Re: [gentoo-dev] ffmpeg vs libav choice of default

[Michał Górny]

Dnia 2015-02-04, o godz. 10:26:06
Alexis Ballier <aballier@g.o> napisał(a):

> On Wed, 4 Feb 2015 10:12:12 +0100
> Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote:
>
> > With the recent introduction of the libav USE flag, the Gentoo default
> > for ffmpeg vs libav is more pronounced than it was before (with libav
> > being listed first in || ( ) dependencies).
> >
> > In the replies to http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=7694982
> > several users have expressed their preference for ffmpeg.
> >
> > So can someone please remind me what are the technical reasons why we
> > prefer libav over ffmpeg?
>
>
> good luck !

I pretty much agree with Alexis' points. To clarify...

> wait for other opinions, but I'd say: libav has a cleaner codebase and
> stricter development rules. (NB: some gentoo devs are member of the core
> libav dev team)

I'd say both projects suck hard at lack of understanding of API/ABI
stability. However, if one of them is going to finally get some
stability, it's rather going to be libav. But we're far from that, so...

> IMHO, from a pure consumer POV where I want to play a random video and
> my programs using the libraries not to break, ffmpeg is much better
> (more codecs get in faster, API is preserved a bit longer), so I never
> understood nor agreed with that choice of default.

It's easiest to look at the trackers:

- ffmpeg-2 [1] -- 26/26 fixed,
- ffmpeg-2.4 [2] -- 3/3 fixed (but unsure if there won't be more),
- libav-9 [3] -- 55/55 fixed,
- libav-10 [4] -- 11/25 fixed.

No offense here but in my experience, ffmpeg support in Gentoo is fixed
faster than libav.

[1]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=476490
[2]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=524568
[3]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=443230
[4]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509294

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny