ffmpeg

[Wallacy]

Will be good add the ffmpeg (or a Transcoding bundle) as part of the project.

Today's we already have the Gstreamer. But some projects rely on ffmpeg to transcoding. And also, Intel has a good support for ffmpeg libraries.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/accessing-intel-media-server-studio-for-linux-codecs-with-ffmpeg

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white-papers/cloud-computing-quicksync-video-ffmpeg-white-paper.pdf

So, my suggestion is add ffmpeg support with Intel libraries ( libmfx ) as official for Clear Linux project.

[seanvk]

@chivakker

[undeadindustries]

+1 for this.

[OpenSourceAnarchist]

This would greatly aid the goals of expanding codec support in Firefox as well as bringing Chromium/Chrome support to Clear Linux. Vivaldi browser, Opera, and other browsers could also make use of ffmpeg in Clear Linux.

[eero-t]

Today's we already have the Gstreamer. But some projects rely on ffmpeg to transcoding. And also, Intel has a good support for ffmpeg libraries.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/accessing-intel-media-server-studio-for-linux-codecs-with-ffmpeg
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white-papers/cloud-computing-quicksync-video-ffmpeg-white-paper.pdf

So, my suggestion is add ffmpeg support with Intel libraries ( libmfx ) as official for Clear Linux project.

Media driver & MediaSDK and everything needed by them are available as OpenSource (shaders are binary blobs, but CPU side code is there):

• git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/mesa/drm origin/master
• https://github.com/intel/libva
• https://github.com/intel/gmmlib
• https://github.com/intel/media-driver/
• https://github.com/Intel-Media-SDK/MediaSDK/

In addition to above, everything needed by FFmpeg is already in ClearLinux:

• https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg

I'm currently using Ubuntu 18.04 to build Media driver stack & MediaSDK, but those builds work fine on ClearLinux too.

gmmlib & media-driver are built with default options, for libva I use the following meson options:
-Ddisable_drm=false -Dwith_glx=yes -Dwith_x11=yes -Dwith_wayland=yes -Denable_docs=false

For MediaSDK, the following CMake options: -DENABLE_X11_DRI3=ON -DENABLE_WAYLAND=ON

And for FFmpeg, the following Autotools options:

--disable-libx265 --disable-libx264 --disable-libmp3lame --disable-libass --disable-sndio \
--enable-libmfx --enable-vaapi --enable-sdl2 --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis --enable-libopus \
--enable-libfreetype --enable-gpl --disable-doc

Disable options are needed because I'm building this on Ubuntu, but ClearLinux doesn't have any of those libraries (in generic FFmpeg build instructions those are enabled). Because CPU encoding support is missing, e.g. H264 / H265 encoding can be used only on machines supported by MediaSDK: Broadwell or newer, see support table in the above listed media-driver page.

(Libass would be needed for subtitling, mp3lame for mp3 audio encoding.)

[ahkok]

Duplicate of #429

[Wallacy]

Strange, the older thread is closed because it is duplicated with a newer thread.

Any way, let’s see how this will be done. ;)

[danboid]

I personally cannot and will not be using Clear until ffmpeg gets bundled. It is a MUST for the Linux desktop and any semi-serious multimedia. It should be prioritized if Clear is serious about being used as a desktop OS.

[ahkok]

Please, let's not get too dramatical about this. The issue isn't that we don't want to offer ffmpeg (we do: we want to offer ffmpeg to all users) but that ffmpeg unfortunately is blocked due to legal issues.

I encourage you to keep an open mind and help us work on a solution. We're putting time in this effort and hopefully one day it will result in something usable. I am personally attempting to contribute my efforts in the office to accelerate the work that is being done to unblock this, and a positive attitude is far more effective way to get these efforts to completion.

[flower1024]

any news on this?
ffmpeg (with x265 and x264 support) is the last thing that blocks me from switching to clear

[puneetse]

@flower1024 Updates and discussion on this topic are continuing here: #429