Which is your Choice of Container in 2006

[thoralf]

hi,


(2) DRM-related. Format itself is still supported but it's DRMed and the company that DRMed it is dead and gone without unlocking the files. This will absolutely happen in a long period of time. Especially an app that needs periodical activation is likely to be "orphaned"

yeah, this is probably the most serious issue here ... and it's an issue that applies only on the container level. i don't think that ms will belong to the camp of the vanished drm-holders in 10 years time - that is (and will be) okay in a way. and i'm also glad that we only seldom have to deal with this sort of stuff when it comes to oss.

with kind regards,
thoralf.

[zambelli]

Ok, then it's not like they actively choose it. As you know, Firefox users are increasing rapidly, so Activex is a bad idea. For such a purpose, Flash Video is going to be a better choice. Hence FLV.
Sure they're actively choosing it. They could opt for Real, QuickTime or Flash, so there's certainly choice.
BTW, isn't the Flash Player also implemented as an ActiveX control? I'm pretty sure it is in IE. Do they have a separate component for Firefox?

Do you often open any file you created 10 years ago anyway?
Sure I do. Word docs, wave files, some AVIs (Indeo! :)), occasional MP2 file, ton of JPEGs... It's amazing how much digital information we accumulate in this day and age.

[zambelli]

what? it's open source, so as long as it is being actively used, someone will bother to make builds, even dshow-filters. now, the point is that it is indeed in active use today, since you can put pretty much anything in it.
Just look at the momentum Ogg had a few years ago. It was supposed to be the next big format. And now... well, just look at the poll. And that's on doom9. If nobody here is using Ogg, the format is as good as dead elsewhere.

So who says the same won't happen to Matroska?

that's more than can be said about avi ... I don't know if ms went public with the asf specifications (think you mentioned it somewhere), but mkv certainly has a first mover bonus in this field. moreover, it sort of makes sense to put streams created with oss-tools into an oss container.
Of course ASF specifications are public. I had a link in another thread, but just google for it and you'll find it on MS website.
i'm pretty sure that you'll be able to play back mkv files in 10 years time without much hassle. I'd even put a bet on it - let's say, a crate of beer?
Sure, you're on. :)
What keeps formats going is industry support and mainstream availability. Just because MKV is OSS doesn't guarantee there will always be someone out there willing to compile it.
Until I see Matroska supported in consumer electronics devices, I don't think we can talk about any sort of market penetration. On the other hand, AVI and MP4 are all already supported on PCs and CE devices. Which is why I have greater confidence in longevity of those 2 formats.

[foxyshadis]

Sure they're actively choosing it. They could opt for Real, QuickTime or Flash, so there's certainly choice.
BTW, isn't the Flash Player also implemented as an ActiveX control? I'm pretty sure it is in IE. Do they have a separate component for Firefox?
Yes, it uses the netscape plugin format, which isn't that different than a more sandboxed activex. And firefox's support for WMP works quite well too - other than being windows-specific, I suppose. (Maybe mac?)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I am yet to encounter a MKV file anywhere on the Internet outside of Doom9. Most torrent sites I frequent overwhelmingly use AVI, ASF/WMV, MPEG and MP4.

Well, 99% of the internet users got absolutely no idea that the conatiner and the video/audio format inside it are two different things :rolleyes: So the container you will find on the internet is that container people get by default when using the tools pre-installed on their PC's (e.g. Windows Movie Maker and stuff)...

[Kayser]

Well, 99% of the internet users got absolutely no idea that the conatiner and the video/audio format inside it are two different things :rolleyes: So the container you will find on the internet is that container people get by default when using the tools pre-installed on their PC's (e.g. Windows Movie Maker and stuff)...

I second that... I'm not a guru in the subject but I'm dead tired of explaining my friends that avi is not a codec but a container when they ask me why can't they play xyz video.
I do find lots of mkv outside talk outside Doom9. I agree that it's not really popular but avi is starting to lose it's balance in the anime community (what I'm intersested in)... On the other hand I have yet to see anime contained in ASF :P
BTW, I voted for Matroska.

[XmSurfer]

Just look at the momentum Ogg had a few years ago. It was supposed to be the next big format. And now... well, just look at the poll. And that's on doom9. If nobody here is using Ogg, the format is as good as dead elsewhere.

I'll assume you mean OGM when you say Ogg. Therefore, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Matroska a big reason why few people use OGM?

So who says the same won't happen to Matroska?

It's always possible for something better to come along. But, right now, I just don't think that something is asf (I know you didn't say it was). MP4 is of much greater concern to me.

