vlc-devel] [PATCH 08/13] player: add the timer API

[Thomas Guillem]

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019, at 19:28, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> Le keskiviikkona 21. elokuuta 2019, 17.13.59 EEST Thomas Guillem a écrit :
> > Any interface or control modules could request a timer from the player. This
> > player timer is like the player event listener except that:
> > 
> >  - It is only used to receive time update
> > 
> >  - The timer is not locked by the player lock. Indeed the player lock can be
> > too "slow" (it can be recursive, it is used by the playlist, and is it held
> > when sending all events). So it's not a good idea to hold this lock for
> > every frame/sample updates.
> > 
> >  - The minimum delay between each updates can be configured: it avoids to
> > flood the UI when playing a media file with very high fps or very low audio
> > sample size.
> 
> I don't think that works.

cf. Qt implementation.

> 
> A UI would typically want to know when the clock crosses a certain threshold, 
> e.g. everytime the value of lround(play_time / CLOCK_FREQ) changes. In other 
> words, it wants to know when to replace 00:00 with 00:01.

It can't work, some inputs have audio samples size that are bigger than one seconds,  same with <1fps video.
And you don't want to update the UI every 1seconds: the UI slider won't be smooth enough.

> 
> And then the flood argument does not add up to high playback rates.
> 
> > The time updated is the output time, unlike the on_position_changed event
> > that use the input time. It can fixes a very big delay between the UI time
> > widgets and the outputted content (depending on the audio output module,
> > this delay could be close to 2seconds).
> > 
> > The vlc_player_timer_value struct is used by timer update callbacks. This
> > public struct hold all the informations to interpolate a time at a given
> > date. It could be done with the vlc_player_timer_value_Interpolate()
> > helper. In this way, it is now possible to get the last player time without
> > holding any locks.
> > 
> > There are two timer types:
> > 
> >  - Source: update are sent only when a frame or a sample is outputted. Users
> > of this timer should take into account that the delay between each updates
> > is not regular and can be up to 1seconds (depending of the input). In that
> > case, they should use their own timer (from their mainloop) and use
> > vlc_player_timer_value_Interpolate() to get the last time.
> 
> >  - Regular: The player will spawn a vlc timer (likely an other thread) that
> >    will send regular time updates. It can be used by control/interfaces that
> > don't have any mainloop.
> 
> That's sure to cause long term drift, and will obviously fail at non-nominal 
> playback rates. Does not make much sense to me.

Are you talking about the regular timer ? How can it cause long term drift ? The timer is corrected every time the clock is updated by the output. If the rate changes, an update is sent to every timers, regardless of their configured period/type.

> 
> -- 
> 雷米‧德尼-库尔蒙
> http://www.remlab.net/
> 
> 
> 
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