[MPlayer-dev-eng] container format

[Christof Buergi]

Hello there...

Am Mittwoch, 5. Februar 2003 17.57 schrieb Moritz Bunkus:
> I'd really like to see a new container format soon.

<AOL>me too ;-)</AOL>

I'd be happy to contribute. Unfortunately, lack of time is a problem 
with me, too. :-( But feel free to ask. I will tell you, if I can't do 
it. ;-)

Well, and there I have some thoughts about the format:

First and foremost: Using checksums to detect transaction errors, in 
order to re-get the packets, is rather pointless. Because:

1. When using TCP, this is already done by the network stack.
2. When using UDP, re-getting a wrong packet is normally not an option.

It still can be used in order to detect a defective packet, so it hasn't 
to be decoded. But this limits it's usefulness. Hence, it should be an 
option, not required.

Alternative: We could use a Forward Error Correction. True, this is a 
bandwidth eater, and yes, it should be optional. But it could prove to 
be *very* useful for transfers over a UDP connection.

Second point are some small suggestions about indeces. I think, we 
should place the index at the end of the file. Having it at the 
beginning would be nice for playback, but it would be a nightmare to 
correctly mux this. Also, gzip might actually be a better joice here 
then bzip2. But this is a matter to try.

Lastly, I have a questions about VLC. I'm not quite sure, what you're 
meaning, so I'm asking you: Do you mean a "variable length coding", 
thus enabling you of using blocks with variable lengths and still being 
able to find the borders of the blocks when the file is damaged?

Okay, that's it for now...

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