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authorMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>2016-07-08 11:40:06 -0300
committerMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>2016-07-08 11:59:40 -0300
commit60c2820d0f6d3497975b6488e2599f8f611d8b95 (patch)
treeb3b03707c6438ea9b99cc57e847ebf517f968ab1 /Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/dev-codec.rst
parenta97369b5e21ea9b8b5fef7c0f4f48bbe60c07ca3 (diff)
doc_rst: rename the media Sphinx suff to Documentation/media
The name of the subsystem is "media", and not "linux_tv". Also, as we plan to add other stuff there in the future, let's rename also the media uAPI book to media_uapi, to make it clearer. No functional changes. Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>
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+.. -*- coding: utf-8; mode: rst -*-
+
+.. _codec:
+
+***************
+Codec Interface
+***************
+
+A V4L2 codec can compress, decompress, transform, or otherwise convert
+video data from one format into another format, in memory. Typically
+such devices are memory-to-memory devices (i.e. devices with the
+``V4L2_CAP_VIDEO_M2M`` or ``V4L2_CAP_VIDEO_M2M_MPLANE`` capability set).
+
+A memory-to-memory video node acts just like a normal video node, but it
+supports both output (sending frames from memory to the codec hardware)
+and capture (receiving the processed frames from the codec hardware into
+memory) stream I/O. An application will have to setup the stream I/O for
+both sides and finally call :ref:`VIDIOC_STREAMON <VIDIOC_STREAMON>`
+for both capture and output to start the codec.
+
+Video compression codecs use the MPEG controls to setup their codec
+parameters (note that the MPEG controls actually support many more
+codecs than just MPEG). See :ref:`mpeg-controls`.
+
+Memory-to-memory devices can often be used as a shared resource: you can
+open the video node multiple times, each application setting up their
+own codec properties that are local to the file handle, and each can use
+it independently from the others. The driver will arbitrate access to
+the codec and reprogram it whenever another file handler gets access.
+This is different from the usual video node behavior where the video
+properties are global to the device (i.e. changing something through one
+file handle is visible through another file handle).