[Matroska-devel] Re: DVD Menu

[Christian HJ Wiesner]

Pamel,

Paul Bryson wrote:

>"Christian HJ Wiesner" wrote...
>  
>
>>What does everbody think of the idea to make a 'simple' menue spec based
>>on the DVD specs, for the 1.0 matroska release ?
>>    
>>
>Not enough time.  The 1.0 specs only have about 6 weeks to get out now, right?
>It is basically everything that has at least some implementation.  If there is
>nothing working for it, then it needs to be moved back to a later release.
>
IMO, we should sometimes lean back a bit and see where we are coming 
from. This means, not making the same error as DivX Networks, who are 
obviously forgetting about their roots and becoming arrogant.

Why is matroska used at all ? Simple answer : its the most feature rich 
container. Long answer :
1. Its well supported, with many great apps like DirectShow 
decoder/muxer, mkvmerge, vdubmod, avi-mux GUI, foobar2000, VLC, mplayer, 
mencoder, etc. ....
2. Its free to use
3. The users know about it, because they are told about its existence ;-)
4. Its feature rich, means with matroska the users can do things they 
cant do with other containers ( even if those have nice specs with the 
same features, but users dont give SHIT about specs, they want apps they 
can use ). matroska can do
- RV9 muxing ( users love it )
- chapters
- various subtitles, especially vobsubs and SSA are to list, USF to come 
later
- low overhead
etc.

But, as i was writing in my email to the list recently, we shouldnt be 
too naive about the acceptance of MP4 as new standard. There are a lot 
of different companies and opensource projects working on MP4 
implementations, bond even made an app to convert DVD menues into MP4 
menues, and many users will convert to it because its 'a real standard' !

IMO, it would be a wrong signal to release the 1.0 matroska specs 
without a menue spec. We would position matroska under Mp4, and thats no 
good.

>Besides, 1.0 as it is right now is an excellent starting point for hardware
>implementation.  It basically only has stuff that could very easily be
>implemented in a hardware device.
>Pamel
>  
>
Nice idea, if there weren't the big number of used codecs in matroska, 
making hardware support currently more or less impossible ;) ....

Christian