Falsehoods programmers believe about video stuff (2016)

a year ago

Falsehoods about video decoding include beliefs that decoding is bit-exact, hardware decoding is always faster, and all H.264 files can be decoded by any decoder.
Falsehoods about video playback include assumptions about display refresh rates, audio and video clock synchronization, and the uniqueness and order of video frames.
Falsehoods about video/image files include misconceptions about color depth, color spaces, chroma subsampling, and the consistency of video properties throughout a stream.
Falsehoods about image scaling include beliefs that GPU scaling is sufficient, scaling quality can be objectively measured, and chroma upscaling is less important than luma upscaling.
Falsehoods about color spaces include assumptions that all colors are specified in RGB, there is only one RGB color space, and users won't notice differences between color standards.
Falsehoods about color conversion include beliefs that color conversion is straightforward, linear, and doesn't depend on the display, and that HDR tone-mapping is well-defined.
Falsehoods about video output include assumptions about dithering, OpenGL support, vsync timings, and the accuracy of video drivers.
Falsehoods about displays include beliefs that all displays are 60 Hz, sRGB, and have square pixels, and that users will only use a single display.
Falsehoods about subtitles include assumptions about encoding, color management, and rendering, and the existence of an ASS specification.

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