[gst-devel] Gstreamer and matroska - the opensource answer to VideoforWindows/AVI and Quicktime/MOV ?

Sat Feb 21 02:37:10 CET 2004

Do you really don't know what a matroska is?
Personaly it find that name quite cool for a (recursive) media *container*.

stefan

Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro wrote:
>   I wish I could be sufficiently well informed to make insightful
> comments about this issue.  Since I'm not, I can only comment on the
> name.  'matroska' is a really poor name.  It doesn't mean anything to
> most people.  And what would the adopted file extension?  That's a
> rhetorical question, as I'm sure it would sound bad.
> 
>   Why can't open source projects come up with better names?  GStreamer,
> for example, is a good name.  It is all about media pipelines.  For a
> multimedia container format, why can't you come up with a better name,
> like Extensible Media Stream (.ems), or something like that.
> 
>   Another question, how does the matroska container relate to the
> generic (and also poorly named) OGG container?  Is it really technically
> better?  I'm just asking, I have no idea.
> 
>   Best regards.
> 
> A Qua, 2004-02-18 às 15:27, Christian HJ Wiesner escreveu:
> 
>>Hi,
>>
>>this email is more to be seen as a brainstorming rather than an 
>>announcement or the like. My excuses go to the Gstreamer guys about 
>>copying their list, i dont know if they are interested in this kind of 
>>thinking at all.
>>
>>I was recently becoming aware that matroska's only hope to become 
>>established as standard, if this is ever going to happen, is versatility 
>>and flexibility. In short, to become a 100% replacement for good old 
>>AVI, currently the most used container format out there, probably on 
>>rivalled by MPEG. The reason this container is/was used so much can be 
>>explained when knowing its the standard container for VfW ( Video for 
>>Windows ), Redmond's old Media Framework. http://fourcc.org and 
>>http://abcavi.com give a pretty good impression how many different audio 
>>and video codecs had been developed for this framework in the past, 
>>obviously because of M$'s domination in the Multimedia scene and the 
>>sheer number of copies out in the wild. Now, as we all are well aware, 
>>both VCM ( the video codec API ) and ACM ( the audio codec API ) are 
>>completely outdated and can not support most of the modern compression 
>>formats anymore, leading to a number of problems and incompatibilities, 
>>of which VBR MP3 async and the 'packed bitstream' hack are the two most 
>>obvious to name.
>>
>>The successor of VfW, DirectShow, has never played the same role if it 
>>comes to video editing and video creation/encoding, due to a number of 
>>pretty bad limitations with respect to accessing the chain once its 
>>started. In short, DShow is wanting to much automatism here, stealing 
>>developers the possibilitites they request if they code a video 
>>application based on it. For this reason, DShow is today mainly used for 
>>playback and capturing.
>>
>>The big 'competitor' to VfW has always been Quicktime in the past, with 
>>MOV as the standard container. It is very well implemented into Mac's, 
>>and like DirectShow for Windows it can be seen as a fixed part of the 
>>OS. Its coming with a nice, open video and audio codec API also, which 
>>is much more powerful then VCM/ACM, and same is valid for the container. 
>>However, there is no working implementation of Quicktime ( the framework 
>>) for Linux, at least i am not aware of such, and the Windows 
>>implementation of it sucks badly ( not to mention its payware if it 
>>should do more than just playback ).
>>
>>I was recently thinking that Gstreamer and matroska together could 
>>become the opensource counterpart to both of the framework/container 
>>combinations listed above, and am asking for opinions on this ? Once we 
>>really succeed in porting Gstreamer to win32 ( maybe even MacOSX in 
>>future ? ), and come up with a powerful but not overly complex codec 
>>API, sitting on top of the gstreamer plugin API ( via a wrapper ), do 
>>you think codec developers could actually consider supporting this API, 
>>chosing MKV as their 'preferred' container ?
>>
>>DivX.com have plans to release DivX6 from AVI and VCM, as well as from 
>>the MPEG4 standard in general. They have plans for a new, DivX6 specific 
>>container format i heard, and want to establish themselves as a new 
>>video standard that way, even with hardware support. Good luck, thats 
>>all i can say here. They would probably be better off to use their 
>>existing market power and support us to become the first true x-platform 
>>media framework and media format ? The reason DivX became so big is 
>>simply because it could be used from Virtualdub, and in AVI as a well 
>>supported container. If they now try to establish their own stuff, 
>>supported only by a small number of apps, and everything coded by 
>>themselves, they are very likely to fail IMO. Look at Real Networks, 
>>they understood this and went all the way back, trying to offer Helix as 
>>another universal framework, advertising it in the OSS scene even, and 
>>with great x-platform support, but still limited in terms of supported 
>>formats in it, and with only one ( for win32 sucky ) player for it.
>>
>>I am well aware gstreamer doesnt need matroska at all. Your way is 
>>clear, becoming the best media framework for the Linux world, and you 
>>guys wont mind if your project is ported to other OSes also, as this can 
>>only help you to achieve your goals, for sure. You could also settle for 
>>MOV as standard container, as there are currently no features realized 
>>in matroska that MOV cant do also, or have no standard container at all. 
>>On the other hand, you could win a couple of contributors and fans with 
>>such an 'alliance', if you allow me to name it like that. Opinions 
>>please, and use the 'reply all' button if i may ask for that, to copy 
>>both lists. Stupid idea ? Useless ? Possible ? Tell me what you think ....
>>
>>Regards
>>
>>Christian
>>
>>
>>
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