[MPlayer-DOCS] CVS: main/DOCS/man/en mplayer.1,1.1161,1.1162

[The Wanderer]

Guillaume POIRIER wrote:

> Hi,
> On 12/6/05, The Wanderer <inverseparadox at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>>Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:

>>> Some explanation of the parameter would be appropriate. Like
>>> "number of threads in multithreaded decoding", although I'm sure
>>> The Wanderer will have a better suggestion. ;)
>> 
>> How about something like "number of threads to use for decoding
>> (default: 1)"? Or is "threads=1" in fact different from omitting
>> the "threads" suboption altogether? (For that matter, what would
>> "threads=0" do, since there would then seem to be nothing to do the
>> processing?)
> 
> Good question. I don't know :-(

Then we need to find out. Are there any sufficiently LAVC-knowledgeable
people on this list, or do we need to go over to ffmpeg-dev?

>> And, if my tentative inference is accurate, a parenthetical or
>> next-line comment to the effect of "Useful only on multiprocessor
>> machines" might be appropriate.
> 
> It's also useful mostly with MPEG2 files and MPEG4 files encoded with
> slices.

True, but that's not the sort of fundamental, unbreakable limitation I
was talking about; I was referring to my understanding (or, as I said,
inference) that multiple decoding threads will be of absolutely no
benefit unless each thread can run on a separate processor. I chose the
word "only" for a reason.

>> On completely another point, is there any reason why this option
>> was inserted between "gray" and "idct" rather than between "sws"
>> and "vc", for proper alphabetical order?
> 
> this is a suboption of -lavdopts. You're right that it's not in
> alphabetical order. I just wanted to put it next to other options
> that seemed related.

I wouldn't have mentioned it, except that all of the other options in
the same list of suboptions *are* in alphabetical order, so it seems
reasonable to presume that they are intended to be that way. My "sws"
and "vc" note was a mistake on my part, I was reading too fast; the
correct options would be "skipframe" and "vismv".

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.