Guide to write a mplayer codec(转)

最近在研究mplayer，读到这篇文章真是喜出望外。感谢本文的原作者和转载的兄弟。感谢MPlayer-dev-eng的开发人员。

http://blog.csdn.net/freasy/archive/2006/12/06/1432095.aspx

 

Introduction
------------
I've developed a number of open source decoders for the MPlayer project, for both audio and video data. As such, I feel I'm qualified to document a few notes about developing new codecs for the codebase. As always, the best way to learn how to incorporate a new codec is to study a bunch of existing code. This document is supplementary material to the code, meant to give some tips, pointers, and a general roadmap.  A note about terminology: "Codec" stands for coder/decoder (or compressor/decompressor, if you prefer). The term refers to a module that can both encode and decode data. However, this document focuses primarily on incorporating decoders. Still, the terms "decoder" and "codec" are often used interchangeably.

 

Necessary Materials
-------------------
So you've decided that you want to implement a new decoder for MPlayer. There are a few things you will need:

- Knowledge of the codec to be implemented: You will need to know the data format of the chunks that MPlayer will pass to you. You will need to know how to take apart the data structures inside. You will need to know the algorithmic operations that need to be performed on the data in order to reconstruct the original media.

- Sample media: Preferably, lots of it. You will need media encoded in your data format and stored in a media file format that MPlayer knows how to parse (these include AVI, ASF, MOV, RM, VIVO, among others). If the encoded data is stored in a media file format that MPlayer doesn't understand, then you will either need to somehow convert the format to a media file format that the program does nderstand, or write your own MPlayer file demuxer that can handle the data. Writing a file demuxer is beyond the scope of this document. 

 Try to obtain media that stresses all possible modes of a decoder. If an audio codec is known to work with both mono and stereo data, search for sample media of both types. If a video codec is known to
work at 7 different bit depths, then, as painful as it may be, do what you can to obtain sample media encoded for each of the 7 bit depths.

- Latest CVS snapshot: It's always useful to develop code for the very latest development version of MPlayer. Be sure to update your local CVS copy often.

- General programming knowledge, working Linux development environment: I would hope that these items would go without saying, but you never know.

 

Typical Development Cycle
-------------------------
1) Set up basic infrastructure
First things first, there's a big song and dance to go through in order to let the MPlayer program know that you have a new codec to incorporate. First, modify your local copy of codecs.conf. It may be system-shared or in your home directory. Add a new entry for your codec. If it's an open source codec, it would be a good idea to place the new entry with the rest of the open source codecs. When you're confident that you have the entry right, be sure to add it to etc/codecs.conf in your workspace. See the
file codecs.conf.txt for a detailed description of the format of this file. Create a new audiocodec or videocodec block with the proper info, FOURCCs/format numbers, output formats, and a unique driver name. Remember the driver name.

Next, create a new source file which contains the main decoding function that MPlayer will call to decode data. Eventually, you may have multiple files which comprise your decoder, but let's start simple here.
For audio codecs, see ad_sample.c skeleton. For video, choose one of the existing vd_*.c files which you think is close to your codec in behaviour.

Next, modify the Makefile so that it will compile your new source file. Also, add your codec to the array in ad.c (for audio) or vd.c (for video).

Next, compile the project and see if you have everything correct so far.

Next, you want to make sure that the encoded data is making it to your decoding function in the first place. This may sound like a trivial exercise, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong (and I've
watched most of them go wrong in my experience). At the beginning of your skeleton decoder function, enter the following code:
  int i;
  for (i = 0; i < 16; i++)
    printf ("%02X ", input[i]);
  printf ("/n");
When you compile and run MPlayer, your decoder function will print the first 16 bytes of each data chunk that it receives. Open the sample media in a hex editor and reconcile what you see on the screen with what you find in the file. If the decoder is printing the first 16 bytes of each block, that's a good sign that you're ready to move on to step2. Otherwise, you need to figure out why the data isn't getting to your decoder. Is your decoder even being invoked? If not, why not?

 

2) Develop the decoder
Go for it. Remember to make it work, first, then make it work fast. Some specific tips:

What output formats should you support in your decoder? Whatever makes sense. YUV output is always preferable over RGB output. Generally, if a codec uses a YUV data as its source data, you will be able to decode a frame of YUV data. If a codec takes RGB data as its input, as many older video codecs do, then there's no point in supporting YUV output; just output as many RGB formats as possible.

