libvlc: how to snap a frame at any time - c

Now my method is:
libvlc_video_set_callbacks //set the lock,unlock,display callback functions
libvlc_media_player_set_position //goto the snap time
libvlc_media_player_play //start playing
then in unlock callback function invoke 'libvlc_media_player_stop' to stop the play, and save the data which provider by display callback function.
This method had succeeded some times, but more times it will take my whole program crash.
I know it looks a bit stupid, but I cannot found any frame by frame control function in the libvlc include files.

Actually, the libvlc has a really poor handling of frame by frame since it is not the way it handles streams. Therefore, frame by frame - when there is some - is quite hacky and can be rather ugly. Going forward or backward one frame is often achieved by computing the length between two frames, and jumping to the corresponding datetime.
The only frame-related function in the library is libvlc_media_player_next_frame which seems to be conditionally supported and it also seems that some development is being done to later support libvlc_media_player_previous_frame.
Therefore, your method is probably as fine as any other would be. An alternative would be to replace libvlc_media_player_set_position by libvlc_media_player_set_time if you want to be able to set your time to the wanted millisecond. Yet another one would be to slow the playback down before snapping. None of these methods is really efficient though, but there does not seem to be any cleaner way to do so.

Related

How can I get current microphone input level with C WinAPI?

Using Windows API, I want to implement something like following:
i.e. Getting current microphone input level.
I am not allowed to use external audio libraries, but I can use Windows libraries. So I tried using waveIn functions, but I do not know how to process audio input data in real time.
This is the method I am currently using:
Record for 100 milliseconds
Select highest value from the recorded data buffer
Repeat forever
But I think this is way too hacky, and not a recommended way. How can I do this properly?
Having built a tuning wizard for a very dated, but well known, A/V conferencing applicaiton, what you describe is nearly identical to what I did.
A few considerations:
Enqueue 5 to 10 of those 100ms buffers into the audio device via waveInAddBuffer. IIRC, when the waveIn queue goes empty, weird things happen. Then as the waveInProc callbacks occurs, search for the sample with the highest absolute value in the completed buffer as you describe. Then plot that onto your visualization. Requeue the completed buffers.
It might seem obvious to map the sample value as follows onto your visualization linearly.
For example, to plot a 16-bit sample
// convert sample magnitude from 0..32768 to 0..N
length = (sample * N) / 32768;
DrawLine(length);
But then when you speak into the microphone, that visualization won't seem as "active" or "vibrant".
But a better approach would be to give more strength to those lower energy samples. Easy way to do this is to replot along the μ-law curve (or use a table lookup).
length = (sample * N) / 32768;
length = log(1+length)/log(N);
length = max(length,N)
DrawLine(length);
You can tweak the above approach to whatever looks good.
Instead of computing the values yourself, you can rely on values from Windows. This is actually the values displayed in your screenshot from the Windows Settings.
See the following sample for the IAudioMeterInformation interface:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/coreaudio/peak-meters.
It is made for the playback but you can use it for capture also.
Some remarks, if you open the IAudioMeterInformation for a microphone but no application opened a stream from this microphone, then the level will be 0.
It means that while you want to display your microphone peak meter, you will need to open a microphone stream, like you already did.
Also read the documentation about IAudioMeterInformation it may not be what you need as it is the peak value. It depends on what you want to do with it.

