vlc/TODO

#
#   vlc tasks
#   ---------
#
#
# Difficulty values: Easy, Medium, Hard, Guru
#
# Urgency values: Wishlist, Normal, Important, Critical

Task: 0x35
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Fix plugins namespace problem
 When compiling a plugin, all symbols seem to be exported, while we
 actually just need GetConfig and a few other things: the other
 functions are accessed through function pointers.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x34
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Fix plugin autoloading
 At the moment, plugins to be detected are hardcoded in the code. We
 need a better method to get all available plugins, by listing all the
 files in selected directories.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x33
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Important
Description: Real plugin API
 We need some functions to register plugins, automatically detect which
 ones are the most appropriate, as well as ways to express that plugin
 A won't work unless plugin B is activated as well.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x32
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Enable compiled-in plugins
 Some plugins may have their place inside the main program, such as the
 dummy plugin, or the beos plugin under BeOS. We should allow to link
 them with the main app.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x31
Difficulty: Easy
Urgency: Normal
Description: Optimize SPU rendering
 There is an if() in the SPU display routine to double lines when needed,
 whiwh is rather inefficient. It should be removed and put outside
 the main loop.
Status: Todo.

Task: 0x30
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Important
Description: SPU error recovery
 The SPU decoder does not behave very well when a packet is missed or when
 it gets the stream at the middle of an SPU packet. Make it more error-
 friendly.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x29
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Normal
Description: ALSA audio output support
 ALSA is the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture and is believed to be
 technically superior to the usual OSS support found in the Linux kernel.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x28
Difficulty: Guru
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Support for RTP
 RTP is a transport protocol for realtime applications. MPEG1 and MPEG2
 versions of RTP are described in RFCs 2038 and 2250. RFCs 1889 (RTP)
 and 2508 (compressed RTP) can be interesting as well.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x27
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Draw a font / support color fonts
 The vlc currently uses an ugly font to display its data on the output
 window, and we have a slow hack to make it outlined. Writing our own
 font, or adding support for color fonts, would make us gain some time.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x26
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Layer 2 mono support
 The vlc doesn't play layer 2 mono yet. We need it since a few of our
 streams are in this audio format.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x25
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: MP3 support
 The vlc cannot play MPEG1/2 layer 3 yet. It might be nice to fix that.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x24
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Normal
Description: Support for unencapsulated streams
 Some streams are not encapsulated in PES/PS or TS packets, which the
 vlc currently requires to properly decode a stream. Adding support for
 this would require to rewrite the input code, and probably make it a
 plugin.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x24
Difficulty: Guru
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Ogg/Vorbis audio decoder support
 The Ogg/Vorbis audio format is a free alternative to the patent-encumbered
 MP3 format. The system packets are quite different than the MPEG ones, so
 adding support for it would require a lot of code rewrite.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x23
Difficulty: Guru
Urgency: Normal
Description: Xv video output support
 XFree 4.0 provides the Xv interface which can do hardware YUV on supported
 hardware. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much documentation
 available.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x22
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Normal
Description: SDL video output support
 The Simple DirectMedia Layer library is a generic API that provides
 YUV acceleration on some platforms. More information can be found
 on http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/
Status: Todo

Task: 0x21
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Normal
Description: Implement pause
 There is no real `pause' command yet. Pausing just stops
 displaying and sound playback, but the streams continues to
 be decoded. One will have to do a file implementation as
 well as a network implementation.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x20
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Important
Description: Rewrite input for Program Stream files
 Currently when we read a PS file, it is first translated to TS
 because we first had only PS support. Now time has come to get
 rid of this ugly kludge and integrate a proper PS input.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x1f
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Normal
Description: DeCSS and DVD ioctls
 The vlc needs the DVD ioctls support as well as the integration
 of DeCSS to play DVDs properly. The person doing this should
 probably not live in a country where DeCSS has been ruled illegal.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x1e
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: ASCII-art output
 For the ones who don't know how to waste their time, they can
 try to do an ASCII-art output plugin.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x1d
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Normal
Description: LPCM decoder
 The LPCM decoder is full of stubs, it only parses the stream
 but does not decode it. Fix this.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x1c
Difficulty: Guru
Urgency: Important
Description: Fix field pictures support
 Some MPEG2 streams are interleaved, and the vlc does not support
 this very well. Adding support for them requires an excellent
 knowledge of the MPEG2 papers.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x1b
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Modularize decoder
 Make the decoder a plugin, so that two versions can coexist
 without recompilation (MMX and non-MMX).
Status: Todo

Task: 0x1a
Difficulty: Easy
Urgency: Normal
Description: Make interface more responsive
Status: Todo
 When in "waiting for stream" mode, the interface is refreshed
 every 5 seconds. This is too long, and can be confusing for
 the user. Make it refresh at least after a keyboard/mouse event.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x19
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Normal
Description: Support MP1 and MP3
 The vlc does not support all MPEG1 audio formats yet, nor
 does it support MPEG1/2 layer 3.

