Negotiation ----------- Capabilities negotiation is the process of deciding on an adequate format for dataflow within a GStreamer pipeline. Ideally, negotiation (also known as "capsnego") transfers information from those parts of the pipeline that have information to those parts of the pipeline that are flexible, constrained by those parts of the pipeline that are not flexible. GStreamer's two scheduling modes, push mode and pull mode, lend themselves to different mechanisms to achieve this goal. As it is more common we describe push mode negotiation first. Push-mode negotiation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Push-mode negotiation happens when elements want to push buffers and need to decide on the format. This is called downstream negotiation because the upstream element decides the format for the downstream element. This is the most common case. Negotiation can also happen when a downstream element wants to receive another data format from an upstream element. This is called upstream negotiation. The basics of negotiation are as follows: - GstCaps (see part-caps.txt) are refcounted before they are attached to a buffer to describe the contents of the buffer. It is possible to add a NULL caps to a buffer, this means that the buffer type did not change relative to the previous buffer. If no previous buffer was received by a downstream element, it is free to discard the buffer. - Before receiving a buffer, an element must check if the datatype of the buffer has changed. The element should reconfigure itself to the new format before processing the buffer data. If the data type on the buffer is not acceptable, the element should refuse the buffer by returning an appropriate GST_FLOW_NOT_NEGOTIATED return value from the chain function. The core will automatically call the set_caps function for this purpose when it is installed on the sink or source pad. - When requesting a buffer from a bufferpool, the preferred type should be passed to the buffer allocation function. After receiving a buffer from a bufferpool, the datatype should be checked again. - A bufferpool allocation function should try to allocate a buffer of the preferred type. If there is a good reason to choose another type, the alloc function should see if that other type is accepted by the other element, then allocate a buffer of that type and attach the type to the buffer before returning it. The general flow for a source pad starting the negotiation. src sink | | | accepts? | type A |---------------->| | yes | |<----------------| | | get buffer | alloc_buf | from pool |---------------->| with type A | | Create buffer of type A. | | check type |<----------------| and use A | | | push | push buffer |---------------->| Receive type A, reconfigure to with new type| | process type A. | | One possible implementation in pseudo code: [element wants to create a buffer] if not format # see what the peer can do peercaps = gst_pad_peer_get_caps (srcpad) # see what we can do ourcaps = gst_pad_get_caps (srcpad) # get common formats candidates = gst_caps_intersect (peercaps, ourcaps) foreach candidate in candidates # make sure the caps is fixed fixedcaps = gst_pad_fixate_caps (srcpad, candidate) # see if the peer accepts it if gst_pad_peer_accept_caps (srcpad, fixedcaps) # store the caps as the negotiated caps, this will # call the setcaps function on the pad gst_pad_set_caps (srcpad, fixedcaps) break endif done endif # if the type is different, the buffer will have different caps from # the src pad -- setcaps will get called on the pad_push buffer = gst_pad_alloc_buffer (srcpad, 0, size, GST_PAD_CAPS (fixedcaps)); if buffer [fill buffer and push] elseif [no buffer, either no peer or no acceptable format found] endif The general flow for a sink pad starting a renegotiation. src sink | | | accepts? | |<----------------| type B | yes | |---------------->| | | get buffer | alloc_buf | from pool |---------------->| with type A | | Create buffer of new type B. | | check type |<----------------| and | | reconfigure | | | push | push buffer |---------------->| Receive type B, reconfigure to with new type| | process type B. | | Use case: videotestsrc ! xvimagesink 1) Who decides what format to use? - src pad always decides, by convention. sinkpad can suggest a format by putting it high in the getcaps function GstCaps. - since the src decides, it can always choose something that it can do, so this step can only fail if the sinkpad stated it could accept something while later on it couldn't. 2) When does negotiation happen? - before srcpad does a push, it figures out a type as stated in 1), then it calls the pad alloc function with the type. The sinkpad has to create a buffer of that type, src fills the buffer and sends it to sink. - since the sink stated in 1) it could accept the type, it will be able to create a buffer of the type and handle it. - sink checks media type of buffer and configures itself for this type. 3) How can sink request another format? - sink asks if new format is possible for the source. - sink returns buffer with new type in allocfunction. - src receives buffer with new type, reconfigures and pushes. - sink can always select something it can create and handle since it takes the initiative. src should be able to