[Libav-user] av_samples_fill_arrays and memory

[Brad O'Hearne]

Last night I delved into the source code looking for the exact handling of pointers and population of audio sample arrays. I had a question from the av_samples_fill_arrays in samplefmt.c, specifically lines 167-169: 

    audio_data[0] = (uint8_t *)buf;
    for (ch = 1; planar && ch < nb_channels; ch++)
        audio_data[ch] = audio_data[ch-1] + line_size;

This makes perfect sense for the purpose of this method -- given that it takes one buffer as a parameter (buf), all sample data must be contained within it, and each channel resides in contiguous memory. So again, this code does exactly what I'd expect it to. I got to thinking however about the scenario where someone has planar sample data, each plane which is completely filled with the proper number of samples and properly structured, but whose channels (1, 2, ...n) aren't in contiguous memory. 

So for instance, say samples are derived from an outside source (such as capture), and channels/planes are delivered and properly structured, and code was not to use the av_samples_fill_arrays above, but rather set pointers themselves. This would seem right: 

audio_data[0] = channel1;
audio_data[1] = channel2;

But what if the above was done, yet this was also true:

audio_data[1] != (audio_data[0] + line_size)

The audio_data array has proper pointers to each channel -- and each channel may be properly aligned within. But what if multiple channels aren't in contiguous memory? Is that going to be an issue in using the audio_data array at any point, perhaps later in encoding? 

I think this what may be what Alex was alluding to in a previous post. 

Brad