The most preferred output format for video data is YV12. This is because MPlayer supports a multitude of hardware devices that can display, scale, and filter this type of data directly. MPlayer also has a bunch of optimized conversion functions that can convert YV12 data to any other type of output data.

If you do take the RGB output route, you should be aware that MPlayer actually orders packed RGB data as BGR. If you're decoding into a BGR24 buffer, the output will look like:
  B G R B G R B G R B ...
If you're decoding into a BGR32 buffer, there will need to be an additional (unused) byte after each BGR triplet:
  B G R - B G R - B G ...

Make liberal use of sanity checks. Start by including the file mp_msg.h at the start of your decoder. Then you can use the mp_msg() function as you would a normal printf() statement. Whenever your decoder notices a strange bit of data or an odd condition, print a message such as:
  mp_msg(MSGT_DECVIDEO, MSGL_WARN, "Odd data encountered: %d/n", data);
Obviously, you should make the message a little more descriptive, for your benefit. MSGL_WARN is a good message level for this type of information. Look in mp_msg.h for all of the error levels. You can
even make MPlayer bail out completely by using MSGL_FATAL, but that should never be necessary at the data decoder level.

What conditions should trigger a warning? Anything, and I mean *anything* out of the ordinary. Many chunks of compressed video data contain headers with data such as width, height, and chunk size. Reconcile these fields with the parameters passed into the decoding function (if you set it up to take those parameters). Such data should match up. If it doesn't, issue a warning and make an executive decision in the code about which data to believe (personally, I always lend more weight to the data that was passed into the decoder function, the data that comes from the container file's header). If there's supposed to be a magic number embedded in, or computed from, the chunk's header, issue a warning if it isn't correct.

Whenever you're about the index into a memory array with an index that could theoretically be out of range, then test that the index is in range, no matter how tedious it seems. Accessing outside of your memory range is, after all, the number 1 cause of segmentation faults. Never trust that all the data passed to you will be correct. If an array index suddenly winds up out of range, it's probably best to issue a warning about it and bail out of the decoder (but not the whole application).

Writing all of these warning statements may seem insipid, but consider that if you don't do it when you start writing your decoder, you'll probably end up doing it later on when your decoder isn't working properly and you need to figure out why (believe me, I know).

 

3) Debug and test the decoder
If you're extremely lucky, the decoder will work the first time. If you're very lucky, it will work after you've reviewed your code a few times and corrected a few obvious programming mistakes. Realistically, you will write the decoder, review it many times and fix many obvious and subtle
programming errors, and still have to go through an elaborate debug process in order to get the decoder to a minimally functional state. Big hint: Ask for all warnings. You know, the -Wall option in
gcc? It's very useful to develop your codec while running in debug mode. In order to compile MPlayer with debug support (which includes -Wall for all gcc operations), use the --enable-debug option when configuring the project. Pay attention to all warnings and make it a goal to get rid of every single one. I'll never forget when the compiler warned me that there was no point in clamping a signed 16-bit variable within a signed 16-bit range (the calculation to be clamped was supposed to be
stored in a signed 32-bit variable and then stored in the signed 16-bit
variable). I sat stunned for a moment, feeling like I had just dodged a
bullet as I knew that would have taken me hours to debug that kind of
mistake.

4) Contribute decoder to codebase
Create a patch with the "diff -u" format and email it to the MPlayer
development team for approval. You will likely need to diff the following
files:
- Makefile
- etc/codecs.conf
- ad.c or vd.c
Of course, you will need to include your newly-created file(s):
vd_<name>.c -OR- ad_<name>.c. If you contribute enough decoders, the
development team may even grant you write privileges to the CVS repository.

5) Wait for bug reports to start rolling in
You may think you're finished when you release the codec and if you're
extremely lucky, you will be right. However, it's more likely that people
will start throwing all kinds of oddball media at your decoder that it
never counted on. Cheer up; take comfort in knowing that people are
testing your code and attempting to use it as a real world
application. Download the problem media that people upload to the MPlayer
FTP site and get back to work, implementing fixed code that addresses the
issues. Contribute more patches and encourage people to hammer on your
decoder even more. This is how you make your decoder rock-solid.