[MPlayer-users] Re: Ogg (divx vid + vorbis audio)? (Was divx+ogg vorbis)

[emaillist+mpu at dogphilosophy.net]

On Tuesday 05 February 2002 12:27 pm, you wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> On Mon, 4 Feb 2002 17:20:52 -0700
>
> emaillist+mpu at dogphilosophy.net wrote:
[..."Gosh, .ogg video would be cool"...:-) ]
>
> Which tool is used to encode such files ?
> do you have pointers to format documentations ?
> Is someone out there willing to write a patch ?
>
> 		Attila Kinali

As far as I know, documentation for the .ogg format can be had
at xiph.org ( http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/doc/oggstream.html perhaps?)
I've not looked at them myself, as I wouldn't really have the coding skills
necessary to DO much with it at the moment.  There appear to be a number
of links at this URL to more detailed info.  It does appear, though, that
there is not yet an 'official' audio/video bitstream specification, despite
the fact that SOMEBODY evidently implemented one (regarding the .ogg format
video mentioned previously by someone else).  If I'm reading the info at 
this URL correctly (and I may not be), the only thing really missing is
some sort of "official" way of labelling the codec ("The first page of a 
logical Ogg bitstream consists of a single, small 'initial header' packet 
that includes sufficient information to identify the exact CODEC type and 
media requirements of the logical bitstream.")

I DON'T know what's being used to encode the file being discussed (I was 
actually surprised [pleasantly] that there were any at all already).  I've 
been assuming (possibly incorrectly) that one could use functions from the 
ogg libraries for this sort of thing.

I've just been assuming that the reason there aren't many (if any) ogg video 
encoding tools is because there are not really any ogg video DEcoding tools 
(and vice versa). ("Why write an encoder if nobody will be able to decode 
it?" "Why write a decoder if there are no ogg's encoded?")  Otherwise, 
everyone thinks of "ogg" as being the same thing as "vorbis", since right now 
that's really the only thing readily available in .ogg format.

As I mentioned, coding this myself is beyond my capabilities at the moment.
However, if someone were willing to, say, add an OGG stream handler to
libavcodec/ffmpeg (which I gather would almost automatically add support
to MPlayer for it through libavcodec), I would be willing, if not downright
eager, to help test and document it...(At the same time, if someone with
the necessary experience can look at the ogg information and describe
how difficult or easy it would be to do this, I'm quite interested
in being "educated" about it, so I don't feel quite so ignorant about 
it...)

Just a "wishlist" thing for me.  My only actual "complaint" about mplayer
is that it's too good - I sometimes can't tell when I've screwed up encoding
something because MPlayer compensates for it and plays it fine :-)