changing HM reference software to display some information about the bitstream

I am very new to the HM HEVC (and the JEM) reference software, and I am currently trying to understand the source code. I want to add some lines to display for each component: name of Algo (i.e. inter/intra Algos) + length of the bitstream+ position in output bin file.
To know which component cost more bits to code and how codec is working. I want to do same thing for the JEM also after that.
my problem first is that I am unable of understanding a lot of function there, the comment is not sufficient, so is there any references to understand the code??!! (I already read the Manuel ,doesn’t help).
2nd I don’t know where & how exactly to add these lines; is it in TEncGOP, TEncSlice or TEncCU. Ps: I don’t think in TEncGOP.compressGOP so maybe in the 2 other classes.
(I put the answer to comment that #Mourad put four hours ago here, becuase it will be long)
I assume that you could manage to find where the actual encoding after the RDO loop is implemented. As you correctly mentioned, xEncodeCU is the function you need to refer to make sure you are not still in the RDO.
Now you need to find the exact function in xEncodeCU that is responsible for your target codec tool.
For instance, if you want to count the number of bits for coefficient coding, you should be looking into the m_pcEntropyCoder->encodeCoeff() (It's a JEM function and may have different name in the HM). Once you find this line in the xEncodeCU, you may do this and get the number of bits written inside encodeCoeff() function:
UInt b_before = m_pcEntropyCoder->getNumberOfWrittenBits();
m_pcEntropyCoder->encodeCoeff( ... );
UInt b_after = m_pcEntropyCoder->getNumberOfWrittenBits();
UInt writtenBitsCoeff = b_after - b_before;
One important point: as you cas see, the function getNumberOfWrittenBits() gives you integer rates, which is obtained by rounding sum of fractional rates corresponding to all syntax elements coded inside the function encodeCoeff. This error might or might not be acceptable, depending on your problem. For example, if instead of coefficient coding rate, you wanted to know the rate of CBF, then this error would not be acceptable at all. Because, CBF rate is mostly less than one bit. If this is your case, then you would need to calculate the fractional bits one-by-one. It would be totally different and relatively more complicated than this.
Point 1: There is one rule of tumb that logging coding decisions (e.g. pred mode, MV, IPM, block size) is much easier at the decoder side than encoder. This is because of the fact that you have super complicated RDO process at the encoder side that can easily make you get lost in the loops. But at the decoder side, everything appears only once. However, if you insist on doing it at the encoder side, you may find some tips here: Get some information from HEVC reference software
Point 2: Unlike coding decisions, logging rate (i.e. number of written bits for different syntax elements) is more complicated at the decoder side than encoder. This is particularly true for fractional bits associated to anything that is encoded in non-EP mode (i.e. with CABAC contexts). So you may do this part at the ecoder side. But I am afraid it is not easy.
Point 3: I think the best way to understand the code is to read it line-by-line. It's very time-consuming but if you theoritically know the standard(s), you will probably be able to distiguish important parts and ignore the rest.
PS: I think there are too many questions, mostly too general, in your post. It makes it a bit difficult for me to answer them all together. So you I'll wait for you to take your next step and ask more precise questions.

How could we get a variable value from GLSL?

I'm doing a project with a lot of calculation and i got an idea is throw pieces of work to GPU, but i wonder whether could we retrieve results from GLSL, if it is posible, how?
GLSL does not provide outputs besides what is placed in the frame buffer.
To program a GPU and get results more conveniently, use CUDA (NVidia only) or OpenCL (cross-platform).
In general, what you want to do is use OpenCL for general-purpose GPU tasks. However, if you are insistent about pretending that OpenGL is not a rendering API...
Framebuffer Objects make it relatively easy to render to multiple outputs. This of course means that you have to structure your processing such that what gets rendered matches what you want. You can render to 32-bit floating-point "images", so you have access to plenty of precision. The biggest difficulty is what I stated: figuring out how to structure your task to match rendering.
It's a bit easier when using transform feedback. This is the ability to write the output of the vertex (or geometry) shader processing to a buffer object. This still requires structuring your tasks into something like rendering, but it's easier because vertex shaders have a strict one-vertex-to-one-vertex mapping. For every input vertex, there is exactly one output. And if you draw GL_POINTS, it's not too difficult to use attributes to pass the data that changes.
Both easier and harder is the use of shader_image_load_store. This is effectively the ability to read/write from/to arbitrary images "whenever you want". I put that last part in quotes because there are lots of esoteric rules about data race conditions: reading from a value written by another shader invocation and so forth. These are not trivial to deal with. You can try to structure your code to avoid them, by not writing to the same image location in the same shader. But in many cases, if you could do that, you could just render to the framebuffer.
Ultimately, it's pretty much impossible to answer this question in the general case, without knowing what exactly you're trying to actually do. How you approach GPGPU through a rendering API depends greatly on exactly what you're trying to compute.

