[MEncoder-users] Can you slow down mencoder?

[Rich Felker]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2005 at 02:47:28PM -0500, Pete Davis wrote:
> >> Any number of things can cause "apparently random" crashes like that. 
> >> Bad pointers being one of the more common. They seem random only 
> >> because we
> >
> > That will not be random but deterministic.
> 
> I didn't say it's random, that's why I put it in quotes and said,
> "apparently random." In other words, deterministic. But a bug in the code
> wouldn't necessarily show up on the same frame number every time, it may
> show up when there's some sort of unexpected and improperly handled
> collision on a resource of some type that may not happen at precisely the
> same time every time.

I've told you again and again: there is no possibility of "resource
collision". This only happens when you're writing programs that are
threaded or otherwise have "realtime inputs". MEncoder is not such a
program!! The ONLY realtime input, unless you're capturing from tv-in,
is the system clock, and it's only used for predicting total encode
time and showing the current average encode rate. Unless you think the
crash is in the code to printf the status line, there is no room for
such an error.

> When you take into consideration that both instances were started by hand at
> different offsets in time, each encoding a different file each time, there's
> no reason I'd expect it to happen on the same frame.

Then you're an idiot. There's no interaction between the two. A
program with deterministic inputs behaves exactly the same time each
time it's run, regardless of any other system load.

> > Again, I am completely positive that your crash is due to faulty
> > hardware or buggy OS. It is unrelated to mencoder.
> > 
> > Rich
> 
> And again, all evidence to the contrary, I'm going to have to disagree.
> 
> And it's not as if mencoder is entirely bug free. I've had it crash for a
> variety of reasons from various CVS updates I've done.

I agree totally that MEncoder is full of bugs. However you have not
found one of them. All you have found is your own faulty hardware.

Rich