3gp files, mplayer, and ffmpeg

[dannystaple]

Gnah.. Pesky codec patents.
I managed to build a deb version of ffmpeg with support for this, and
have been transcoding the files as they come off my phone. I am also
seriously going to look at a way of getting the phone to encode the
audio in another way on the 3gp file. The 3gp video can be played out
of the box generally.

The thing is, having to recompile a player and transcoding app to deal
with new codecs seems a little retarded to me. Maybe there should be
some thought, going back to the drawing board, to create a standard
video/audio codec dynamically linked library interface spec, which
allows for capability probing, has functions to list the known
extensions, has a function for checking for magic numbers in a file if
the format is not known, as well as functions for the basic job of
encoding/decoding the media. These could then be set up as separate
debs, with a central database of codecs in the /etc configuration
structure, and a deb post-install script for each codec that registers
it with the database. Then even the iffy codecs, like AMR could go in
restricted, but the front ends for working with them need not be
recompiled. This whole thread would have been much easier if only one
loadable library needed to be inserted as an av codec plugin.


-- 
dannystaple