Arrays in PowerBuilder

I have this code
n_userobject inv_userobject[]
For i = 1 to dw_1.Rowcount()
inv_userobject[i] = create n_userobject
.
.
.
NEXT
dw_1.rowcount() returns only 210 rows. Its so odd that in the range of 170 up, the application stop and crashes on inv_userobject[i] = create n_userobject.
My question, is there any limit on array or userobject declaration using arrays?
I already try destroying it after the loop so as to check if that will be a possible solution, but it is still crashing.
Or how can i be able to somehow refresh the userobject?
Or is there anyone out there encounter this?
Thanks for all your help.
First, your memory problem. You're definitely not running into an array limit. If I was to take a guess, one of the instance variables in n_userobject isn't being cleaned up properly (i.e. pointing to a class that isn't being destroyed when the parent class is destroyed) or pointing to a class that similarly doesn't clean itself up. If you've got PB Enterprise, I'd do a profiling trace with a smaller loop and see what is being garbage collected (there's a utility called CDMatch that really helps this process).
Secondly, let's face it, you're just doing this to avoid writing a reset method. Even if you get this functional, it will never be as efficient as writing your own reset method and reusing the same instance over again. Yes, it's another method you'll have to maintain whenever the instance variable list changes or the defaults change, but you'll easily gain that back in performance.
Good luck,
Terry.
I'm assuming the crash you're facing is at the PBVM level, and not a regular PB exception (which you can catch in your code). If I'm wrong, please add the exception details.
A loop of 170-210 iterations really isn't a large one. However, crashes within loops are usually the result of resource exhaustion. What we usually do in long loops is call GarbageCollect() occasionally. How often should it be called depends on what your code does - using it frequently could allow the use of less memory, but it will slow down the run. Read this for more.
If this doesn't help, make sure the error does not come from some non-PB code (imported DLL or so). You can check the stack trace during the crash to see the exception's origin.
Lastly, if you're supported by Sybase (or a local representative), you can send them a crash dump. They can analyze it, and see if it's a bug in PB, and if so, let you know when it was (or will be) fixed.
What I would normally do with a DataWindow is to create an object that processes the data in a row and call it for each row.
the only suggestion i have for this is to remove the rowcount from the for (For i = 1 to dw_1.Rowcount()) this will cause the code to recount the rows every time it uses one. get the count into a variable and then use the variable. it should run a bit better and be far more easy to debug.

XNA 2D Deformed Terrain Collision Detection without GetData()

I'm currently working on a Worms game which involves terrain deformation. I used to do it with .GetData, modifying the color array, then using .SetData, but I looked into changing it to make the work done on the GPU instead (using RenderTargets).
All is going well with that, but I have come into another problem. My whole collision detection against the terrain was based on a Color array representing the terrain, but I do not have that color array anymore. I could use .GetData every time I modify the terrain to update my Color array, but that would defeat the purpose of my initial changes.
What I would be okay with is using GetData once at the beginning, and then modifying that array based on the changes I make to the terrain later on by some other means. I do not know how I would do this though, can anyone help?
I've done a bit of research, and I have yet to find a solution to getting rid of any GetData calls every time my terrain is modified, but I have found ways to "optimize" it, or at least reduce the GetData calls as much as possible.
Crater drawing is batched, meaning that rather than draw each one as it’s created, I add them to a list and draw all of them every few frames. This reduces the number of GetData calls – one per batch of craters rather than one per crater.
After drawing craters to the render target, I wait a few frames before calling GetData to make sure the GPU has processed all of the drawing commands. This minimizes pipeline stalls.
If I have a pending GetData call to make and more craters come in, the craters will stay batched until the GetData call is complete. In other words, the drawing and getting are synchronized so that a GetData call always happens several frames after drawing a batch of craters, and any new crater draw requests wait until after a pending GetData.
If anyone else has any other suggestions I would still be glad to hear them.

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