[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] Handling 8 < bit depth < 16

[Jason Garrett-Glaser]

Bit depths greater than 8 and less than 16 are inherently problematic.
 We only have pixel formats for 8 and 16, but in practice, many
encoders want numbers like 10.  Furthermore, a proper converter
between these numbers should dither, making conversion slightly less
than trivial.  Thus, imagine the following situation:

Decode 16-bit RGB files from camera
Convert to 16-bit YUV
Pass to 10-bit x264
Encode

Somewhere in here, we have to go from 16 bit to 10 bit, but there's no
pixel format for these, nor is there a way for libx264.c in ffmpeg to
tell ffmpeg that it needs 10-bit.  But it would be stupid, ugly, and
hacky to have libx264 itself perform the conversion -- pixel format
conversions should stay out of an encoder.  And this doesn't solve the
problem of other encoders; x264 isn't the only encoder that does or we
want to have >8-bit support for.

What's the best approach here?

Dark Shikari