lavc: Deprecate avctx.rtp_callback field

This function returns the encoded data of a frame, one slice at a time
directly when that slice is encoded, instead of waiting for the full
frame to be done. However this field has a debatable usefulness, since
it looks like it is just a convoluted way to get data at lowest
possible latency, or a somewhat hacky way to store h263 in RFC-2190
rtp encapsulation.

Moreover when multi-threading is enabled (which is by default) the order
of returned slices is not deterministic at all, making the use of this
function not reliable at all (or at the very least, more complicated
than it should be).

So, for the reasons stated above, and being used by only a single encoder
family (mpegvideo), this field is deemed unnecessary, overcomplicated,
and not really belonging to libavcodec. Libavformat features a complete
implementation of RFC-2190, for any other case.

Signed-off-by: Vittorio Giovara <vittorio.giovara@gmail.com>

1 files changed, 5 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/doc/APIchanges b/doc/APIchanges
index fbabb51ea3..ecbe8b537c 100644
--- a/doc/APIchanges
+++ b/doc/APIchanges
@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@ libavutil:     2015-08-28
 
 API changes, most recent first:
 
+2015-xx-xx - xxxxxxx - lavc 57.9.1 - avcodec.h
+  Deprecate rtp_callback without replacement, i.e. it won't be possible to
+  get image slices before the full frame is encoded any more. The libavformat
+  rtpenc muxer can still be used for RFC-2190 packetization.
+
 2015-11-xx - xxxxxxx - lavc 57.9.0 - avcodec.h
   Add AV_PKT_DATA_FALLBACK_TRACK for making fallback associations between
   streams.