What keeps formats going is industry support and mainstream availability. Just because MKV is OSS doesn't guarantee there will always be someone out there willing to compile it.

Is it industry support that keep formats going or is it that the industry notices that a format has a substantial and dedicated user base and decides to support it thereby giving the appearance that the industry is keeping the format going when in fact the industry is simply a latecomer jumping on the bandwagon in hopes of financial gain?

Also, I think mainstream availability is overrated, Linux is still around and it didn't become mainstream(ish) until a few years ago. A online grassroots community kept Linux going without any mainstream availability and with an abundance of doubters. I know that Linux is an OS and not a container but the analogy is good because I think makes a point about the influence mainstream availability has on and being a determining factor of the success of any software endeavor. Am I wrong?

Until I see Matroska supported in consumer electronics devices, I don't think we can talk about any sort of market penetration.

Maybe I missed it, but who's talking about market penetration?:confused: I thought the discussion was about being able to play a format 10 years from now? Did I miss someone's post?

To sum up, you might be right, you might be wrong. I might be right, I might be wrong. Only Marty McFly and Doc Brown knows for sure and they're not talking.:)

[Shocku]

This year my vote goes to matroska. Matroska was the only format that could do everything I wanted painlessly. For me, matroska's freedom over what type of video+audio+subs I can use made the choice a no-brainer. However, I'm keeping a close eye on mp4. Not long ago mp4 was an unknown. Now, support is included in Haali's splitter. MeGUI and other applications support it also. Plus, mp4 is being pushed by quite a few companies. If/when mp4 gives me the same freedom as mkv I'll consider switching.

[siddharthagandhi]

I rarely find Matrosoka talk outside of Doom9. In fact, I didn't see it mentioned one on videohelp.com and I never heard of it before I came to Doom9. And I've been dealing with video for years. And if people didn't use Matrosoka, they would use mp4 (in response to the OGM comment).

Furthermore, MPEG-4 is everywhere. You can find MPEG-4 video on torrent sites (i'm not doing anything wrong so dont bust me for rule 6 or whatever, im just stating something), legal download locations, and there is more standalone compatbility, and AVC codecs are mainly encoded in it....

[GodofaGap]

IAnd I've been dealing with video for years. And if people didn't use Matrosoka, they would use mp4 (in response to the OGM comment).

Nope, I use Martroska and if that weren't around, I would still be using AVI. MP4 is just silly. Interopability? For what? For silly hardware manufacturers who mostly support AVI/DivX anyways? Or you enjoy watching your video on your mobile phone or PSP. Each to each own then. MP$ will never bring anything good but a lot BS.

What keeps formats going is industry support and mainstream availability. Just because MKV is OSS doesn't guarantee there will always be someone out there willing to compile it.
Sorry. Somewhow I would have expected more from you. Mainstream availability? How about more than different parser avaiable on every respectable OS?

Until I see Matroska supported in consumer electronics devices,
Are you just being funny now? Where is all the asf support in CE devices? Where is all the RealVideo support in CE devices? A format doesn't need that at all to survive. CE devices are crap and outdated

Don't be ridiculous... you can try to troll all you want, but it wont get you any far here.

Mr. ASF is free as long as you dont violate our crappy EULA. Just leave or something.

[Liisachan]

Just look at the momentum Ogg had a few years ago. It was supposed to be the next big format. And now... well, just look at the poll. And that's on doom9. If nobody here is using Ogg, the format is as good as dead elsewhere. Like XmSurfer said, you are confusing Xiph's OggFile and Tobias' OGM. If you said "Ogg" here, any advanced user would consider it as OggFile, especially (Theora+Vorbis[+OggWrit]).ogg. It's not popular because it's not even ready to really use, Theora being in the alpha stage. I sometimes post a few samples tho, starting from theora_6.ogg (April 2004)

But what you were trying to say is actually what I said. I'm not sure if I'll be still actively using MKV/MP4 etc. in 10 years later. Maybe not. However, that fact hardly has anything to do with my Choice of Container in 2006. It's my choice in 2006 after all. I'm not conservative. I like testing new things.

I loved and still love OGM and tried to use it vehemently like a nut. So I know about OGM well as a user and I can say why OGM is not enough for me.

