[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC][PATCH] Soft target presets

[Stefano Sabatini]

On date Friday 2010-11-12 23:20:22 +0100, Michael Niedermayer encoded:
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 08:29:21PM +0100, Stefano Sabatini wrote:
> > On date Friday 2010-11-12 20:13:59 +0100, Michael Niedermayer encoded:
> > > On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 07:30:03PM +0100, Stefano Sabatini wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > > 
> > > > this should allow program presets of the kind:
> > > > ffmpeg -i IN.flv -pre dvd-pal OUT
> > > > 
> > > > which should deprecate the -target option and deliver more flexibility
> > > > to the ff* tools.
> > > 
> > > and break all other tools in the process by storing ffmpeg.c specific command
> > > line options in preset files that are supposed to work with all libav* tools
> > > The preset file is supposed to map things to AVOptions, and we even have
> > > AVOptions for samplerate and so on or could have but you implement a way to
> > > bypass all this and feed it back in the previous layer.
> > > This is really ugly and broken
> > 
> > Patch #8, ffmpeg specific presets should be prefixed by "ffmpeg-",
> > same can be easily generalized to the other tools, this just
> > implements a convenient way to provide complex presets through a
> > bundled configuration file, rather than hardcode them.
> > 
> 
> > This would be very useful for specific targets (e.g. ipod, ipad, PSP,
> > ...).
> 
> I agree its usefull and there exists
> ffmpeg -i myfile `cat dvd_opts` outfile
> 
> -pre dvd_opts
> is just 1 char less

So why are we not shipping target-like presets?

> what makes -*pre better than `cat X` is that its able to automatically adjust
> the options based on codec and that its not ffmpeg.c specific but the presets
> can easily be used by GUIs too.

No, see acodec/vcodec/scodec.

> None of this applies to what you implement in this patchset, thus i fail to
> see the point of it compared to just using posix tools

So what's the point of -target in the first place? Also not all
shells/systems support the `cat X` feature, and IMO supporting that
even in those cases is worth it, especially considering that the cost
in complexity is low.
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