[jjd-uk]

Also note I haven't got round to doing the platform specific setting xml's yet, so that is producing some oddities at the moment such as duplicate entries, so you may have to delete these leaving just settings.xml to get a proper view of the new structure.

[FernetMenta]

IMO "Device" and "System" is confusing. I have never called my laptop a device because this term is already taken: audio or video components are devices.

I wanted to split out video and audio output from System into a more obviously named section, as I felt there were a bit hidden where they are. So I started out with just the video and audio options in a Display & Audio section but then expended it to cover all hardware related stuff and changed the section name to try and reflect this. Up to now I've been trying to get a structure that I think works, so while I've given some thought to the namings I'm more than happy to listen to different suggestions.

Audio and video are not bound to hardware but to a system layer underneath the application. Audio can have a network sink and video output can be defined by display servers like Wayland or X. Declaring this as hardware is wrong.

[jjd-uk]

How many actually use network sinks or display servers?

I would think for just about all users:

*Video output needs to take account of the capabilities of your GPU & your TV/projector/display.
*Audio output needs to take account of the capabilities of your audio sink/hardware & the connected device.

[FernetMenta]

How many actually use network sinks or display servers?

That's not the question. Fact is that declaring audio and video as hardware is conceptually wrong.

[jjd-uk]

Just so I'm clear, is it the naming's and definition I've provided you don't like? or is it also the structure? so you'd prefer everything now under Device to remain in System?

[FernetMenta]

First of all I don't like the term "Device" because it is incorrect. a/v settings can refer to the hardware running on but also to software components or connected devices. The settings define how audio and video component behave in the container they are embededed and this container is not a "device".

[jjd-uk]

I was taking the user view point on where they'd expect to find these settings based on:

[FernetMenta]

You should not mix up the OS layer with the application layer. That's two different stories.

[jjd-uk]

What I originally had in mind was something like

watch gallery

Would this be more acceptable to you? might need a better name than A/V Output.

I can also rename Display back to Video output.

[FernetMenta]

The first page is better but what you call "Video Processing" does not fit into this section. a/v output define capabilities of the entire application. Those can be used by any component, even addons. "Video Processing" belong to VideoPlayer that is going to be exchangeable in the future. In other words VideoPlayer is a client of a/v output. A future version of VideoPlayer will be capable of rendering into a stream instead of a/v output -> transcoding

[FernetMenta]

I was taking the user view point on where they'd expect to find these settings based on:

Look at Kodi being the OS/infrastructure for addons or components like VideoPlayer. I would expect all this capabilities or settings in one section. "System" was IMO not a bad name for this.

[Montellese]

IMO we have to be careful to remember that all these labels should make sense for people who have no idea how a video player works. They don't care about who is responsible for what. They want to change something in video playback so they look for (video) playback and not "video processing", "transcoding" or whatever is technically correct.

[FernetMenta]

I agree but the structure need to make sense. Another example: for headless Kodi a/v output should not be presented, right? But the server can still make use of VideoPlayer, transcoder (whatever) that use hw acceleration for decoding/encoding.

[jjd-uk]

The first page is better but what you call "Video Processing" does not fit into this section. a/v output define capabilities of the entire application. Those can be used by any component, even addons. "Video Processing" belong to VideoPlayer that is going to be exchangeable in the future. In other words VideoPlayer is a client of a/v output. A future version of VideoPlayer will be capable of rendering into a stream instead of a/v output -> transcoding

You've got me wondering if we even need the seperate Acceleration category, would moving these into here be acceptable. This way all playback settings are in the same place, however I'm not sure how it would look in Linux where you've got the different hardware acceleration options of VAAPI, VDPAU with codec options.

watch gallery

Then could render settings be moved into Video output?

[FernetMenta]

Then could render settings be moved into Video output?

No, the grouping is correct like we have it now. Render method controls behaviour of video player only.