1. Sub/Chap: The lack of Unicode support. (till 0.9.9.5)
2. Really simple text subtitle (SRT) (till 0.9.9.5, but .6 is borked)
3. Subtitles can not overlap timeline-wise. (even in 0.9.9.6: tho there's a workaround hack)
4. No VobSub embedding (not my reason tho)

Partly because OGM was closed-source? Anyway, if you don't need Chapters nor Softsubs, OGM is still valid. OGM for softsubbing in one single ANSI CP is ok too.
I play OGM quite often even now, tho I no more newly create it. Funny thing is, the number of apps that support OGM is increasing even now. Haali's splitter. Then, Gabest released OggSplitter (the name is Ogg but it mainly splits OGM) in 2006. That gives me this strange feeling: maybe there will be better playback supports for a continer AFTER it is outdated...???

OGM is not my Choice of Container in 2006, but logically, that has nothing to do with the fact I chose OGM in 2002. Because it was best for my purposes back then :)

[Eric B]

I am using mastroska for 3 years now, i.e from the first public testing release. Before, I was using OGM, but I definetly abandon this container when I figured out that it can not contain audio tracks with different channels (e.g. AC3 5.1, Ogg Vorbis 2.0 and OggVorbis 1.0). MKV can!

Anyway, that was the discussion in 2003.

Today, I still prefer MKV though MP4 is sometimes better.
MKV > MP4 for e.g. 2 reasons:
- many formats of subtitles but not only text. This is not such a big pb since the vobsub subtitle can still be besides the mp4 file, and are loaded in //.
- much faster to mux (mkvmerge/mmg vs mp4box/yamb).
Altough Yamb is quite good now, it is still exhaustive to mux an mp4 file, and mkv offer much more possibilities.

MP4 has/will have hardware support, but I don't care, since I am e.g muxing Vorbis into it. Big avantage of MP4 is the support of raw track (i.e. avi transformed to raw h264) as input, which is not working with mkv.

[NeD tHe OnE]

Just look at the momentum Ogg had a few years ago. It was supposed to be the next big format. And now... well, just look at the poll. And that's on doom9. If nobody here is using Ogg, the format is as good as dead elsewhere.

So who says the same won't happen to Matroska?


Of course ASF specifications are public. I had a link in another thread, but just google for it and you'll find it on MS website.

Sure, you're on. :)
What keeps formats going is industry support and mainstream availability. Just because MKV is OSS doesn't guarantee there will always be someone out there willing to compile it.
Until I see Matroska supported in consumer electronics devices, I don't think we can talk about any sort of market penetration. On the other hand, AVI and MP4 are all already supported on PCs and CE devices. Which is why I have greater confidence in longevity of those 2 formats.

Who says Vorbis is DEAD?

Lately Hardwares are been out for Vorbis, OGM 2 ...

So most likely. not now.. but may be later Matroska will be on the track 2!

[NeD tHe OnE]

Like XmSurfer said, you are confusing Xiph's OggFile and Tobias' OGM. If you said "Ogg" here, any advanced user would consider it as OggFile, especially (Theora+Vorbis[+OggWrit]).ogg. It's not popular because it's not even ready to really use, Theora being in the alpha stage. I sometimes post a few samples tho, starting from theora_6.ogg (April 2004)

But what you were trying to say is actually what I said. I'm not sure if I'll be still actively using MKV/MP4 etc. in 10 years later. Maybe not. However, that fact hardly has anything to do with my Choice of Container in 2006. It's my choice in 2006 after all. I'm not conservative. I like testing new things.

I loved and still love OGM and tried to use it vehemently like a nut. So I know about OGM well as a user and I can say why OGM is not enough for me.

1. Sub/Chap: The lack of Unicode support. (till 0.9.9.5)
2. Really simple text subtitle (SRT) (till 0.9.9.5, but .6 is borked)
3. Subtitles can not overlap timeline-wise. (even in 0.9.9.6: tho there's a workaround hack)
4. No VobSub embedding (not my reason tho)

Partly because OGM was closed-source? Anyway, if you don't need Chapters nor Softsubs, OGM is still valid. OGM for softsubbing in one single ANSI CP is ok too.
I play OGM quite often even now, tho I no more newly create it. Funny thing is, the number of apps that support OGM is increasing even now. Haali's splitter. Then, Gabest released OggSplitter (the name is Ogg but it mainly splits OGM) in 2006. That gives me this strange feeling: maybe there will be better playback supports for a continer AFTER it is outdated...???

OGM is not my Choice of Container in 2006, but logically, that has nothing to do with the fact I chose OGM in 2002. Because it was best for my purposes back then :)

You are Right Liisachan!

