[Warner306]

People are throwing around reasons for using DSPlayer, and I'll give it to you. It has nothing to do with HDR for most people. Kodi's built in player is slow and not very good at a lot of things. This is not intended to be offensive. They are aware of it, and they are clearly trying to improve it bit by bit.
I use DSPlayer because it can render subtitles without completely shutting Kodi down with lag. This is one reason to use it. Another reason is scaling algorithms. There's frame interpolation, HDR (which is poorly implemented at best, due to lack of OS and driver support), 3D (without killing kodi with lag again...), better sound support, and many more reasons.
Don't act like your specific use case speaks for even a majority of users.
Addon developers can make things work with DSPlayer if they want to, as well. I did. It's comparatively easy, considering that DSPlayer is entirely C++ on top of decades old code originally written for XBOX.

Someone wanted some ideas of what is required or helpful. Here's some that I encountered when attempting to aid development myself:

• C++ and all of the build tools involved
  
• Thorough knowledge of DirectX/DirectDraw/OpenGL/Windows Graphics and Sound APIs. This isn't completely necessary to work on DSPlayer, but you'll hit weird issues with no clue how to approach them without experience in those.
  
• Thorough knowledge of media codecs, how to parse them (even with libraries), and how to forward them to another application
  
• The ability to write code that does not crash. This does not mean that errors can't occur, but that you are capable of thinking and writing in a way that includes failsafe fallbacks to everything you do. You should never hit play or stop, and then see Kodi indefinitely lock up or crash.
  
• Knowledge of memory management in C++, specifically involving reading, managing, and closing streams.
  
• File Locking, as nothing will work if you are not letting MadVR, LAV, etc even access the filestream that you hand it.
  
• DRM and copyright implications, mainly to cover your own ass and prevent an accidental legal issue.
  
• Concepts on video technologies involved with encoding, including how framerate, codecs, containers, 3D and HDR, and things of that nature may screw with things. Not knowing these will cause poor color quality or worse.
  
• THE ABILITY TO BE POLITE, RESPECTFUL, AND INTERACT WITH A TOXIC COMMUNITY. If this thread shows anything, it's that no matter how cool you are, there are people who don't deserve your time. Despite that, you still can't be blatantly rude, or the experience will be ruined for all, and it'll very quickly drive you away when you realize nothing is worse than working for free and getting involved in petty flame wars over it.
  

Most of these do not require Book of Magnus level knowledge, but if you don't at least understand what they are and how they work, you will drop the project when you encounter an issue that flies a mile over your head. 

Thanks for your post. The list of required development skills is very helpful and probably is about as pessimistic as I thought in terms of finding a developer. Small updates to the current player are really all that is desired rather than any significant rewrites of the player.

If you could actually contribute, that would be welcome. But certainly no one would be pressured to do anything and they are free to ignore any condescending comments from the odd user here or elsewhere and do whatever they please with this project because it is still 100% free, hobby software. This is supposed to be casual and fun, not stressful.

Are these pie in the sky comments implying you would like to try to update DSPlayer or know someone who can? Or are you just spitballing about what it would take to be a developer?