[vlc-devel] [PATCH 1/6] input_item: add WITH_ASSOCIATED_MEDIA meta request

[Alexandre Janniaux]

Hi,

On Wed, Dec 04, 2019 at 01:37:54PM +0200, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> Hi
>
> I haven't considered what the proper behaviour would be. I just don't think it's right to delegate it to the application, as the app has less info, and the app dev likely less expertise than we do.

I think I understand better what is needed. A developer using
LibVLC and associated medias will not expect that he must use
a flag to have its associated media parsed.

I just note that it's not worse than the current situation in
which they will never be able to parse them at all and just
feel that it is a bug in LibVLC.

A nicer LibVLC implementation would be to have the function
adding associated media taking the option directly, or even
a mandatory parameter to tell whether it must take it into
account in the LibVLC reports, but it needs a lot of change
in the input code and LibVLC media player which I might not
be able to afford considering a potential rewrite of the
media_player, the future work on input and cachhing and the
current complexity of input slaves.

The "nicer LibVLC implementation" doesn't even solve the
issue you're mentioning completely and probably still poorly
workaround the real problem but it's hard to define it for me
currently.

Maybe the real issue is the abstraction given to LibVLC users
for handling associated media and preparsing, which is too
low level?

At first I would have expected something like this:

```
libvlc_media_t *video = libvlc_media_new....();
libvlc_media_t *subtitle = libvlc_media_new....();

// create preparser, whatever we name it
libvlc_preparser_t *preparser = libvlc_preparser_new...();

// will get track info of video file
libvlc_preparser_req_t *parse_req = libvlc_preparser_preparse(preparser, video);

// create the full media
libvlc_media_list *media_list = libvlc_media_list_new...();
libvlc_media_list_add_media(media_list, video);
libvlc_media_list_add_media(media_list, audio);
libvlc_media_t *combined = libvlc_media_list_combine_and_release(media_list);

// Here `combined` can be created with any tools given from VLC core
```

Actually, I was even confused by `libvlc_media_list_set_media`
and though it was already doing that.

But I'm far from knowing all LibVLC clients code and history
so my main point is that I feel that what you require is not
an issue with my patches but with the actual code instead, and
that my patch just extend something you already don't like.

I might be wrong of course, feel free to confirm or deny what
I described. I'm mostly trying to find a solution and would
not try to proclaim anything at this stade.

Thank you for your feedback,

Regards,
--
Alexandre Janniaux
Videolabs