Even i used 2 use OGM .. untill last year .. before i came to know about MKV!:cool:

[siddharthagandhi]

"Nope, I use Martroska and if that weren't around, I would still be using AVI. MP4 is just silly. Interopability? For what? For silly hardware manufacturers who mostly support AVI/DivX anyways? Or you enjoy watching your video on your mobile phone or PSP. Each to each own then. MP$ will never bring anything good but a lot BS."

Well, you're a loner. MP4 is so much better than .avi, its used in so many consumer electronics devices, it has so much more features than .avi and all that. I would think the majority of the people would use .mp4 instead of .avi....if .mkv didn't exist...

And seriously man. Outside of Doom9 no one has ever heard of matrosoka. Unless you're in some other technical video forum, no one has ever heard of it and not many people use it. And what about AVC? Most AVC is encoded in MPEG-4....x264 in MeGUI...Nero Recode Nero Digital ASP and AVC...xvid ASP...

[Sirber]

Cool to see matroska is in the top :D

[CruNcher]

@siddharthagandhi
because that stuff you talk about is that what the industry want's you to use and get's allways limited in one way or another, because of commercial reasons, alot off stuff that is done here is without restrictions and nobody here will ever tell you what you should use :)

[siddharthagandhi]

I don't listen to industry. I listen to what's best. For distribution, most of the people who I give my videos to (i make my own videos for certain stuff) don't even know what the hell matrosoka is....let alone how to play it. MPEG-4 is capable of using AVC and ASP codecs and they all have players that can play that. .Avi would be the best for compatibility and playing it on their computers, but last time i checked Nero Digital doesn't encode in .avi.

[xyloy]

And seriously man. Outside of Doom9 no one has ever heard of matroska
Tell that to release teams and the hundred of million of people sharing .mkv files on P2P networks(eMule first)... :D

I'm not inviting anyone to download illegal stuff, but hey, everyone know were DivX started back in 1997... ;)

[Liisachan]

@xyloy
Yep at least for anime fans ogm and mkv are just everyday formats. Almost everyone knows it, and probably > 95% of them are not doom9 members. .mp4 is getting popular too, altho still relatively rare.

[NeD tHe OnE]

Mkv! U find it everywhere.... Its gettin popular!

[Sirber]

@Liisachan

Single audio anime:
98% AVI
2% MP4

Dual audio anime:
60% OGM
40% MKV

* % based on a "in-brain" analysis

[robU*4]

The problem of MP4 (and AVI to some extent) is that it might be supported in hardware devices (I haven't seen any in any store) but with very strict support (maximum luck case). So whenever you add something not standard don't expect to work it somewhere else than a PC (and probably with Haali's filter).

For a long time we (matroska) hoped to get some hardware support to get more popular but that would mean freeze the specs and codec support. But maybe that's the force of matroska to be always moving and still improving (see the latest header stripping, the discussion on extending EBML with namespaces, a possible DRM, etc).

About OGM, in the past it gave us a lot of animosity around here when we were telling that OGM was dead and missing specs. Noone was ever able to improve it or even continue support. So time has finally proved us right.

[XmSurfer]

I rarely find Matrosoka talk outside of Doom9. In fact, I didn't see it mentioned one on videohelp.com...

Perhaps if you used their(videohelp.com) search function....

[thoralf]

For distribution, most of the people who I give my videos to (i make my own videos for certain stuff) don't even know what the hell matrosoka is....let alone how to play it. MPEG-4 is capable of using AVC and ASP codecs and they all have players that can play that.

A fresh install of every windoze flavour does know as much about mp4 as it does about matroska: nil.
so why not use the more flexible one - the matroska packs come with installers that are really no-brainers.
i'll stop here, i don't want to be a zealot :-)

with kind regards,
thoralf.

[Sirber]

About OGM, in the past it gave us a lot of animosity around here when we were telling that OGM was dead and missing specs. Noone was ever able to improve it or even continue support. So time has finally proved us right.I prefer from far AVI than OGM. Long death to OGM!!!

[soresu]

Liisachan, does x264/avc mux well into the NUT container? I have read some of the specs for NUT and it sounds promising.

My main concern is the similar issues with vfw-compatibility mode vs. native avc storage in the format.

[siddharthagandhi]

I have seen much more mp4 on P2P than matrosoka. All of you here are video experts so that's why you don't know how it is in the real world. In the real world, with noobs and all, people rarely know what matrosoka is. There are definetly more people who know about (and use) mp4.

[Liisachan]

@sirber:
I'd show my stats for softsub then:
SSA
MKV 100%
OGM n/a

SRT
OGM 50% (*)
MKV 50%
(*) Including files muxed a few years ago.

