[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] avcodec: Remove libfaac, the internal AAC encoder is better

[Paul B Mahol]

On 8/16/16, Roger Pack <rogerdpack2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/10/16, Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc> wrote:
>> On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 07:29:05PM +0100, Rostislav Pehlivanov wrote:
>>> On 10 April 2016 at 17:42, Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 04:38:35PM +0100, Kieran Kunhya wrote:
>>> > > ---
>>> > >  Changelog              |   1 +
>>> > >  configure              |   6 --
>>> > >  doc/encoders.texi      | 105 ---------------------
>>> > >  doc/ffserver.conf      |   2 +-
>>> > >  doc/general.texi       |   2 +-
>>> > >  doc/muxers.texi        |   4 +-
>>> > >  doc/platform.texi      |   2 +-
>>> > >  libavcodec/Makefile    |   1 -
>>> > >  libavcodec/allcodecs.c |   1 -
>>> > >  libavcodec/libfaac.c   | 248
>>> > -------------------------------------------------
>>> > >  libavcodec/version.h   |   2 +-
>>> > >  11 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 367 deletions(-)
>>> > >  delete mode 100644 libavcodec/libfaac.c
>>> >
>>> > this is not possible currently libfaac is twice as fast than the
>>> > native encoder.
>>> >
>>> > time ./ffmpeg -v 0 -i matrixbench_mpeg2.mpg -vn -c:a libfaac -y
>>> > test.aac
>>> > real    0m2.828s
>>> > user    0m2.776s
>>> > sys     0m0.048s
>>> >
>>> > time ./ffmpeg -v 0 -i matrixbench_mpeg2.mpg -vn -y test.aac
>>> > real    0m5.908s
>>> > user    0m5.856s
>>> > sys     0m0.048s
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> FAAC isn't maintained, hasn't had any work done on it in who knows how
>>> many
>>> years, nobody but people who don't know that the native encoder/fdk is
>>> better use it (just a few thankfully), isn't particularly stable
>>> (segfaulted a few times when I was comparing it last year) and finally,
>>> it's not good at all.
>>> An argument that it's faster than the native encoder has as much weight
>>> as
>>> an argument that libaac_plus was also faster than the native encoder,
>>> which
>>> didn't matter as it was eventually removed
>>> The age where we needed a few different AAC encoders because there wasn't
>>> really a single good multipurpose one is gone now. The times have changed
>>> since FAAC was developed (Nokia sponsored at lot of its development, and
>>> you know what they used to make) and so have the computers. What was an
>>> acceptable speed back then for encoding a file at a given quality isn't
>>> necessarily the same now. And considering that fdk-aac can run as slow as
>>> our encoder I'd say we're doing pretty well as far as the balance between
>>> speed and quality goes.
>>
>> x264 can encode at really impressive speed and also at really
>> impressive quality, its the users choice by using teh preset option
>>
>> for aac the user can choose speed through using the libfaac encoder
>> or quality through using the native encoder
>> speed matters for battery powered devices, not just for media servers
>> on phones but also for plain audio recording on phones which i think
>> is more common.
>
> FWIW I once received a report that the old (now removed) vo-aacenc was
> lightning fast.  Anybody have any speed/quality comparisons out there?

Yes, I. Its quality is useless.