handle the new type since it said it could accept it. videotestsrc ! queue ! xvimagesink - queue implements an allocfunction, proxying all calls to its srcpad peer. - queue proxies all accept and getcaps to the other peer pad. - queue contains buffers with different types. Pull-mode negotiation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rationale ^^^^^^^^^ A pipeline in pull mode has different negotiation needs than one activated in push mode. Push mode is optimized for two use cases: * Playback of media files, in which the demuxers and the decoders are the points from which format information should disseminate to the rest of the pipeline; and * Recording from live sources, in which users are accustomed to putting a capsfilter directly after the source element; thus the caps information flow proceeds from the user, through the potential caps of the source, to the sinks of the pipeline. In contrast, pull mode has other typical use cases: * Playback from a lossy source, such as RTP, in which more knowledge about the latency of the pipeline can increase quality; or * Audio synthesis, in which audio APIs are tuned to producing only the necessary number of samples, typically driven by a hardware interrupt to fill a DMA buffer or a Jack[0] port buffer. * Low-latency effects processing, whereby filters should be applied as data is transferred from a ring buffer to a sink instead of beforehand. For example, instead of using the internal alsasink ringbuffer thread in push-mode wavsrc ! volume ! alsasink, placing the volume inside the sound card writer thread via wavsrc ! audioringbuffer ! volume ! alsasink. [0] http://jackit.sf.net The problem with pull mode is that the sink has to know the format in order to know how many bytes to pull via gst_pad_pull_range(). This means that before pulling, the sink must initiate negotation to decide on a format. Recalling the principles of capsnego, whereby information must flow from those that have it to those that do not, we see that the two named use cases have different negotiation requirements: * RTP and low-latency playback are both like the normal playback case, in which information flows downstream. * In audio synthesis, the part of the pipeline that has the most information is the sink, constrained by the capabilities of the graph that feeds it. However the caps are not completely specified; at some point the user has to intervene to choose the sample rate, at least. This can be done externally to gstreamer, as in the jack elements, or internally via a capsfilter, as is customary with live sources. Given that sinks potentially need the input of sources, as in the RTP case and at least as a filter in the synthesis case, there must be a negotiation phase before the pull thread is activated. Also, given the low latency offered by pull mode, we want to avoid capsnego from within the pulling thread, in case it causes us to miss our scheduling deadlines. The pull thread is usually started in the PAUSED->PLAYING state change. We must be able to complete the negotiation before this state change happens. The time to do capsnego, then, is after _check_pull_range() has succeeded, but before the sink has spawned the pulling thread. Mechanism ^^^^^^^^^ The sink determines that the upstream elements support pull based scheduling by calling gst_pad_check_pull_range(). The sink initiates the negotiation process by intersecting the results of gst_pad_get_caps() on its sink pad and its peer src pad. This is the operation performed by gst_pad_get_allowed_caps(). In the simple passthrough case, the peer pad's getcaps() function should return the intersection of calling get_allowed_caps() on all of its sink pads. In this way the sink element knows the capabilities of the entire pipeline. The sink element then fixates the resulting caps, if necessary, resulting in the flow caps. It notifies the pipeline of the caps by calling gst_pad_set_caps() on its sink pad. From now on, the getcaps function of the sinkpad will only return these fixed caps meaning that upstream elements will only be able to produce this format. If the sink element could not set caps on its sink pad, it should post an error message on the bus indicating that negotiation was not possible. When negotiation succeeded, the sinkpad and all upstream internally linked pads are activated in pull mode. Typically, this operation will trigger negotiation on the downstream elements, which will now be forced to negotiation to the final fixed desired caps of the sinkpad. After these steps, the sink element returns ASYNC from the state change function. The state will commit to PAUSED when the first buffer is received in the sink. This is needed to provide a consistent API to the applications that expect ASYNC return values from sinks but it also allows us to perform the remainder of the negotiation outside of the context of the pulling thread. During dataflow, gst_pad_pull_range() checks the caps on the pulled buffer. If they are different from the sink pad's caps, it will return GST_FLOW_NOT_NEGOTIATED. Because of the low-latency requirements, changing caps in an activate pull-mode pipeline is not supported, as it might require e.g. the sound card to reconfigure its hardware buffers, and start capsnego again.