[FFmpeg-user] Bink 2 support

[Carl Zwanzig]

On 4/16/2022 2:07 PM, Phil Rhodes via ffmpeg-user wrote:

>     > On Saturday, 16 April 2022, 21:50:32 BST, Christian David <christian at cdavid.eti.br> wrote:
>   > FFMPEG only supports open codecs.. 
Not quite.

> i also miss the NDI codec, but what can we do?
> Well, theoretically, this is supposed to be open source, and we could write our own and have it included, but...
> ...back in reality it doesn't work like that.

The ffmpeg command-line programs -do- have connections to proprietary 
software like the BMD DeckLink, but there may be license issues around 
distribution of resulting CL binaries. If built with dynamically linked 
libraries, --disable-gpl, and omitting certain modules, it should be 
possible to build the CLI programs into a compliant binary for distribution. 
AFAICT this depends on which specific components are included and cannot be 
a blanket yes/no.

IIRC the NDI brouhaha was due to the license on the -header- files *at the 
time* and has since been rectified by NewTek. At this point, I suspect the 
only obstacles to pulling back the NDI interface now would be personal 
feelings and any needed architectural updates, not license constraints (the 
NDI v5 header files carry an MIT license, and I think v4 did too).

Note that other projects like CasparCG and OBS manage to peacefully 
interface to both the Decklink and NDI libraries, and while they're using 
ffmpeg libraries*, they're also GPL on the base software.

*presumably built w/o GPL components


As for Bink2 in ffmpeg? Depends on the license of both the libraries and the 
SDK's header files, also depends on whether someone is interested in writing 
the code to connect it and whether the ffmpeg gatekeepers accept the code.

(If anything above is not correct, please indicate specifically what and 
why, that will help everyone.)

Later,

z!