the two buffer queues maintain by drivers supporting v4l2

PREFACE:

To have a clear understanding of the queue mechanism in drives supporting v4l2. 

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Conceptually streaming drivers maintain two buffer queues, an incoming and an outgoing queue. They separate the synchronous capture or output operation locked to a video clock from the application which is subject to random disk or network delays and preemption by other processes, thereby reducing the probability of data loss. The queues are organized as FIFOs, buffers will be output in the order enqueued in the incoming FIFO, and were captured in the order dequeued from the outgoing FIFO.

The driver may require a minimum number of buffers enqueued at all times to function, apart of this no limit exists on the number of buffers applications can enqueue in advance, or dequeue and process. They can also enqueue in a different order than buffers have been dequeued, and the driver can fill enqueued empty buffers in any order. ^[15] The index number of a buffer (struct v4l2_buffer index) plays no role here, it only identifies the buffer.

Initially all mapped buffers are in dequeued state, inaccessible by the driver. For capturing applications it is customary to first enqueue all mapped buffers, then to start capturing and enter the read loop. Here the application waits until a filled buffer can be dequeued, and re-enqueues the buffer when the data is no longer needed. Output applications fill and enqueue buffers, when enough buffers are stacked up the output is started with VIDIOC_STREAMON. In the write loop, when the application runs out of free buffers, it must wait until an empty buffer can be dequeued and reused.

so far, it is quoted from "http://linuxtv.org/downloads/v4l-dvb-apis/mmap.html".

Internally drivers maintain two buffer queues, an incoming and outgoing queue. When this flag (V4L2_BUF_FLAG_QUEUED) is set, the buffer is currently on the incoming queue. It automatically moves to the outgoing queue after the buffer has been filled (capture devices) or displayed (output devices).

so far, it is quoted from "http://linuxtv.org/downloads/v4l-dvb-apis/buffer.html#v4l2-buffer".