Video Player and Transcoder

[chris319]

Exists there a video player that will also transcode on the fly as it plays, in real time?

Say I have a video file in one format and want to play it back as if it were a video in a different format.

[Cornucopia]

That is not the point of a "player". A player decodes & plays the file into a live viewable (& listenable) realtime stream. Do you want the output to be something OTHER than viewable/listenable?
If you are wanting to do something else, then most likely what you are wanting is NOT necessarily a player, but a converter of some sort. And at that point, there is no longer much of a requirement that it be bound to realtime/live operation, or necessarily viewability.

Scott

[Cornucopia]

Or maybe you want the player to masquarade is if it were playing a different quality of file?

That's just a series of transforms.

Scott

[chris319]

Or maybe you want the player to masquerade as if it were playing a different quality of file?

That's more like it.

[chris319]

I've never used ffplay, but can it output a different format than the format of the file it is given?

For example, given a 1080p file can it output a 720p stream?

[_Al_]

That is what players do as a default.
They transcode whatever input is into RGB 8bit on screen and resize it to whatever size of your screen is (if fullscreen) or resize it to your window screen.

It is good to realize that , for example that YUV 4:2:0 original, is actually never seen on screen.

[chris319]

I was thinking about more than playback to a screen and YUV->RGB conversion. I was thinking about playing out to a stream and converting more than just color space, say resolution.

[chris319]

Maybe a combination of VLC and OBS is more like what I have in mind?

[_Al_]

I'm not sure if I understand. How about transcoding your video with some fast settings and play it at the same time. To do two things independently. Not sure why that necessarily would have to be part of one gui. You might not speed up anything, because if there is a GUI that would do it at once, withing one program, they'd have more threads running in the background anyway or processes would have to be queued to wait for each other. You might be better off running more apps at the same time.

[chris319]

You might be better off running more apps at the same time.

Like the combination of VLC and OBS?

[_Al_]

Any GUI encoder and any light player (like mpv) if you insist to watch it while encoding. You'd not save any processes doing it like that. VLC is more heavy, bloated.

Do you want to actually see while encoding what the result might be? Handbrake or maybe there is something else out there to let you actually encode a part of video for you to see, if it works for you.
If you mean this, this is actually what more folks want, to have a feedback what settings actually lead to (if encoding 1pass only of course).

[chris319]

I want it to stream video in the transcsoded format. Does that make it any clearer? The stream might go to SDI. Simple example:

File In -> Stream Out(SDI)
1080p -> 720p

[_Al_]

Definitely, now everyone actually might start having a clue what you actually want or better eliminate playback for viewing.