ffmpeg/libav default in Gentoo

[Naib]

[steveL]

[Anon-E-moose]

[mv]

[petteyg359]

None of the above / other. I realize it may be totally infeasible, but my preference would be to have both installed at the same time and applications linking to whichever (or neither) I choose at build time.

[Angrychile]

[HeissFuss]

I voted "I prefer ffmpeg, and it should be the default".

I've had libav hard masked since the fork, but now had to disable the new libav use flag and enable the ffmpeg one, so thanks for that...

[g99]

I'd just like to point out that one dev (sorry, I don't remember who) said on the mailing list that ffmpeg's (then) 57% of the votes was not a strong majority.

First of all, for this comparison you should only take the first 4 options as the remainder don't express an articulate opinion on the topic. From the four, there are 2 options for ffmpeg and libav both. At the moment ffmpeg has got 86 + 6 = 92 while libav has 8 + 4 = 12, which translates into 88% of the votes for ffmpeg.

[RealNC]

I was using libav before, but I now use ffmpeg because I moved from mplayer2 to mpv. mpv recommends ffmpeg (lacking some features with libav). More importantly, mpv cannot be emerged in gentoo when using libav, since it needs a very recent libav version, which is masked. But unmasking it seems to break other packages (I assume that's why it was masked to begin with.)

So ffmpeg is the only viable choice. I cannot give up on mpv+smplayer, since that's the best video player I ever used (and not only on Linux, even.) Being able to use mpv is more important to me than the libav vs ffmpeg issue. Actually, being able to use mpv+smplayer is even more important than being able to use gentoo

[EmaRsk]

[Naib]

[yoshi314]

There shold be a way to keep both, and in the package define which implementation it builds against.

There are/were quite a few differences in header structure in libav vs ffmpeg i noticed (or just the package had some weird fork of either) and some apps just won't even get past the configure stage, or they will not build.

Especially if you build out of tree, local apps somebody might run. Similarily, some apps designed for libav won't perform optimally built against ffmpeg (like gst-plugins-libav does sometimes which probably everyone needs for html5 video in firefox). I mostly had this problem with showtime media player, which references headers ffmpeg does not have, but they are in bundled copy of libav it has.


At this point, the "one or the other" situation can drive one nuts.


There should be ability to install both, and maybe do something like WANTS_FFMPEG=libav|ffmpeg in ebuilds + eclass to handle it to provide specific pkgconfig/include/lib paths for package's build system so that it finds and picks up the implementation it needs.

I'd say this limitation is artificial, and until this ffmpeg/libav mess is sorted out in various upstream projects it would be better to support both by having separate include dirs and library names, with possibly ability to choose default implementation for packages that e.g. are built by hand or have hardcoded location of ffmpeg/libav headers
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[EmaRsk]

[khayyam]

[EmaRsk]

[khayyam]

[yoshi314]

[Meet Joe Black]

I don't think we should choose parasite libraries as default. So, I voted for libav. According to mpv authors comparison there isn't many useful features or advantages in ffmpeg over libav. I see that in a long term FFmpeg has more disadvantages.
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[Naib]

[saellaven]

As someone that generally doesn't care about multimedia, and thus, doesn't have a preference...

Over on the mailing list, the argument is that, Gentoo has developers in the libav project, so it should be the default...

The entire problem with the situation is one of namespace collision... that is, libav forked and is using the same library names and whatnot as ffmpeg. So, why not have the "Gentoo developers on libav" use their clout to rename the collisions upstream, allowing both to be installed side by side, pretty much ending the debate for the need of the one true multimedia library?

[petteyg359]

[Anon-E-moose]

[avx]

ffmpeg as default

Reasoning: it's the "original", it works, there seems to be fewer software which is libav-only, the virtual is called ffmpeg, unless symlinks are created automatically many scripts will break/software must be reconfigured.
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[chithanh]

As I wrote in the OP, this poll is intended to give Gentoo developers a data point in the discussion. It will not alone determine any outcome, but won't be completely ignored either.

It should also be mentioned that the developer perspective on this is not necessarily the same as the user perspective. As the mpv article pointed out, a user may perceive ffmpeg to be less broken than libav for the same reason that a developer may perceive it as more broken. Suffice to say that the preference among developers is less clear-cut than what users have voiced in the poll.

That being said: After two thirds of participating users told us that they would switch to ffmpeg anyway, it is hard to imagine that Gentoo would make switching more difficult than absolutely necessary in case libav remains the default.

[khayyam]