Bug#519025: [ffmpeg-debian] Please clarify which codec is included (and which isn't), and what exactly is ffmpeg-debian

[Reinhard Tartler]

Xavier Douville <debian at douville.org> writes:

> From what I understand, ffmpeg-debian contains only DFSG compilant,
> software patents-free codecs. I think that doesn't inlcude any MPEG
> variant, right? If so, it should be marked clearly in the description
> since MPEG support is for many people an important feature.

That is not exactly correct.

As for clarification, please see the file
/usr/share/doc/libavcodec52/formats.txt.gz. Is that the clarification
you was looking for, or do you have further suggestions?

The package libavcodec-unstripped-52 btw contains the same
formats.txt.gz at /usr/share/doc/libavcodec52/formats.txt.gz, so you can
easily compare the two files.

> I have seen references to *-unstripped packages (which would support all
> codecs supported by upstream) but I can't find them in Debian. Is it
> still planned for the future or that's only the name suggested for
> debian-multimedia?

Both. The package is currently only in ubuntu, for debian we are still
looking for hosting of the packages.

Eventually we can indeed host the package at debian-multimedia, but that
requires another epoch bump :-(

> I think that would help answer many "can't play video" questions.

These kind of question generally require some fundamental understanding
of codecs and demuxers. Without that understanding, formats.txt is not
really helpful, but I have no idea how to help then.

-- 
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4