Task: 0x18
Difficulty: Guru
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Split interface/video_output
 The interface and the vout modules are too dependant, which
 makes it impossible to run the Glide output with the Gnome
 interface for instance. This will require a major rewrite of
 the interface, and a solid knowledge of how the vlc internals
 work.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x17
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Normal
Description: Add 24bpp YUV
 There is no 24bpp support yet. Add it, either in MMX
 or in C.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x16
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Fix 8bpp YUV
 The 8bpp YUV function is broken, there is some serious
 alpha blending, and it scales pretty badly. Fix it.
Status: Done 14 Aug 2000 (sam)

Task: 0x15
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Critical
Description: Fix input_file exit
 input_file does not exit cleanly when the file is finished,
 which makes it impossible to quit the vlc. Fix it.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x14
Difficulty: Guru
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Debug MPEG1 video
 The MPEG1 support has been done, but it still crashes.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x13
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Support MPEG1 timecodes
 The vlc can parse an MPEG1 system stream, but the parsed
 PCR values do not seem to be correct. Check what's wrong.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x12
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Fix 32bpp MMX YUV
 The MMX 32bpp YUV function is buggy.
Status: Done 13 Aug 2000 (sam)

Task: 0x11
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Normal
Description: Optimize YUV scaling
 The YUV scaling method does not seem very efficient. Perhaps
 some CPU cycles can be gained by saving some buffers.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x10
Difficulty: Easy
Urgency: Normal
Description: Draw a vlc icon
 The vlc needs an icon. It should render well in 48x48 but
 can be any size.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x0f
Difficulty: Easy
Urgency: Normal
Description: Better black&white support
 When in B&W mode, the chroma part of pictures is decoded,
 but it would be more efficient not to decode at all when
 the video decoder knows it does not need to.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x0e
Difficulty: Easy
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Rename channel names
 Channels should start from 1 (not 0) like on a VCR or TV,
 and Channel 0 should be renamed to "Playlist" or similar.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x0d
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Framebuffer exit bug
 When the vlc abnormally exits in framebuffer mode, it leaves
 the console in an unusable state. This does not happen on
 the Matrox framebuffer, but it does on the VESA one.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x0c
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Critical
Description: Fix synchro
 The synchronization algorithm sucks a bit. While it is
 quite efficient on frameskipping on slow machines, it
 is not smart enough on fast machines and does not detect
 when it has enough time for a frame. Perhaps a better
 handling of the dates might help.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x0b
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Allow to force synchro
 Add a --force-synchro option to bypass the auto-adaptative
 algorithm present in the vlc. Options should allow displaying
 only I frames, only I and P, or all frames, or some more
 fancy stuff such as half the Bs.
Status: Done 8 Aug 2000 (sam)

Task: 0x0a
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Important
Description: Do separate packages
 The plugins can be compiled with specific libraries, such
 as Gnome, GGI, Esound. Putting all of them in the same
 package would require a lot of useless dependencies, thus
 one should do separate packages: a core "vlc" package, and
 "vlc-fb", "vlc-ggi", "vlc-esd" packages depending on the
 core package.
Status: Done 15 Aug 2000 (sam)

Task: 0x09
Difficulty: Easy
Urgency: Normal
Description: Get rid of dumb vlc aliases
 When compiling the vlc, some symlinks to the main app
 are created, such as gvlc, ggivlc, etc. Actually this
 might confuse the user, so they should be removed,
 except perhaps gvlc and fbvlc which follow a usual
 naming scheme.
Status: Done 8 Aug 2000 (sam)

Task: 0x08
Difficulty: Easy
Urgency: Important
Description: Get rid of floating instructions
 Mixing floating instructions and MMX is seldom a good idea,
 it might be interesting to remove all floating instructions
 in a single thread. The audio decoders are of course not
 concerned by this task.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x07
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Critical
Description: Fix VDEC_SMP segfaults
 When compiled to support SMP, the vlc segfaults. The synchro
 code lacks locks, but there might be bugs elsewhere as well.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x06
Difficulty: Guru
Urgency: Important
Description: Optimize video parser
 The video parser has some speed issues currently unexplained:
 even though most functions are inlined, it keeps eating more
 CPU than it should. This has to be investigated.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x05
Difficulty: Easy
Urgency: Important
Description: Backport vlms input
 The vlc uses the same file input code as the vlms (VideoLAN
 Mini Server) which has been much improved. Someone should
 port modifications done to the vlms back to the vlc.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x04
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Normal
Description: Get rid of vlc.channels
 The file vlc.channels should be removed and information
 found in it put either into ~/.vlcrc or in another rc
 file. Note that this file can be modified by the vlc.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x03
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Important
Description: Playlist API
 Currently only files given in the command line are played,
 one after the other. We need a smarter way to handle this,
 through AddFile(), MoveFile(), etc. functions. input_file
 has to be modified to support this as well.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x02
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Normal
Description: Better Gnome interface
 The Gnome interface has many stubs and is actually rather
 unfunctional. Someone should make the buttons work when
 the appropriate hooks exist.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x01
Difficulty: Hard
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: MGA YUV
 The Matrox acceleration for the vlc does not work yet,
 though there are initialization routines in the code.
Status: Todo

Task: 0x00
Difficulty: Medium
Urgency: Wishlist
Description: Splash screen
 The vlc needs a splash screen with a vlc logo, instead of
 the "waiting for stream" message.
Status: Todo