I am just curious as to know what is really required to have good audio/video performance on openSUSE.
I have been using openSUSE for so long that I don’t even think about it. New release, install, add packman repo, zyppe dup … I even remember a time when you could actually purchase “non-free” gstreamer codecs from SuSE!
Why?
It seems to me that the most relevant patents over codecs are expired. I replaced openSUSE with debian for a year. Multimedia worked fine … I never needed to install third party codecs.
Are the packman packages still genuinely necessary as they once were?
That depends on what video / audio you use. You are mostly correct, many codec patents have expired and relevant codecs are now available in the standard repos.
You may still need the openH264 codec ( see here) and then you may be good to go with most web content.
There are still some codecs only available on Packman though, as are essential parts if you need HW decoding of some video formats, but that depends on your needs and only you can judge.
Reading your query, I guess you use PackMan for VLC media player. Well, PackMan offers much more than VLC. If you just use VLC, you could also try Videolan Repo. The reason for the need for one of those is mainly the package vlc-codecs which is not included in openSUSE standard repos. If you have audio/video not needing this codec pack you are almost fine with the openSUSE standard repos (and using VLC from there). But many common videos require that specific package. Due to its licence it is not included in openSUSE.
Actually, VLC is one thing from packman that I definitely don’t use. I’ve become very fond of mpv.
Even assuming that my audio/video playback needs would be met by packages in the “official” repos, I would still use packman to get the newer version of ffmpeg and avidemux (which I can’t fully use anymore because it occasionally crashes gnome when it writes a file … I think its a bug in mutter … by I have given up on that mystery).
It also has kodi, which I have been planning to set up for the last three years …
I myself used to use the PackMan repo for VLC, only. But because with PackMan activated, also other packages got updates (like Mesa, I think), I switched over to the Videolan repo: remember, VLC is my only need. I need the additional repo for such like vlc-codecs (for VLC itself, openSUSE would be OK).
I had a look into it, these are the packages I got by Videolan repo exclusively that are not available by openSUSE (maybe or probably they are available by PackMan, too):
libdvdcss2
libfaad2
libx264-164
libx265-188
libxvidcore4
vlc-codec-fluidsynth
vlc-codecs
On the other hand, packages that I have directly from openSUSE:
I have pretty much the same files, but from packman. I also have a bunch of Mesa packages from packman. I can’t help but wonder if I get any benefit from the packman versions or if I’m just allowing unnecessary complexity.
As written already, those enable hardware decoding for some video formats that may be supported by the GPU.
If you can live with software decoding, which most modern cpus can handle just fine, you don’t need those Mesa packages.