[MPlayer-dev-eng] MPCF: Features and Goals

[Martin Collins]

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 11:21:40 -0500
D Richard Felker III <dalias at aerifal.cx> wrote:

> > Will mpcf files be readable before writing is complete?
> 
> Of course. Actually pretty much all formats are if the player
> doesn't suck; most players just suck. MPlayer plays incomplete files
> just fine.

Hmm. There was some discussion on mjpegtools about this recently as it
was regarded as a common problem. Certainly, mplayer will not play the
AVI output of lavrec correctly until lavrec is finished (and sometimes
not even then). Maybe it's a lavrec problem. Still, if mpcf will
do it that's great.

> I don't see any difference, but the second is the main goal. Or if
> we want to be politically correct, its purpose is mainly for
> "archival" of your movies. :))

OK, but surely for archival purposes you want all the DVD-style
gimmicks that some people here have been decrying and criticizing
Matroska for including?

> You're pretty much off-base, but I don't see how there's a
> significant difference in requirements for the two.

Maybe one format can satisfy the demands of both uses, I don't know,
it just seemed to me that the potential dichotomy had not been
explicitly recognised in the discussions so far.

> Anyway,
> creation/manipulation doesn't really need a nice format; you're
> going to be storing raw pcm audio and raw yuv frames anyway if you
> want to be able to edit without losing quality...

Right, I use mjpeg rather than yuv. But there isn't AFAIK a simple
format for such purposes that doesn't have at least one major
drawback. It would be a shame if mpcf ends up a half-way house that
doesn't fully statisfy either camp.

Martin