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i have been using the experimental multithreaded version of mplayer and it now means i can play hd videos while deinterlacing properly
the multithreaded mplayer uses a lots less cpu than the vlc so i believe its time to release an experimental multithreaded version of vlc
using the FFmpeg-mt branch
here a link with information about multithreaded mplayer http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html

the multithreaded mplayer uses a lots less cpu

Multithreading uses more CPU time, less real world time.

And decoder speedups will come to public VLC releases when multithread FFmpeg becomes stable. Naturally you can compile VLC with newer FFmpeg (libavcodec, libavformat, etc.) if you want to test it.

Hello VLC forum,

I came around and registred to check up on this feature.

I recently installed a nightly build of ffdshow-tryouts and enabled the ffmpeg-mt decoder instead of libavcodec and was pleased to see that I could watch in Mpc-HC some tough 20mbit AVCHD clips on my 1.8ghz C2D laptop for the first time!

I am eager to see VLC pickup ffmpeg-mt from the ffmpeg project as it is my favorite video player ever, is this planned any time soon? Can I see this in action now in VLC nightlies?
If not, how can I "compile VLC with newer FFmpeg" myself? I would love to test this out on all my setups; win32, win x64, Linux etc..

hello
Unfortuntly vlc still doesn't have ffmpeg-mt in it even in the svn, However from version 1.0.0 the vlc x264 encoding is mutlithreaded

Before you can compile vlc-mt you need to compile vlc
This is harder than it sounds, but here are some links

http://wiki.videolan.org/Win32CompileCygwinNew
http://wiki.videolan.org/Win32CompileMSYS

then you need to compile ffmpeg-mt
gitorious.org/projects/ffmpeg/repos/ffmpeg-mt
then you copy the *.a files from ffmpeg (eg avcodec.a) to vlc folder usr\win32\lib\
and if all goes well you would have vlc-mt!

I haven't actualy got vlc to compile yet. but i have added ffmpeg mt to mplayer and mythtv player so i have a reasonble understanding of what to do.
Although i have been compiling using the Win32CompileMSYS way so I might try with Cygwin and see if i have some beter luck with that.

As you can see though this is compicated proccess and I would really like to see a vlc devoloper upload an .exe and maybe even have a offical mt version as I can never see ffmpeg-mt being part of the "offical ffmpeg" and 8 core proccessers are coming end of next year.

If anyones got any help or any new tutorials for compiling vlc please let me know

ffmpeg-mt had some issues with H.264 decoding when used with VLC. I don't know if those problem are still there.

I would also like to say that i think vlc should be multithreaded and i thnk vlc should try to brake away from always having to realy on ffmpeg all the time

realy on ffmpeg all the time

How would you achieve this?

ffmpeg-mt had some issues with H.264 decoding when used with VLC. I don't know if those problem are still there.

So is ffmpeg-mt integration in VLC on the agenda at all?

So is ffmpeg-mt integration in VLC on the agenda at all?

ffmpeg-mt is prolly going to get to VLC stable release when it is stable branch.

The ffmpeg changelog for "version <next>" doesn't seem to have anything about multithread..
(http://ffmpeg.org/changelog.html)
Could ffmpeg-mt be moved to "stable" regardless?

Damn I wish ffmpeg version changes didn't occur so slowly..

no news about it?

--sout-transcode-threads

sout-transcode-threads is for transcoding, not for playback.

I have now got vlc to compile with ffmpeg-mt!

Unfortunalty there are still some things I need to do.

* I haven't compiled in the gui yet
* Some formats crash or dont work (probaly due to missing libaries)
* Directx doesn't seem to have compiled properly witch causes some crashes
* Compiler needs updating from gcc 3.4 to 4.5

I think a mutithreaded vlc needs to be put to the top of the list as the chance of ffmpeg-mt becoming stable is about the chance of ffmpeg have version 1.0

If any one interested, I haven't used any patches, I have just compiled it like normal except with ffmpeg mt. The fact I have got it to compile shows that it shouldn't be a big job to get it into the stable versions

Hey arobro, any chance you could give a quick tutorial for the technically minded on how you compiled VLC w/ ffmpeg-mt? Thanks in advance!

I have now got vlc to compile with ffmpeg-mt!

Unfortunalty there are still some things I need to do.

* I haven't compiled in the gui yet
* Some formats crash or dont work (probaly due to missing libaries)
* Directx doesn't seem to have compiled properly witch causes some crashes
* Compiler needs updating from gcc 3.4 to 4.5

I think a mutithreaded vlc needs to be put to the top of the list as the chance of ffmpeg-mt becoming stable is about the chance of ffmpeg have version 1.0

If any one interested, I haven't used any patches, I have just compiled it like normal except with ffmpeg mt. The fact I have got it to compile shows that it shouldn't be a big job to get it into the stable versions

ffdshow tryouts has a new release (beta 7) that advertises ffmpeg-mt. come on VLC !

News
2010-02-14 Beta 7 has been released! Highlights of this release:

* Support for DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD bitstreaming
* New H.264 decoder "ffmpeg-mt" takes better advantage of multi-core CPUs
* Improved subtitle rendering

ffmpeg-mt is still broken for many formats.

ffmpeg-mt is still broken for many formats.

But it can be selectively enabled, and works perfectly on 720/1080p h.264, which is the only thing most people with older machines can't play. I'm using the Chromium nightlies with -mt on HTML5 video, mplayer with -mt for everything else, and haven't had a problem yet.


(edit: just saw a similar thread below, sorry for bumping this one too - came in from google)

ffmpeg-mt is still broken for many formats.

But it can be selectively enabled, and works perfectly on 720/1080p h.264, which is the only thing most people with older machines can't play. I'm using the Chromium nightlies with -mt on HTML5 video, mplayer with -mt for everything else, and haven't had a problem yet.


(edit: just saw a similar thread below, sorry for bumping this one too - came in from google)

VLC is quite different in the way it handles pts and dts so far. Patches are welcome, though