[Ffmpeg-devel] plug-n-play codecs support

[Alexander Strasser]

Hi,
 
Arpi wrote:
> > M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
> > > Aaron Lee <waifunlee at gmail.com> writes:
> > > > I would like to build a ffmpeg dynamic loading mechanism such that
> > > > codecs can be built as a dll and be loaded at runtime rather than
> > > > statically bundle all codecs in a big library. Has anyone done that
> > > > before?
> > > 
> > > Many of the codecs share the core components, only the bit parsing
> > > being specific.  This means that the cost of each codec isn't as high
> > > as it might seem.
> > 
> >   In addition i think it would be way more useful to make the codecs
> > selectable at compile time which is in the works if i understood
> 
> the problem(?) is that they share a lot more.
> try to remove a codec file from Makefile, and see how many other
> codecs use some code from it. the libavcodec codecs has a lot
> cross-dependency on eachother, sharing small helper functions or
> sometimes even big parsers (with some if()'s inside to check codec type).

  yeah, this has been mentioned and i have already seen it myself
at some places in the code. But maybe it is solvable by starting
decoupling things step by step which is the plan iirc. As far
as my understanding goes the shared parts would then be included
as soon as a selected codecs needs them. I don't think it will
be easy though.
  Non the less i think it would be useful (and others too?).

  Alex (beastd)