[MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH] Multiple files for MEncoder

[D Richard Felker III]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 11:49:58AM -0300, Reynaldo H. Verdejo Pinochet wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 07:17:01PM +0200, Oded Shimon wrote:
> > On Tuesday 08 February 2005 11:27, Oded Shimon wrote:
> > > As most of you probably know, I've been working on multiple file support
> > > for MEncoder. this patch is a "first draft". Things which could be
> > > improved:
> 
> first, if this is ever going to be applyed, and rest asured that i'd
> like so, you will need tho fix some of these

provided that it mostly works and doesn't break single-file encoding
in any way, i'm all for applying it. if stupid users do nonsensical
things and mess up their multi-file encodes, too bad for them. the
situation can be improved later if necessary, of course.

basically my philosophy on patches like this is that, as long as they
neither break existing functionality nor horribly mess up the code
with nasty hacks, it's good to apply them as soon as they work. then
users can try them out, comments, etc. and if there are bugs then
either the original patch author or someone else can fix those bugs.

> > > 2. Better support for audio - as is, if the user specifies '-af' it only
> > > affect the first file. Also no checks are made against merging 2 files
> > > which have different audio
> > Fixed. still no checks though.
> 
> maybe not _so_ easy, but and effort should be made to protect lusers from
> himselfs, imho checks should be done.

no need to protect the lusers from themselves, but imo it _would_ be
good to protect people who may receive files encoded by the luser.
i.e. mencoder should bail out with an error rather than writing an
invalid file where audio format changes midway through, even if it
means pissing off the user who already spent 5 hours encoding the
first file.

> > > 3. Fixing most of the MEncoder options to be properly global. As is, '-ovc'
> > > and '-oac' for ex. are "per file" options, not the most desireable
> > > situation...
> > Fixed.
> > I'm not 100% sure I got all of them right, as some of these options I have 
> > never used and do not know their significance... please look over the patch 
> > and tell me if it's OK.
> 
> youre the one coding this, if you arent confident enough to asure this
> will work on every escenario, maybe you are rushing things up a little.

i agree, this is an issue. oded, you should download some samples to
test with if you don't have dvd/subs yourself.

> > > 4. Perhaps improving dealing with bad merging of files?  As is, if the user
> > > asks to merge 2 files which are of different resolution, MEncoder exits
> > > with error when reaching the second file - a possibly depressing result if
> > > the user waited a long time for the encode of the first file. The user can
> > > still do this however, and it will work perfectly:
> > > mencoder 1.avi 2.avi -vf scale=whatever
> > > And only the 2nd file will be scaled, as necessary.
> > Hasn't changed.
> 
> same with audio, some encodings take a while to complete, imagine an user
> waiting an hour or so, just to see they cannot make it trough the next
> file.. not nice at all, maybe you can just force the scale and inform
> the user youre going to do so?

not really possible without nasty hacks in the filter chain. again,
anyone stupid enough not to check their files before encoding should
not be encoding to begin with.

rich