[x264-devel] noobie encoding questions?

[Dusty Leary]

Apologies if this is the wrong list.

I am investigating using x264 for live streaming of 3d rendered content.
The "best low-latency video streaming platform" blog post was exciting.
I have never really worked in video encoding before.

I have built x264 as a windows dll, and integrated it with our software.
Capturing frames, converting to YUV, and encoding.  The basics work.  But,
I'm having trouble with timing information.  Maybe I just need to learn
about container formats?  Maybe I should use ffmpeg instead of x264
directly?

Right now, I made the program capture frames and push them through x264.
The output NALs I am just writing directly to a file (like the raw output in
x264.exe), with the intention of working out live streaming later.

But, I'm having trouble playing the files generated this way.
VLC basically won't play them.  A window of the correct size flashes up and
disappears.  I can't figure out how to get log information.

MPlayer will play the file, but I don't understand how the time coding stuff
works.  I have found that if I specify
x264_params_t.i_timebase_num/i_timebase_den = 1/15, I get 30fps playback in
MPlayer.  But, the values I put into x264_picture_t.i_pts seem to be
completely ignored.  I would have thought that some interaction between
timebase and pts would specify when the frame should be displayed.  Our app
runs at a variable FPS, and when the movie assumes a constant FPS the timing
gets messed up.

I feel like I'm basically doing things wrong, and VLC and MPlayer are both
responding in different ways.  I think VLC is just instantly playing the
file because it things I've specified all frames to happen at time 0 or
something.  And MPlayer is falling back on some default.


here are some snippets of my setup:  http://pastebin.com/ycVGWjey
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