Exiv2 bug reports

[Gilles Caulier-4]

Hi all

Some news about the Video metadata support plan :

1/ I investigated the ExifTool way. The time latency introduced by
QProcess to run Perl script is too much important. It's acceptable for
some image, but for a large collection scan, it's inacceptable. Even
if metadata support is excellent, i will forget Exiftool...

2/ I take a look to MediaInfo. A lib is available de facto under
Linux. Even project management (source code, compilation rules,
compiler support) is not strong from my point of view, the code must
be compilable for all bundle. It sound like this project is maintained
under Windows, and other platform only provided as well. I'm not sure.
The interface is not to much complicated to wrap with digiKam core. So
i will study this way for the future.

3/ No news from Exiv2 since the 0.26 release. Only few bugzilla
entries have been created with some response, but no more. Sound like
Exiv2 switch progressively in frozen mode. I hope that a new
maintainer will be found quickly. We really need to see the video
supported completed, at least for read only request.
NOTE: do not ask me to do this job, in parallel of digiKam...

My plan : as we already do for unsupported RAW file by Exiv2, we use
libraw to get some metadata that library is able to parse. All are
stored in Exiv2 container, so all the rest of digiKam don't need to be
touch.
I want to do the same for MediaInfo, with a Cmake optional compilation rule.

This will provide a minimal support of video metadata, in read only,
until a solution will be found with Exiv2 project.

Important : i need a new entry in digiKam bugzilla to add video
support through MediaInfo. Thanks in advance.

Voilà. Constructive comments are welcome.

Best

Gilles Caulier


2017-04-28 16:24 GMT+02:00 Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]>:

>
>
> 2017-04-28 15:31 GMT+02:00 NeiNei <[hidden email]>:
>>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> the long awaited release of Exiv2 v0.26 should be released today according
>> to http://dev.exiv2.org/boards/3/topics/2830
>> However, I do not know wether or how it will change the situation for
>> DigiKam.
>
>
> Nothing news with Exiv2 0.26, as i already use current code from svn server
> in all bundle (so pre 0.26 release)
>
>
>
>>
>> As far as I understood Gilles thoroughly checks for alternatives in order
>> to ensure a working, evolving and reliable metadata editor for DigiKam.
>>
>
> yes. No code is done yet. I plan to make some demo code soon with Exiftool
> c++ interface, when time permit.
>
> Gilles
>

[Marcel Wiesweg]

> Hi all
>
> Some news about the Video metadata support plan :
>
> 1/ I investigated the ExifTool way. The time latency introduced by
> QProcess to run Perl script is too much important. It's acceptable for
> some image, but for a large collection scan, it's inacceptable. Even
> if metadata support is excellent, i will forget Exiftool...

isn't it the perl interpreter being set up each time and the fact of running
an interpreted language...?
Any way, exiv2 is C++ down to its core, was well designed and well written
with performance in mind by Andreas. A pity he has left the project.
Essentially, we must regard it as unmaintained, no matter if someone who does
not care fixing bugs or is unfriendly with large library users sees himself as
a maintainer or not.


>
> 2/ I take a look to MediaInfo. A lib is available de facto under
> Linux. Even project management (source code, compilation rules,
> compiler support) is not strong from my point of view, the code must
> be compilable for all bundle. It sound like this project is maintained
> under Windows, and other platform only provided as well. I'm not sure.
> The interface is not to much complicated to wrap with digiKam core. So
> i will study this way for the future.

+1, this seems to be specializing in Video/Audio, while Exiv2 was written for
photos and later gained some support for Video.

