[FFmpeg-devel] GoC 2008 and H264 SVC decoder

[Robert Marston]

Nicolas George wrote:
> By the way, that is a question that was bothering me for a long time: what
> is the point of DTS (decoding timestamps, right?)? And why is it necessary
> for H.264 and not other codecs?
>
> My naive idea is that a frame needs to be decoded before it is presented,
> and after all frames it depends on have been decoded, and that is enough. Do
> you have any references where this is explained?
>   

DTS is used for prediction. A B-frame may require information from a 
frame that is ahead of it in play out time and hence that frame will 
have to be decoded before the B-frame and hence will have a lower DTS 
value then the B-frame.

Regards
Robert