[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] avcodec: Remove libfaac, the internal AAC encoder is better

[Roger Pack]

On 4/10/16, Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 07:29:05PM +0100, Rostislav Pehlivanov wrote:
>> On 10 April 2016 at 17:42, Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 04:38:35PM +0100, Kieran Kunhya wrote:
>> > > ---
>> > >  Changelog              |   1 +
>> > >  configure              |   6 --
>> > >  doc/encoders.texi      | 105 ---------------------
>> > >  doc/ffserver.conf      |   2 +-
>> > >  doc/general.texi       |   2 +-
>> > >  doc/muxers.texi        |   4 +-
>> > >  doc/platform.texi      |   2 +-
>> > >  libavcodec/Makefile    |   1 -
>> > >  libavcodec/allcodecs.c |   1 -
>> > >  libavcodec/libfaac.c   | 248
>> > -------------------------------------------------
>> > >  libavcodec/version.h   |   2 +-
>> > >  11 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 367 deletions(-)
>> > >  delete mode 100644 libavcodec/libfaac.c
>> >
>> > this is not possible currently libfaac is twice as fast than the
>> > native encoder.
>> >
>> > time ./ffmpeg -v 0 -i matrixbench_mpeg2.mpg -vn -c:a libfaac -y
>> > test.aac
>> > real    0m2.828s
>> > user    0m2.776s
>> > sys     0m0.048s
>> >
>> > time ./ffmpeg -v 0 -i matrixbench_mpeg2.mpg -vn -y test.aac
>> > real    0m5.908s
>> > user    0m5.856s
>> > sys     0m0.048s
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> FAAC isn't maintained, hasn't had any work done on it in who knows how
>> many
>> years, nobody but people who don't know that the native encoder/fdk is
>> better use it (just a few thankfully), isn't particularly stable
>> (segfaulted a few times when I was comparing it last year) and finally,
>> it's not good at all.
>> An argument that it's faster than the native encoder has as much weight
>> as
>> an argument that libaac_plus was also faster than the native encoder,
>> which
>> didn't matter as it was eventually removed
>> The age where we needed a few different AAC encoders because there wasn't
>> really a single good multipurpose one is gone now. The times have changed
>> since FAAC was developed (Nokia sponsored at lot of its development, and
>> you know what they used to make) and so have the computers. What was an
>> acceptable speed back then for encoding a file at a given quality isn't
>> necessarily the same now. And considering that fdk-aac can run as slow as
>> our encoder I'd say we're doing pretty well as far as the balance between
>> speed and quality goes.
>
> x264 can encode at really impressive speed and also at really
> impressive quality, its the users choice by using teh preset option
>
> for aac the user can choose speed through using the libfaac encoder
> or quality through using the native encoder
> speed matters for battery powered devices, not just for media servers
> on phones but also for plain audio recording on phones which i think
> is more common.

FWIW I once received a report that the old (now removed) vo-aacenc was
lightning fast.  Anybody have any speed/quality comparisons out there?
:)
-roger-