[MPlayer-users] best combination of mplayer,ffmpeg,x264

[Raimund Berger]

Heinz Wiesinger <HMWiesinger at bnet.at> writes:

> However, one thing I would still like to know is if it breaks mplayer, if I 
> just upgrade x264 (ffmpeg wouldn't count in that context I guess) and do a 
> recompilation of my old mplayer version.

"Maybe" is the correct answer I guess. Apparently, mplayer links
against libx264 two ways, through ffmpeg's lavc and mplayer itself.

I.e. there are two x264 stubs, in the source code identifiable as
libavcodec/libx264.c and libmpcodecs/ve_x264.c . The latter is used
when you call mencoder with -ovc x264 and imho the preferred choice,
the former with -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=libx264 .

Now to your question. Afaik, ve_x264.c shouldn't break, as it seems to
exclusively use comparatively high level x264 API calls, which should
be pretty much stable.  ffmpeg's libx264.c seems to rely on more
libx264 internals though, so I think there's a good chance it might
bork on a new x264 version.

Depending on the implications of a 100% correct answer in your
specific case, you might want to ask on the dev list how things stand,
maybe people there already went through the process. I for once can
say that recent x264 worked alright for me with mplayer rc2 and
-oac x264, as far as I can tell.