Re: [Workshop-2011] RFC: V4L2 API ambiguities

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Hi,

On 08/14/2012 12:54 PM, Hans Verkuil wrote:
On Tue August 14 2012 01:54:16 Laurent Pinchart wrote:
Hi Hans,

On Monday 13 August 2012 14:27:56 Hans Verkuil wrote:
Hi all!

As part of the 2012 Kernel Summit V4L2 workshop I will be discussing a bunch
of V4L2 ambiguities/improvements.

I've made a list of all the V4L2 issues and put them in two categories:
issues that I think are easy to resolve (within a few minutes at most), and
those that are harder.

If you think I put something in the easy category that you believe is
actually hard, then please let me know.

If you attend the workshop, then please read through this and think about it
a bit, particularly for the second category.

If something is unclear, or you think another topic should be added, then
let me know as well.

Easy:

[snip]

4) What should a driver return in TRY_FMT/S_FMT if the requested format is
not supported (possible behaviours include returning the currently selected
format or a default format).

    The spec says this: "Drivers should not return an error code unless the
input is ambiguous", but it does not explain what constitutes an ambiguous
input. Frankly, I can't think of any and in my opinion TRY/S_FMT should
never return an error other than EINVAL (if the buffer type is unsupported)
or EBUSY (for S_FMT if streaming is in progress).

    Returning an error for any other reason doesn't help the application
since the app will have no way of knowing what to do next.

That wasn't my point. Drivers should obviously not return an error. Let's
consider the case of a driver supporting YUYV and MJPEG. If the user calls
TRY_FMT or S_FMT with the pixel format set to RGB565, should the driver return
a hardcoded default format (one of YUYV or MJPEG), or the currently selected
format ? In other words, should the pixel format returned by TRY_FMT or S_FMT
when the requested pixel format is not valid be a fixed default pixel format,
or should it depend on the currently selected pixel format ?

Actually, in this case I would probably choose a YUYV format that is closest
to the requested size. If a driver supports both compressed and uncompressed
formats, then it should only select a compressed format if the application
explicitly asked for it. Handling compressed formats is more complex than
uncompressed formats, so that seems a sensible rule.

The next heuristic I would apply is to choose a format that is closest to the
requested size.

Size as in resolution or size as in bpp?

So I guess my guidelines would be:

1) If the pixelformat is not supported, then choose an uncompressed format
(if possible) instead.
2) Next choose a format closest to, but smaller than (if possible) the
requested size.

But this would be a guideline only, and in the end it should be up to the
driver. Just as long TRY/S_FMT always returns a format.

I think we're making this way too complicated. I agree that TRY/S_FMT should
always returns a format and not EINVAL, but other then that lets just document
that if the driver does not know the passed in format it should return a default
format and not make this dependent on the passed in fmt, esp. since otherwise
the driver would need to know about all formats it does not support to best map
that to a one which it does support, which is just crazy.

So I suggest adding the following to the spec:

When a driver receives an unsupported pixfmt as input on a TRY/S_FMT call it
should replace this with a default pixfmt, independent of input pixfmt and
current driver state. Preferably a driver uses a well known uncompressed
pixfmt as its default.

Regards,

Hans
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-media" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html


[Index of Archives]     [Linux Input]     [Video for Linux]     [Gstreamer Embedded]     [Mplayer Users]     [Linux USB Devel]     [Linux Audio Users]     [Linux Kernel]     [Linux SCSI]     [Yosemite Backpacking]
  Powered by Linux