[MPlayer-dev-eng] Nut, few ideas

[D Richard Felker III]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 06:44:05PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> Hi
> 
> On Tuesday 20 April 2004 15:55, Ivan Kalvachev wrote:
> > ok
> >
> > So, we get some flaming each other.
> > Here is summary of my proposals about nut format.
> > (not yet finished)
> >
> > In summary.
> > making main header startcode in human readable format.
> the 64bit startcodes starts with 'N', x, where x is a human readable letter, 
> if u and rich prefer we can change all startcodes to start with 'N','U','T',x
> allthough this would mean that there are just 32 random bits left which would 
> weaken the error resistance somewhat, IMHO we should leave the current codes
> the 264bit (no typo) startcode u propose is a completely unacceptable mess

Ivan didn't mean changing all the start codes! That would be very bad.
Instead just have a human-readable _global_ header to begin the file,
so if you type "less foo" and foo is a nut file, you see so
immediately.

> anyway, i would like to suggest that every proposed change must at absolute 
> minimum 
> 1. fullfill a goal (like improving error resistance, simplify, reduce 
> overhead, whatever)
> 2. this goal must be clearly written down
> 3. not significantly worsen overhead, error resistance or simplicity
> 4. (optionally) spec& implementation patch + filesize/error resistance 
> statistics

Agree mostly, but most of the proposed changes are tradeoffs between
overhead, simplicity, and error resilience. We can't just say we're
not going to significantly worsen any of them...we need to decide
which tradeoffs are acceptable.

Rich