[MPlayer-dev-eng] The NUT backward pointers

[Ville Saari]

What if the nut packet header were split in two so that the backward
pointer is stored at the end of the previous packet instead?

If bitstream is examined at the middle of the file, only the order of
the forward and backward pointers would change. However the unnecessary
backward pointer at the beginning of the file would be eliminated and
and extra backward pointer would be added at the end of file which would
make the end of file a possible point to catch the sync from.

A packet in the current specification is like:

  size of packet n
  size of packet n-1
  data of packet n

And the change I'm proposing would turn it into:

  size of packet n
  data of packet n
  size of packet n

So we can see that the packet would be completely self-contained. No
information about other packets would be needed while constructing it
and "cat file1 file2" would produce a perfectly legal nut file if the
files are otherwise compatible.

-- 
 Ville