[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] [RFC] avformat/options_table: do not merge sidedata by default

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 08:53:14PM +0100, Reimar Döffinger wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 08:43:03PM +0100, wm4 wrote:
> > Side data seems like a nice way to communicate parameter changes and
> > other out-of-band data to the decoder side. How else would you handle
> > parameter changes?
> 
> By putting them in-band of course.
> Putting data critical for decoding out-of-band, in particular when
> there is no standard for doing so and thus "out-of-band" is actually
> "oops, it got lost somewhere" is pretty much what I consider braindead.
> That it ended up getting used for everything just because it's easy
> doesn't make it better.

I am probably being a bit too harsh here, but in principle the
thing is we had the problem "what should we do with containers
that have out-of-band data".
We "solved" that by introducing an out-of-band mechanism inside
FFmpeg.
I say "solved" because all it really did was move the problem
one step further to "I have out-of-band data, what should I do
with it when the container/filter/application/whatever doesn't
support it".
>From my point of view, the current answer to that is "make it
in-band data".
This patch instead makes the answer to that question "just drop it".
But are crappy solutions.
The second somewhat more so though IMHO.
But I do understand your other points, so I don't think the
patch makes things exactly worse.
Still, I think in the end it is just moving the dirt from
under carpet A to under carpet B.