[MPlayer-dev-eng] MPCF Draft/Discussion (MPlayer ContainerFormat)

[D Richard Felker III]

On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:22:26AM -0500, D Richard Felker III wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:42:17AM +0000, michael c wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I must say, I think I agree with Fabien that the file format should not 
> > close the door on advanced features. The only thing that should be kept in 
> > mind is that those features should not make everything
> > over-complicated.
> 
> Yes we should when the features are lame and make things
> difficult/nonsensical for the decoder. This format is supposed to be
> a SIMPLE way to properly store muxed audio+video+text with a single
> linear time progression, not all sorts of idiotic navigation crap,
> still pictures, multiple streams that start at different time
> positions, and other crap that overcomplicates the player app!!

To elaborate, I'm not opposed to leaving things open for stupid crap
like this to be included in the file (AFAIK it's already possible with
new streams or startcodes), but I do want to ensure that support for
this nonsense does not become necessary to play files. The spec should
require (with "MUST") that the actual movie and and audio track(s) to
go with it be the first streams in the file, and that the file be
playable without any menu/script/titlescreen/stillpic/commentary/etc.
crap since mplayer probably won't bother with supporting that junk. I
don't want to go download a COOLA movie and find that I have to sort
thru lots of extra junk to try to find the actual movie, like people
have to do with some poorly designed DVDs right now...

Rich