[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH][RFC] avcodec/avutil: Add timeline side data

[Derek Buitenhuis]

On 3/29/2018 7:55 PM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>> That is not what i meant
>>
>> what i meant is to align the APIs that handle timespan related information
>> and not have totally different interfaces for each.
>> For example they might share the same struct in some cases to deliver data
>> They do have in common that they all in/export data for a sequence of timespans

[...]

>> They also may have in common that some formats store the data interleaved
>> at the time and some store it in a main header.

Not sure I follow what this has to do with timelines? There is no format that
exists that store timeline data interleaved, as far as I know - it is a
purely theoretical scenario.

>> If this is so the case of collecting all this info from the whole
>> duration of a file to store it in the output file header at the start
>> may be a situation common to multiple of these.
>> A similar API may allow simplifying whichever way we handle this

[...]

>> Iam sure there are more advantages of having APIs which deal with
>> similar types of data to be similar ...
> 
> an example of an API that serves a similar kind of information but is
> differnt is AVChapter
> I think we should minimize the amount of different public structs that 
> describe timespans when that is easily and cleanly possible

What do you have in mind with regards to 'sharing'? I do not particularly
agree that chapters and edits should share stuff because they both happen to have
start and end times. They're quite different things, even if some formats have
conflated them (design flaw IMO).

- Derek