[MPlayer-dev-eng] MPCF proposal

[D Richard Felker III]

On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 01:50:11AM -0500, D Richard Felker III wrote:
> Somehow the MPCF discussion seems to have died off... So here's what I
> propose:

Now to respond to myself...

> 1) Anyone who has remaining complaints or issues that haven't yet been
> resolved with MPCF should post them now, and they should be discussed.

I believe there are still some problems with the way audio packets
will be stored. In particular, I think it's essential that the demuxer
be able to obtain any codec-level audio packet and its timestamp
without having access to the codec. Otherwise it's impossible to
cut or splice audio files with any degree of precision.

I see two possible solutions...

a) Try to minimize the header size even more and do away with
subpackets, i.e. all codec-level audio packets get stored in their own
muxer-level packet.

b) Store byte lengths and sample lengths of each subpacket
vlc-encoded. If packet size in bytes and/or in samples is fixed, then
the spec should require that one or both be omitted.

IMO, solution (a) is much cleaner, but probably sacrifices a bit on
file size. Therefore, solution (b) might be more appropriate. But...if
it's really worth having subpackets to minimize filesize overhead,
perhaps it would be better to just make a more minimal form for audio
packets to begin with.

> 2) We should finally decide on a name everyone likes. Current
> proposals include egg, coola, 10l, nut, ...?

My opinions:

EGG
Pro: "EGG - the container format for chicks!" - Arpi
Con: Sounds too close to ogg, which is very confusing.

COOLA
Pro: Nice subtle mplayer reference, and it sounds really cool.
Con: >3 characters, so it Windoze users might not like .coola ext.

10L
Pro: Also an mplayer reference, and .10l is 3 chars.
Con: Perhaps too obscure, and how should people say it?

NUT
Pro: No major cons.
Con: No major pros.

MPCF
Pro: Already in de-facto use.
Con: Sounds horrible, and similar to MCF. Bleh! Also >3 chars.

Personally, if I had to cast a vote, I'd say call it COOLA and use
.10l for the extension.

Rich