[gst-devel] Re: Totem or no Totem was Re: GNOME Development Series Snapshot 2.3.0: "Mighty Atom"

[Bill Haneman]

On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 14:55, Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller wrote:
...re SMIL...
> > > It's all we have for subtitles using media streams that don't support
> > > subtitling internally.  Certainly it offers solutions to problems such
> > > as multi-language subtitles that are difficult to solve otherwise.
> > 
> > Well, there's Subrip, SubViewer, MicroDVD, SubStationAlpha, and MPSub.

None of which use non-proprietary formats, and all of which seem to deal
with the DivX/DVD format AFAICT.  This is fine for playing DVD content
but no help when it comes to creating content or providing
openly-distributable content or viewers that aren't IP encumbered.

DVD format is IMO no good for creating accessible content.  That's one
reason why SMIL is being promoted for this purpose currently.

> > > I am not saying that the SMIL grammar is great, but I am saying that
> > > it's what we have to work with at the moment.
> > 
> > Well, there's already support in xine and ongoing work in Gst to support
> > the formats mentioned above. You still didn't answer my question as to
> > what was needed from the movie player. Does it only need to show
> > subtitles as video overlays?

The big issue doesn't have to do with playing commercial DVD movies
accessibly, it has to do with viewing (and creating) accessible content
in non-proprietary or at least more-openly-viewable formats.  As I see
it DVD content is only a small part of the puzzle.

regards,

Bill

> We have the following IRC log of a discussion between Wim and Bill on
> the topic of accessibility which I think mentions most of what the
> player needs to do:
> http://www.gstreamer.net/docs/gstaccess.php
> -- 
> Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <Uraeus at linuxrising.org>
>