avcodec: Add explicit capability flag for encoder flushing

Previously, there was no way to flush an encoder such that after
draining, the encoder could be used again. We generally suggested
that clients teardown and replace the encoder instance in these
situations. However, for at least some hardware encoders, the cost of
this tear down/replace cycle is very high, which can get in the way of
some use-cases - for example: segmented encoding with nvenc.

To help address that use case, we added support for calling
avcodec_flush_buffers() to nvenc and things worked in practice,
although it was not clearly documented as to whether this should work
or not. There was only one previous example of an encoder implementing
the flush callback (audiotoolboxenc) and it's unclear if that was
intentional or not. However, it was clear that calling
avocdec_flush_buffers() on any other encoder would leave the encoder in
an undefined state, and that's not great.

As part of cleaning this up, this change introduces a formal capability
flag for encoders that support flushing and ensures a flush call is a
no-op for any other encoder. This allows client code to check if it is
meaningful to call flush on an encoder before actually doing it.

I have not attempted to separate the steps taken inside
avcodec_flush_buffers() because it's not doing anything that's wrong
for an encoder. But I did add a sanity check to reject attempts to
flush a frame threaded encoder because I couldn't wrap my head around
whether that code path was actually safe or not. As this combination
doesn't exist today, we'll deal with it if it ever comes up.

doc/APIchanges

@@ -15,6 +15,12 @@ libavutil:     2017-10-21
 
 API changes, most recent first:
 
+2020-04-15 - xxxxxxxxxx - lavc 58.79.100 - avcodec.h
+  Add formal support for calling avcodec_flush_buffers() on encoders.
+  Encoders that set the cap AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH will be flushed.
+  For all other encoders, the call is now a no-op rather than undefined
+  behaviour.
+
 2020-xx-xx - xxxxxxxxxx - lavc 58.78.100 - avcodec.h codec_desc.h codec_id.h packet.h
   Move AVCodecDesc-related public API to new header codec_desc.h.
   Move AVCodecID enum to new header codec_id.h.

libavcodec/audiotoolboxenc.c

@@ -627,7 +627,8 @@ static const AVOption options[] = {
         .encode2        = ffat_encode, \
         .flush          = ffat_encode_flush, \
         .priv_class     = &ffat_##NAME##_enc_class, \
-        .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DR1 | AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY __VA_ARGS__, \
+        .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DR1 | AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | \
+                          AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH __VA_ARGS__, \
         .sample_fmts    = (const enum AVSampleFormat[]) { \
             AV_SAMPLE_FMT_S16, \
             AV_SAMPLE_FMT_U8,  AV_SAMPLE_FMT_NONE \

libavcodec/avcodec.h

@@ -513,6 +513,13 @@ typedef struct RcOverride{
  */
 #define AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_REORDERED_OPAQUE (1 << 20)
 
+/**
+ * This encoder can be flushed using avcodec_flush_buffers(). If this flag is
+ * not set, the encoder must be closed and reopened to ensure that no frames
+ * remain pending.
+ */
+#define AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH   (1 << 21)
+
 /* Exported side data.
    These flags can be passed in AVCodecContext.export_side_data before initialization.
 */
@@ -4473,13 +4480,21 @@ int avcodec_fill_audio_frame(AVFrame *frame, int nb_channels,
                              int buf_size, int align);
 
 /**
- * Reset the internal decoder state / flush internal buffers. Should be called
+ * Reset the internal codec state / flush internal buffers. Should be called
  * e.g. when seeking or when switching to a different stream.
  *
- * @note when refcounted frames are not used (i.e. avctx->refcounted_frames is 0),
- * this invalidates the frames previously returned from the decoder. When
- * refcounted frames are used, the decoder just releases any references it might
- * keep internally, but the caller's reference remains valid.
+ * @note for decoders, when refcounted frames are not used
+ * (i.e. avctx->refcounted_frames is 0), this invalidates the frames previously
+ * returned from the decoder. When refcounted frames are used, the decoder just
+ * releases any references it might keep internally, but the caller's reference
+ * remains valid.
+ *
+ * @note for encoders, this function will only do something if the encoder
+ * declares support for AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH. When called, the encoder
+ * will drain any remaining packets, and can then be re-used for a different
+ * stream (as opposed to sending a null frame which will leave the encoder
+ * in a permanent EOF state after draining). This can be desirable if the
+ * cost of tearing down and replacing the encoder instance is high.
  */
 void avcodec_flush_buffers(AVCodecContext *avctx);
 

libavcodec/decode.c

@@ -2084,6 +2084,21 @@ void avcodec_flush_buffers(AVCodecContext *avctx)
 {
     AVCodecInternal *avci = avctx->internal;
 
