[mythtv-users] H265 support?

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 9:15 PM, Mike Hodson <mystica at gmail.com> wrote:
> Really? Why doesn't mythtv link against system ffmpeg?

Partially historical.  The FFMpeg API of the day issue
(which you partially allude to).  And because every
distro shipped different versions.  While it (might)
have been possible to do the required ifdefs for every
shipping FFMpeg, that is a different kind of work too.

Partially need.  (At least at one time) MythTV needed to
access functions/capabilities that required code changes.

> Stupid forks of ffmpeg make me so damn perturbed because they never work
> right.  Just code your software to use normal ffmpeg.

Agreed that forks should be a last resort.  Forks sometimes
exist for reasons such as not being able to get fixes into the
code base.  If you know the history, there was certainly a period
where getting fixes into FFMpeg was a bit interesting.

> So what if ffmpeg API and ABI keep changing. Require a version of it and not
> fork your own.

Do I see a volunteer to insure that every distro ships a
version of FFMpeg that "just works"?


Personally, I would love to see most of the external
libraries shipped with MythTV just "disappear" and
be able to use the system provided ones.  But reality
always gets in the way (such as some distros not
packaging the needed libraries under any circumstances).

The good news is that the external libraries are
mostly just current snapshots of a point in time
(rather than a full fork), making updates is (often)
reasonably easy.