[Ffmpeg-devel] New/extended filter API discussion

Alexander Chemeris ipse.ffmpeg
Sat Jan 6 01:57:15 CET 2007


Hello,

On 1/5/07, Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> wrote:
> to repeat again some goals of a video filter API
> * well documented (see mplayer for how not to do it)
> * writing a filter should not require complete knowledge of all
>   (undocumented) internals of the video filter system
> * direct rendering (useing a buffer provided by the next filter)
> * inplace rendering (for example adding some subtitles shouldnt need the
>   whole frame to be read and written)
> * slices based rendering (improves cache locality, but there are issues
>   with out of order decoding ...)
> * multiple inputs
> * multiple outputs (could always trivially be handled by several filters
>   with just a single output each)
> * timestamps per frame
> * also th number of frames consumed by a filter does not have to match the
>   number output ((inverse)telecine, ...)
>
> also i suggest that whoever designs the filter system looks at mplayers
> video filters as they support a large number of the things above
Take a look into Avisynth (and VirtualDub, maybe) filter API. It runs under
Windows only, but have very interesting filter API with automatic buffer
management, based on pull model as opposed to push model. It uses C++
heavily, however may inspire you with some design ideas.

I have some thoughts about video filter API, because I'm thinking about
very similar subsystem for sipX media processing library. So, when I thought
about benefits and drawbacks of "push", "pull" and "process" models of
opperation, I came to the view, that "process" approach is simplest among
others while almost as powerful as "push" and "pull". By "process" model
I mean following -- each filter have 'process()' function which simply take
input frames, process them and push into output buffer. Most work in this
approach should be done by flowgraph class itself - it knows how filters
are connected and could take output frames from preceding filter and pass
them to subsequent filter.

One drawback of "push" and "pull" models is that they could not have
multiple inputs (for "push") or outputs (for "pull"). Lets consider
"push" model.
If filter graph have two inputs and one of them pushes frame behaviour
of the second input is ill defined -- it could be ignored, or pulled, or smth
else, but I do not see good approach here. The same for "pull" and multiple
outputs.

And finally I had an idea of universal "push-pull-process" model. Let all
processing is done in 'process()' function, but instead of simple input
and output buffers it have two functions - 'get_input()' and 'set_output()'.
Then if 'get_input()' could take frame from input buffer or ask preceding
filter for frame, and 'set_output()' behave similar, we could switch from
"push" to "pull" or "process" model even at runtime.

Why this runtime switching is needed? Because each model is native for
different cases. "Push" is natural when processing frames as they come,
e.g. when converting from one format to other with maximum speed. "Pull"
is well-suited when frames are requested by rendering side (as in Avisynth).
And "process" is useful when multiple inputs and outputs are needed.

However I decided that implementing such complex mulimodel will take too
much time and sticked to "process" model as simplest while allowing
many fun things. But in this project I think this complexity may be not so
expensive, while giving very flexible solution.


-- 
Regards,
Alexander Chemeris.




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