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

[Xavier Douville]

Fabian Greffrath a écrit :
> Xavier Douville schrieb:
>> I think that would help answer many "can't play video" questions.
>
> In Debian's ffmpeg version no codecs were stripped that would be
> required for playback of video, only *encoders* have been removed.
>
>
Right, thanks for this clarification.
I also understand that there is a formats.txt.gz file but it's a very
long file and it's not clear that mpeg4 encoding was disabled because of
patents and not because it's not supported by upstream. This is only a
suggestion but since ffmpeg, especially the ffmpeg binary package, is
commonly used to encode a video (as opposed to libavcodec which is used
most of the time to decode videos), and that mpeg4 is one of the most
popular codec, I think that we should either :

-Add something like "mpeg4 encoding disabled because of patents" in the
description?

-Add an other file in /usr/share/doc/ffmpeg which would only list
disabled codecs, and suggest an alternative? Readme.Debian already does
about half of that by saying that "mpeg encoders" are disabled. By the
way, this file may need an update since a lot of stuff written in 2006
seems outdated. There is a patents.gz file but it doesn't talk about mpeg4.


thanks

Xavier Douville