> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-boun...@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> softworkz .
> Sent: Dienstag, 10. Juni 2025 15:32
> To: Kieran Kunhya <kieran...@googlemail.com>; FFmpeg development
> discussions and patches <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 0/3] tools/ffmpeg-sg: Add show-
> graph wrapper scripts (aka killer feature)
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Kieran Kunhya <kieran...@googlemail.com>
> > Sent: Dienstag, 10. Juni 2025 00:49
> > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > de...@ffmpeg.org>
> > Cc: softworkz <softwo...@hotmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 0/3] tools/ffmpeg-sg: Add show-
> > graph wrapper scripts (aka killer feature)
> >
> > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025, 20:24 ffmpegagent, <ffmpegagent-at-
> > gmail....@ffmpeg.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > The "killer feature" returns!
> > >
> > > Different approach - same procedure:
> > >
> > > * Add -sg to your FFmpeg command line
> > > * But now it's not
> > > * ./ffmpeg -sg xxxxx but
> > > * ./ffmpeg-sg xxxxx
> > >
> >
> > Why does this need to be part of FFmpeg if it's a wrapper script to
> > spawn a
> > web browser (nothing to do with FFmpeg's actual purpose of
> processing
> > multimedia).
> >
> > Kieran
>
>
> Hi Kieran,
>
> of course that's a legitimate question, and a question that could be
> asked
> for almost any new feature in FFmpeg.
> Obviously, there is no forcing reason for which it would _need_ to be
> included,
> so I can only say why it _should_ be included in FFmpeg IMHO:
>
>
> - Highly Useful
>
> If you haven't seen what it is and what it does, than I would
> suggest to
> everybody to try it out or to look at some of the examples:
>
> https://softworkz.github.io/ffmpeg_output_apis/2_hwa_qsv.html
>
> https://softworkz.github.io/ffmpeg_output_apis/3_complex_graphs.html
>
> This should also answer your question about what it has to do with
> "FFmpeg'
> actual purpose of processing multimedia": FFmpeg has a command line
> interface and it's often not clear to everybody how a certain
> command line
> is actually interpreted and executed by FFmpeg. This is helpful for
> both beginners and advanced users of FFmpeg (e.g. when things get
> complex
> like in the second example).
> Even Michael said he finds it useful and Niklas Haas had voiced a
> need
> for visualizing the negotiated image formats between filters,
> earlier this
> year.
>
>
> - Highly Convenient
>
> This core functionality for the above is already merged into
> master, but
> it's rather painful to make use of it
> - You need to remember the command line parameters
> - You need to type them
> - You need to determined a name for the output html file
> - You need to change it each time when you want to compare commands
> - You need to manually open the output in a browser
>
> It becomes highly convenient when the only thing you need to do and
> remember is to append "-sg" to any command whenever you need it and
> everything else happens automatically.
> You can try many command variations and it creates tabs in your
> browser between you can switch can compare the different graphs.
>
>
> - Instant Availability
>
> This simply means that whenever and wherever you need it...
> => it's already there
>
> It is part of the build output, which means all developers that you
> can compile, test your work and when you want to visualize the
> graph
> you just need to append -sg and it works - without doing any extra
> work.
> Same for make install and all kinds of distribution packages.
> When this is given, we can add a note to the documentation and make
> this available to Millions of users.
> If it would be just scripts for download from "somewhere", then it
> wouldn't be a feature available to Millions, but just something
> for a few dozens of people who would ever know about it.
>
>
> Those considerations combined is what had originally brought me
> to the tag line that some found funny and others rather "immature":
>
> Highly Useful + Convenient + Instant Availability = "Killer Feature"
>
>
> It's helpful for the masses => it should be available to the masses.
> This is why I believe that it should be included in FFmpeg.
>
> Best regards,
> softworkz
>
> _______________________________________________
There's also once another angle of view that should be considered when
assessing the relevance of the feature:
Learning and Understanding FFmpeg
Looking at the documentation under https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html we
can see that a lot of effort has been taken to make FFmpeg's ways of
operation transparent and understandable to all new users.
Don't all those ASCII graphics look familiar? Essentially, the show-
graph feature gives you exactly the same insights than the introductory
topics of the documentation - not just in an exemplary way but for the
exact command lines that you are supplying to FFmpeg.
This helps to reduce the learning curve for using of FFmpeg - which
is non-trivial - by a magnitude.
Even those who don't think that they would need a "browser launch"
capability by themselves, need to acknowledge (IMO) that this is
something that makes FFmpeg more accessible and more attractive to
new users all over the world and can help spread and increase FFmpeg
usage even more, which I think is in the interest of all of us.
Best regards,
softworkz
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