>
> 3/ No news from Exiv2 since the 0.26 release. Only few bugzilla
> entries have been created with some response, but no more. Sound like
> Exiv2 switch progressively in frozen mode. I hope that a new
> maintainer will be found quickly. We really need to see the video
> supported completed, at least for read only request.
> NOTE: do not ask me to do this job, in parallel of digiKam...
>
> My plan : as we already do for unsupported RAW file by Exiv2, we use
> libraw to get some metadata that library is able to parse. All are
> stored in Exiv2 container, so all the rest of digiKam don't need to be
> touch.
> I want to do the same for MediaInfo, with a Cmake optional compilation rule.
>
> This will provide a minimal support of video metadata, in read only,
> until a solution will be found with Exiv2 project.
>
> Important : i need a new entry in digiKam bugzilla to add video
> support through MediaInfo. Thanks in advance.
>
> Voilà. Constructive comments are welcome.
>
> Best
>
> Gilles Caulier
>
> 2017-04-28 16:24 GMT+02:00 Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]>:
> > 2017-04-28 15:31 GMT+02:00 NeiNei <[hidden email]>:
> >> Hi there,
> >>
> >> the long awaited release of Exiv2 v0.26 should be released today
> >> according
> >> to http://dev.exiv2.org/boards/3/topics/2830
> >> However, I do not know wether or how it will change the situation for
> >> DigiKam.
> >
> > Nothing news with Exiv2 0.26, as i already use current code from svn
> > server
> > in all bundle (so pre 0.26 release)
> >
> >> As far as I understood Gilles thoroughly checks for alternatives in order
> >> to ensure a working, evolving and reliable metadata editor for DigiKam.
> >
> > yes. No code is done yet. I plan to make some demo code soon with Exiftool
> > c++ interface, when time permit.
> >
> > Gilles

[Gilles Caulier-4]

2017-06-11 18:04 GMT+02:00 Marcel Wiesweg <[hidden email]>:

>> Hi all
>>
>> Some news about the Video metadata support plan :
>>
>> 1/ I investigated the ExifTool way. The time latency introduced by
>> QProcess to run Perl script is too much important. It's acceptable for
>> some image, but for a large collection scan, it's inacceptable. Even
>> if metadata support is excellent, i will forget Exiftool...
>
> isn't it the perl interpreter being set up each time and the fact of running
> an interpreted language...?

It sound like. Perhaps it's configurable. I must admit that is not
pass too much of time to optimize Perl call. In fact is just used the
Exiftool C++ interafce + a small code with Qt to wrap the interface.

> Any way, exiv2 is C++ down to its core, was well designed and well written
> with performance in mind by Andreas. A pity he has left the project.

yes. exactly.  Robin is Windows developer. He don't like very Linux,
cmake, Mingw. A lots of progress have been done to support MSVC, and
of course we don't care about. It's a weird compiler. I lost a lots of
days in my office to try to support it with a huge C++ project. It's a
waste of time. Cross compiling or GCC under windows is better.

Robin have also pass a lots of time to 2 project that we don't care :
WebReady over Curl and Ssh. He leave the video support as well, even
if a GoSC student was assigned to work on it...

> Essentially, we must regard it as unmaintained, no matter if someone who does
> not care fixing bugs or is unfriendly with large library users sees himself as
> a maintainer or not.

He not unmaintained, but i suspect that the project will evolute
slowly now, until a new lead maintainer come in the project. Perhaps
with the use of Exiv2 in Gimp and Darktable, somebody will emerge, but
it's not Christmas time...

>>
>> 2/ I take a look to MediaInfo. A lib is available de facto under
>> Linux. Even project management (source code, compilation rules,
>> compiler support) is not strong from my point of view, the code must
>> be compilable for all bundle. It sound like this project is maintained
>> under Windows, and other platform only provided as well. I'm not sure.
>> The interface is not to much complicated to wrap with digiKam core. So
>> i will study this way for the future.
>
> +1, this seems to be specializing in Video/Audio, while Exiv2 was written for
> photos and later gained some support for Video.
>

And i revise my viewpoint. The cmpilation rules are there. All
compilation rules. It just hidden and a little bit hard to discover.
cmake, qmake, and other compilation framework are supported. So it's a
good news.

Gilles