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| On Jul 21, 2013, at 12:42 PM, Steve Oakley wrote: > what would it take to write Dirac into single file MXF or QT as containers ? seems to me that using established well known containers would mean only needing to add the codec into the right place in your system and then you could easily r/w the files and exchange them. no doubt if Ogg container only had to live on my machine it would be fine, but exchange becomes more of an issue. I'd rather see a standard documented container with a common codec than yet another new container format. This is a good conversation to have. Let me start right off by saying I don't see how having a familiar container with a missing codec is better than having an unfamiliar container with an unknown codec. Either way you can't read it. Writing Dirac codecs for QuickTime or MXF may still be a worthy project, but I'll tell you why I'm not leaning that way. If someone hands you a random MXF, you can't have absolute confidence you can read it. It might contain MPEG-2, DNxHD, JPEG 2000, or who knows. And now we'd propose to add several more codecs to further muddy the situation? This is the same deal for QuickTime with its variety of third-party codecs or even TIFF with the multitude of things people may pack into it. I much prefer the situation with OpenEXR, where an importer built with the latest library should be able to read any EXR ever made. This is made possible by having a well-written reference library that includes code for all the codecs, delivered with the BSD license. The reason I'm leaning toward the Ogg container is precisely because it is currently unfamiliar to most, including professional and casual users. It still has a mostly clean slate, ready to be built upon. The Ogg philosophy is also very closely aligned with open source, with all the codecs you're currently likely to find in an Ogg container (Theora video, Vorbis or FLAC audio) fully open. We would include these codecs and add to the list, able to read any current .ogv file. Another option is to take an established container and re-brand it. For example WebM is a Matroska container that is limited to VP8 video and Vorbis audio. This might be a good idea if we found there was some limitation in the Ogg container or some benefit from using another container. Brendan |
