Cannot decode H.264 stream (Annex.B) using FFmpeg

Question

Recently I'm writing a client of a IP camera providing H.264 stream. I'm now using FFmpeg 2.1.1 to decode the stream provided by the camera.

Here's some code of the application:

Initialization:

    private unsafe void InitFFmpeg()
    {
        FFmpeg.avcodec_register_all();
        var codec = FFmpeg.avcodec_find_decoder(AVCodecID.AV_CODEC_ID_H264);
        avcodec = (IntPtr)codec;

        var ctx=FFmpeg.avcodec_alloc_context3(avcodec);
        avcontext = (IntPtr)ctx;

        ctx->codec = avcodec;
        ctx->pix_fmt = AVPixelFormat.PIX_FMT_YUV420P;
        ctx->flags2 |= 0x00008000;//CODEC_FLAG2_CHUNKS

        var options = IntPtr.Zero;
        int result = FFmpeg.avcodec_open2(avcontext, avcodec, ref options);
        avframe = FFmpeg.av_frame_alloc();
        avparser = FFmpeg.av_parser_init(AVCodecID.AV_CODEC_ID_H264);
        FFmpeg.av_init_packet(ref avpacket);
        inBuffer = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(300 * 1024);
    }

Decoding:

    private void Decode(byte[] data, int size)
    {
        IntPtr pOut = IntPtr.Zero;
        int outLen = 0;

        Marshal.Copy(data, 0, inBuffer, size);

        int gotPicture = 0;

        var rs = FFmpeg.av_parser_parse2(avparser, avcontext, ref pOut, ref outLen, inBuffer, size, 0, 0, 0);
        if (outLen <= 0 || pOut.ToInt32() <= 0)
        {
            //no enough data to construct a frame, return and receive next NAL unit.
            return;
        }
        avpacket.data = pOut;
        avpacket.size = outLen;
        avpacket.flags |= PacketFlags.Key;
        var len = FFmpeg.avcodec_decode_video2(avcontext, avframe, ref gotPicture, ref avpacket);
        Console.WriteLine("avcodec_decode_video2 returned " + len);
        if (gotPicture != 0)
        {
            //some YUV to RGB stuff
        }
    }

With the code above, I can get some output like:

NAL unit 1: resolution=1280x720, key-frame=True, size=26.
NAL unit 2: resolution=1280x720, key-frame=False, size=8.
NAL unit 3: resolution=1280x720, key-frame=False, size=97222.
NAL unit 4: resolution=1280x720, key-frame=False, size=14129.
avcodec_decode_video2 returned 1
NAL unit 5: resolution=1280x720, key-frame=False, size=12522.
NAL unit 6: resolution=1280x720, key-frame=False, size=12352.
avcodec_decode_video2 returned 1
NAL unit 7: resolution=1280x720, key-frame=False, size=12291.
NAL unit 8: resolution=1280x720, key-frame=False, size=12182.

From the ouput I can see the parser can recognize the NAL units sent by the camera and can construct frames from them.

NAL unit 1 to 4 are slices of a key frame containing SPS/PPS, and the following 2 NAL units form a normal frame.

And the avcodec_decode_video2 function doesn't produce any error, but just keep returning 1 and gotPicture is alway 0.

If I clear AVCodecContext.flags2, it starts to complain that the packet I provided contains no frame:

NAL unit 100: resolution=1280x720, frame-rate=0, key-frame=True, size=26.
NAL unit 101: resolution=1280x720, frame-rate=0, key-frame=False, size=8.
NAL unit 102: resolution=1280x720, frame-rate=0, key-frame=False, size=96927.
NAL unit 103: resolution=1280x720, frame-rate=0, key-frame=False, size=17149.
[h264 @ 01423440] no frame!
avcodec_decode_video2 returned -1094995529
NAL unit 104: resolution=1280x720, frame-rate=0, key-frame=False, size=12636.
NAL unit 105: resolution=1280x720, frame-rate=0, key-frame=False, size=12338.
[h264 @ 01423440] no frame!

If I write the raw stream to a file, I can use FFmpeg to mux the stream to an mp4 container, and can play the mp4 file with any player.

The raw data I received is something like:

00 00 00 01 67 42 00 28 E9 00 A0 0B 75 C4 80 03 6E E8 00 CD FE 60 0D 88 10 94
00 00 00 01 68 CE 31 52
00 00 00 01 65 88 81 00 06 66 36 25 11 21 2C 04 3B 81 E1 80 00 85 4B 23 9F 71...
...

user849642 user849642 · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-16T10:59:07

I created a debug build of libavcodec and did some debugging. I figured out that I was using an ealier version of AVPacket structure so the data passed to the decoder are malformed. I write a new version of AVPacket according to the header file and now it works like a charm.

Cannot decode H.264 stream (Annex.B) using FFmpeg

1 Answers