[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 1/2] avcodec/nvenc: Include NVENC SDK header

[Philip Langdale]

On 2015-12-09 21:34, wm4 wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Dec 2015 19:34:20 +0100
> Timo Rothenpieler <timo at rothenpieler.org> wrote:
> 
>> > I don't remember if this was discussed when avisynth and other headers
>> > where included, but what's the advantage of directly including the
>> > header and burden the FFmpeg sources, rather than asking the user to
>> > download them in case of need?
>> 
>> The nvenc sdk isn't exactly a common thing that distributions provide.
>> As distributions can now easily ship ffmpeg with nvenc support, this
>> propably helps users who now no longer need to build ffmpeg themselves
>> for nvenc support.
> 
> So why would distros build with nvenc support, if they can't even do a
> simple thing like installing a single header file?
> 
> Are we really talking about including a huge 3rd party header because
> distros are so lazy? What's next, do we add Windows headers to the
> FFmpeg tree, because MinGW lags severely behind the newest definitions
> like HEVC DXVA support?
> 
> We could just provide a download link for the nvenc header somewhere if
> the problem is finding the header.

Admittedly, we are solving someone else's problem, but the header is
buried inside the SDK download which is hidden behind a click-through on
nvidia's web page. So it's not made available in a way that is readily
consumable by an end user or by a distribution vendor.

With the new licencing, a distro vendor *could* take the header and 
package
it up themselves, but that's the sort of them that's exceptionally hard 
to
convince them to do.

And in the case of windows (where nvenc works too), there is no distro 
vendor
and nvidia certainly won't make the header more accessible than it 
already is.

If the goal is to make the feature as available as possible to as many 
users
as possible, then this is the way to do it.

--phil