[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 2/2] avcodec: remove sonic lossy/lossless audio

[Anton Khirnov]

Quoting Lynne (2024-03-01 20:41:53)
> Mar 1, 2024, 19:59 by anton at khirnov.net:
> 
> > Quoting Lynne (2024-02-29 14:30:55)
> >
> >> We offer support for it. Someone must have used it.
> >> I'm sure there are less used game codecs we support than Sonic.
> >>
> >
> > [citation needed]
> >
> > Is there any evidence that it was used for anything other than
> > development and testing? That anyone has any actual samples in it they'd
> > like to play?
> >
> 
> There's always the possibility that someone encoded samples years
> ago and deleted the originals. Same as with Snow.
> 
> My only concern is that this sets a sensitive precedent to get rid of
> old codec code with low weight under unclear conditions. Where do
> we draw the line?
> SMPTE? ISO/IEC standardization? IETF? AOM?
> Having *a* spec (Sonic doesn't, but neither did FFv1 until a few years
> ago)?
> A single company pushing for it many years ago with no spec,
> like SpeedHQ, or the many niche lossless/intra-only codecs?
> 
> Or simply having one single implementation in FFmpeg, and no spec at all,
> and having an experimental flag, and no activity for a very long amount of time?

I'd draw the line somewhere around what I said above - some evidence
that it was used "seriously".

> If it's the last case, or simply being a one-off, I can agree with deprecating
> and remove it next bump. But if the developer thinks they will have time and
> have motivation to work on it in the future, I think we should leave it at just
> deprecation plus disabling  building the encoder by default, until the issue is
> brought up again at say, after the next version bump.
> After all, CELT started out more than 10 years before Opus was standardized,
> and its EC code has made it all the way to AV2 despite its core remaining
> visibly similar over the years. And FFv1 was used as an inspiration for FLIC,
> which went on to become JPEG-XL.

Sure, but there was active interest in all of these. I see no active
interest in Sonic.

-- 
Anton Khirnov