AVDev Chapter1

libavutil_frame.h

typedef struct AVFrame {
#define AV_NUM_DATA_POINTERS 8
   /**
     * pointer to the picture/channel planes.
     * This might be different from the first allocated byte
     *
     * Some decoders access areas outside 0,0 - width,height, please
     * see avcodec_align_dimensions2(). Some filters and swscale can read
     * up to 16 bytes beyond the planes, if these filters are to be used,
     * then 16 extra bytes must be allocated.
     */
    uint8_t *data[AV_NUM_DATA_POINTERS];
  
    ...
    
   /**
     * AVBuffer references backing the data for this frame. If all elements of
     * this array are NULL, then this frame is not reference counted. This array
     * must be filled contiguously -- if buf[i] is non-NULL then buf[j] must
     * also be non-NULL for all j < i.
     *
     * There may be at most one AVBuffer per data plane, so for video this array
     * always contains all the references. For planar audio with more than
     * AV_NUM_DATA_POINTERS channels, there may be more buffers than can fit in
     * this array. Then the extra AVBufferRef pointers are stored in the
     * extended_buf array.
     */
    AVBufferRef *buf[AV_NUM_DATA_POINTERS];
  
    ...
}