Why is that a bad thing? Moving to standard Linux APIs is a win-win for everyone. More software works on the device without change, you can move between devices without rewriting code, the support burden is reduced, no need to learn non-standard API when writing software.One could argue (and I do) that omxplayer was what made the Pi special and cool. The fact that it (omxplayer) depends on specific Pi hardware (which apparently has been removed from later Pi versions) is actually a good thing.Moving to standard Linux APIs and software is a sensible long term approach though.
Because otherwise, the Pi is just another Linux box. You might as well just buy Intel/AMD/X86, if you just want generic Linux (with "standard" APIs and stuff).
The cynic in me thinks that that *is* the intent: To make it just another Linux platform.
Remember that the HW under these API is still Raspberry Pi hardware, so in the majority of use cases, no functionality is lost, it's just accessed in a different and more standard way.
Over the years we have moved away from a lot of home grown software: Proprietary 3D moved to Mesa. Lots of 3D applications suddenly started working. Moved from a proprietary camera stack to libcamera, now people can write their own camera drivers instead of only being able to use Pi cameras, moved from OpenMAX to V4L2/gtreamer etc, which is much more common, moved from dispmanx to KMS/DRM, which admittedly is a big change, but now means people can write their own DSI display drivers, and provides better acceleration for the desktop.
And you still haven't answered what feature of OMXPlayer you use than means VLC is not a replacement.
Statistics: Posted by jamesh — Fri Aug 02, 2024 12:30 pm
