RFC: operation hints for GstElement
@ensonic
Submitted by Stefan Kost Link to original bug (#634687)
Description
Bug 564749 mostly blocks on the GstTagReaderIface. An alternative would be to have a set of hint-flags on GstElement. Those flags can be set on the pipeline, individual bins and even elements. Bins could propagate the hints to new children and hint-changes to existing children.
The purpose of the hints is to specify the intended use case a bit more to give elements a chances for optimization. Right now gstreamer elements prepare to support everything.
Some use cases
- quickly play something from start to end
- no need for metadata
- no seeking/no playback rate changes
- no mucking with the pipeline at all until eos
- quick metadata reading
- no prerolling
- no seektable building
- no caps changes (video in fullscreen)
- quicker pad_alloc or even no need to check for caps changes in basetransform
No proposal for a set of hints yet :/