[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] movenc: Tag files generated with strict experimental with a warning

[James Almer]

On 12/6/2016 2:31 PM, Vittorio Giovara wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 10:50 AM, James Almer <jamrial at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/2/2016 5:17 PM, James Almer wrote:
>>> On 12/2/2016 5:00 PM, Vittorio Giovara wrote:
>>>> This will simplify identifying files that were generated with
>>>> unfinished/incomplete/non-standard specifications.
>>>>
>>>> Signed-off-by: Vittorio Giovara <vittorio.giovara at gmail.com>
>>>> ---
>>>>  libavformat/movenc.c | 2 ++
>>>>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
>>>
>>> Maybe lavf and lavc should add "experimental" to the container and
>>> stream's metadata alongside the library version, much like how we're
>>> adding the name of the encoder alongside the lavc version to the
>>> stream's metadata.
>>>
>>> A warning printed by the muxer not going to help once such a file
>>> is in the wild.
> 
> Yeah I was unsure about that -- are you saying that whenever -strict
> experimental is used we should add this tag regardless?
> 
> The idea behind this is that in the future, when the standard is
> consolidated, if there is a file is in the wild encoded with an
> "experimental" codec/container combination and it is not playing
> correctly, this tag will make evident that the bug lies within the
> file and the playback issues are probably due the unfinished state of
> the specification, rather than in in the modern implementation of the
> demuxer. In other words, people will be less inclined to hack around
> their own demuxer to accommodate for broken files.

Oh, i misread the patch. I thought it was printing a warning, not adding
a "WARNING" stream metadata tag.

This patch is ok as is, i guess, but maybe a more general solution like
what i suggested is better.
Having the standard "encoder" tags read something like
"Lavf5x.xx.xx (experimental)" and "Lavc5x.xx.xx vorbis (experimental)"
if -strict experimental is used regardless of format, instead of a non
standard "WARNING" tag in one or two specific containers, which may or
may not be ignored by players and parsers.