+    if (av_codec_is_encoder(avctx->codec)) {
+        int caps = avctx->codec->capabilities;
+
+        if (!(caps & AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH)) {
+            // Only encoders that explicitly declare support for it can be
+            // flushed. Otherwise, this is a no-op.
+            av_log(avctx, AV_LOG_WARNING, "Ignoring attempt to flush encoder "
+                   "that doesn't support it\n");
+            return;
+        }
+
+        // We haven't implemented flushing for frame-threaded encoders.
+        av_assert0(!(caps & AV_CODEC_CAP_FRAME_THREADS));
+    }
+
     avci->draining      = 0;
     avci->draining_done = 0;
     avci->nb_draining_errors = 0;

libavcodec/nvenc_h264.c

@@ -182,10 +182,12 @@ AVCodec ff_nvenc_encoder = {
     .receive_packet = ff_nvenc_receive_packet,
     .encode2        = ff_nvenc_encode_frame,
     .close          = ff_nvenc_encode_close,
+    .flush          = ff_nvenc_encode_flush,
     .priv_data_size = sizeof(NvencContext),
     .priv_class     = &nvenc_class,
     .defaults       = defaults,
-    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE,
+    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE |
+                      AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH,
     .caps_internal  = FF_CODEC_CAP_INIT_CLEANUP,
     .pix_fmts       = ff_nvenc_pix_fmts,
     .wrapper_name   = "nvenc",
@@ -211,10 +213,12 @@ AVCodec ff_nvenc_h264_encoder = {
     .receive_packet = ff_nvenc_receive_packet,
     .encode2        = ff_nvenc_encode_frame,
     .close          = ff_nvenc_encode_close,
+    .flush          = ff_nvenc_encode_flush,
     .priv_data_size = sizeof(NvencContext),
     .priv_class     = &nvenc_h264_class,
     .defaults       = defaults,
-    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE,
+    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE |
+                      AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH,
     .caps_internal  = FF_CODEC_CAP_INIT_CLEANUP,
     .pix_fmts       = ff_nvenc_pix_fmts,
     .wrapper_name   = "nvenc",
@@ -244,7 +248,8 @@ AVCodec ff_h264_nvenc_encoder = {
     .priv_data_size = sizeof(NvencContext),
     .priv_class     = &h264_nvenc_class,
     .defaults       = defaults,
-    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE,
+    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE |
+                      AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH,
     .caps_internal  = FF_CODEC_CAP_INIT_CLEANUP,
     .pix_fmts       = ff_nvenc_pix_fmts,
     .wrapper_name   = "nvenc",

libavcodec/nvenc_hevc.c

@@ -174,7 +174,8 @@ AVCodec ff_nvenc_hevc_encoder = {
     .priv_class     = &nvenc_hevc_class,
     .defaults       = defaults,
     .pix_fmts       = ff_nvenc_pix_fmts,
-    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE,
+    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE |
+                      AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH,
     .caps_internal  = FF_CODEC_CAP_INIT_CLEANUP,
     .wrapper_name   = "nvenc",
 };
@@ -203,7 +204,8 @@ AVCodec ff_hevc_nvenc_encoder = {
     .priv_class     = &hevc_nvenc_class,
     .defaults       = defaults,
     .pix_fmts       = ff_nvenc_pix_fmts,
-    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE,
+    .capabilities   = AV_CODEC_CAP_DELAY | AV_CODEC_CAP_HARDWARE |
+                      AV_CODEC_CAP_ENCODER_FLUSH,
     .caps_internal  = FF_CODEC_CAP_INIT_CLEANUP,
     .wrapper_name   = "nvenc",
 };

libavcodec/version.h

@@ -28,8 +28,8 @@
 #include "libavutil/version.h"
 
 #define LIBAVCODEC_VERSION_MAJOR  58
-#define LIBAVCODEC_VERSION_MINOR  78
-#define LIBAVCODEC_VERSION_MICRO 102
+#define LIBAVCODEC_VERSION_MINOR  79
+#define LIBAVCODEC_VERSION_MICRO 100
 
 #define LIBAVCODEC_VERSION_INT  AV_VERSION_INT(LIBAVCODEC_VERSION_MAJOR, \
                                                LIBAVCODEC_VERSION_MINOR, \