[Libav-user] Speeding up codec detection of raw bitstream

[Wiebe Cazemier]

Hi,

I'm working on an application for a hardware device I built. In essence, I obtain raw data from an optical receiver, which can be AC3, DTS, etc, and use ffmpeg to decode this into multi-channel analog output. It all works, but I was wondering what I can do to speed up the detection of the codec, especially if header packets are missed (because it captures mid-stream).

To give ffmpeg IO, I make my own AVIOContext [1] with a callback function that reads from a semaphore controlled buffer. I assign that to avFormatContext->pb [2]. Then I open the stream with:

  avformat_open_input(&avFormatContext, NULL, NULL, NULL) [3]

This function blocks until a good codec is detected (or gives up?). Especially for DTS, this can take a very long time, especially when it missed headers.

Is there a way to speed this up? Would it help for instance to not use av_register_all() and avcodec_register_all()? If so, how and what do I register what I need (documentation is unclear to me; it doesn't give examples).

If there is any information in the original s/pdif bitstream, that is lost. The DIR9001 chip only outputs the contents.

Regards,

Wiebe



[1] http://ffmpeg.org/doxygen/trunk/structAVIOContext.html
[2] http://ffmpeg.org/doxygen/trunk/structAVFormatContext.html
[3] http://ffmpeg.org/doxygen/3.4/group__lavf__decoding.html#ga31d601155e9035d5b0e7efedc894ee49