[MPlayer-cvslog] CVS: main/DOCS/tech mpcf.txt,1.69,1.70

[D Richard Felker III]

On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 05:23:45PM +0200, Ivan Kalvachev wrote:
> On Sat,  5 Mar 2005 00:12:44 +0100 (CET)
> syncmail at mplayerhq.hu (Michael Niedermayer CVS) wrote:
> 
> > CVS change done by Michael Niedermayer CVS
> > 
> > Update of /cvsroot/mplayer/main/DOCS/tech
> > In directory mail:/var2/tmp/cvs-serv5211
> > 
> > Modified Files:
> > 	mpcf.txt 
> > Log Message:
> > returning to the old index at the end system, alternatives are too
> > complex with questionable advantages
> 
> Mostly agree.
> 
> But I have one big objection. For online playing it is good the index to
> be in the begging of the file so no additional seeking should be done. 
> (seeking over ftp and http is very slow, mplayer de facto closes the
> stream and opens new one and server can detect this as intentional
> attempt to overload it)

Index should definitely not be specified as being at the beginning of
the file! This destroys the ability to do linear writes, and playing a
video over streaming ftp or http is stupid anyway. These protocols are
not designed for streaming video. Instead use something where
requesting the index and seeking can be made reasonably fast. Or
better yet a protocol where you just tell the server the timestamp you
want to seek to, and it uses the index to start streaming the right
data to you!

Rich