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

[Christian HJ Wiesner]

Hi Gustavo

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.
>  
>
Did nobody tell you the times for 3 letter acronyms are definitely over 
since some years now ;-) ? matroska was derived from a similar project 
with such a name, called MCF ( Multimedia Container Format ). Now, when 
we tried to register MCF.org for the project these days, we had to face 
that the 'Minnesota Cycling Federation' was faster :-D ..... lol ..... 
same for mcf.com, mcf.net, etc.
The name matroska comes from the Russian word 'matrioshka' , and it has 
a related meaning. A media container can contain many different streams 
like an envelope, similar to the Russian dolls giving it its name, where 
one doll is put into the other.
Sorry you dont like the name, i am pretty happy about it because its 
easy to remember and quite unique. Try googling for 'matroska', and you 
know what i mean.

>  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 container is always a compromise, you wont find the one container 
being perfect in every respect. Lets say matroska is different than Ogg 
and will serve you better for certain things like video editing and 
future extendability. Ogg has other strong sides also, thats about it. 
Up to now, i cant see anything in the Ogg specs that would make it the 
preferred choice for a general use container, to put many different 
formats into it. But this may change one day, you never know.

Best regards

Christian