[vlc-devel] [RFC] Remove SDL_image codec plugin?

[Alexandre Janniaux]

Hi,

It has been a blocker multiple times in cross-compilation
environment and I don't think I ever came close to be using
it so I won't miss it too.

Regards,
--
Alexandre Janniaux
Videolabs

On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 07:51:13PM +0200, Marvin Scholz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if we can remove the SDL_image codec module (and therefore
> the SDL and
> SDL_image dependencies in contrib) as it seems most formats are supported
> anyway by
> ffmpeg and others seems very obscure and possibly too niche to justify
> depending on
> SDL just for those:
>
>     { VLC_CODEC_TARGA, "TGA" }, -> supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_CODEC_BMP, "BMP" }, -> supported by FFmpeg (but see below)
>     { VLC_CODEC_PNM, "PNM" }, -> supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_FOURCC('x','p','m',' '), "XPM" }, -> supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_FOURCC('x','c','f',' '), "XCF" }, -> as far as I can see not
> supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_CODEC_PCX, "PCX" }, -> supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_CODEC_GIF, "GIF" }, -> supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_CODEC_JPEG, "JPG" }, -> supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_CODEC_TIFF, "TIF" }, -> supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_FOURCC('l','b','m',' '), "LBM" }, -> unsure if supported by FFmpeg
>     { VLC_CODEC_PNG, "PNG" } -> supported by FFmpeg
>
> The most worrying seems the comment in subsusf:
>
>                     /* Find a suitable decoder module */
>                     if( module_exists( "sdl_image" ) )
>                     {
>                         /* ffmpeg thinks it can handle bmp properly but it
> can't (at least
>                          * not all of them), so use sdl_image if it is
> available */
>                         var_Create( p_dec, "codec", VLC_VAR_STRING |
> VLC_VAR_DOINHERIT );
>                         var_SetString( p_dec, "codec", "sdl_image" );
>                     }
>
> so it might be needed in some special corner-cases but unfortunately its not
> documented what these specific BMPs are that ffmpeg can not handle so I am
> not sure how we could test if its still needed.
>
> If we come to the conclusion it is still needed indeed, we should at least
> update
> it to SDL2 / SDL2_image instead of the ancient versions we currently use.
>
> Any opinion/insight from people more familiar with these codecs would be
> highly
> appreciated!
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