But I'm not trying to say OGM and MKV are generally popular. The public's choice should be MP4 after all. The reality is:
Doom9 Members < Anime Fans <<< Normal ppl
So stats in Anime Fans are meaningless for normal ppl.

@soresu
I'm not a NUT gru (tho i might be a nut) but I don't see any reason they won't support AVC. FYI today I was also told "NUT support have been disabled (temporarily) from FFMPEG because it's not compatible with the latest specs." If you'd like to have the latest ffmpeg, you can try celtic_druid's binary (http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/)...

[Liisachan]

@siddharthagandhi
A good, legal example for what you said is http://www.archive.org/details/movies

They have things mainly in MP4 etc. No OGM/MKV.

[setarip_old]

@Liisachan

Hi!

I'm afraid the link you've provided doesn't really support the contention of "siddharthagandhi".

If you read some of the background information at that site, you'll discover that the reason they use .MP4 and haven't created any files in OGM/MKV or other formats is that the files are created on MACs ;>}

[xyloy]

I have seen much more mp4 on P2P than matrosoka. All of you here are video experts so that's why you don't know how it is in the real world. In the real world, with noobs and all, people rarely know what matrosoka is. There are definetly more people who know about (and use) mp4.
Know what ? I've seen the reverse(even on BitTorrent trackers, but I don't think the forum rules allow me to give a link nor a name).:D
Both sides can't prove the container's popularity among "newbies" so your point isn't "definetly" proven.
But for your knowledge, I've helped on another forum quite a lot of newbies with a sticky about how to play .mkv files. Some of them made a new topic about it and most of them didn't even know that .avi was not a codec...

As for giving a little proof, just look on eMule(or whatever you like, eMule is just the most popular in Europe, so I think it's a good example):
a ".MP4" search gives files .wmv .avi and .mkv files(a total of 149 files) with less than 50 sources estimated for each file(and most of them is p0rn or commercials). MP4 is sometimes not even in the file name. :o

a ".MKV" search just gives... .MKV files, with more than a hundred source estimated for each of them, and all of them are dvd-rips in RV9/RV10/H.264 and OggVorbis/Realaudio/HE-AAC(depends how much it's old) and the search reaches eMule's response limit, wich is 201 files(if I was really searching a movie I would have to use AND/OR/NOT).

[Kurtnoise]

Funny discussion imho...reminds me some container battle in 2004 where some good people have been banned.

btw...the old & dirty AVI is still there. :D So, Alexnoe was right. ;)

[multicone]

Other: NUT (http://www.nut.hu/). All the goodness of Matroska, without the bloat.

Bloat ? what bloat ? MKV works fine on my Symbian phone, so how can it be bloated ?

Linux geeks are truely nuts ... that's why the name of NUT is perfectly suited for their crap. If they will ever come to a similar status that the matroska tools do have already, matroska will have hardware support already, for 100% sure. Very likely they will never come there, they are dreamers to beleive that.

These guys developing NUT would be better off implementing good matroska support in their little Linux apps, instead of reinventing stuff that already exists, so nobody will ever need nor use their unnecessary container.

[communist]

For me this is a rather pointless 'poll / discussion'. Only one choice?

I'm probably repeating myself but why would I want to put DV streams in mkv or MPEG encoded for SVCD in avi or any other nonsense? I choose the container that most suits the need without having to resort to all of them ;)

These guys developing NUT would be better off implementing good matroska support in their little Linux apps, instead of reinventing stuff that already exists, so nobody will ever need nor use their unnecessary container.
Would you be insulted if I told you to better shut up and write an essay about quantum physics than to post your comments on doom9?
People like to do what they want - I'm not sure how much they're hurting you by developing yet another container.. really whats your problem with them doing it, you may fully hate the container etc. but why do you think they should do what you think?

[unmei]

@communist :goodpost: (oops, fixed name)

I don't think I will be still using any of today's formats 10 years later, just like I'm not using 10-year-old codecs now.

For the creation of new files for use on PCs, i agree.
But MPEG-2 is something like 14 years old (iirc) and DVDs still sell very well. Not to mention current TV and certain companies seemingly intend to put MPEG-2 (at least the video codec if not even PS/TS) into those new high-capacity video disks :)

In that respect, you can be quite confident that MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 will be around for another 10 years easily.

[robU*4]

multicone, that's what we were said when we created matroska. That OGG was enough for everything, but we thought it wasn't and did our own thing. I guess it's the same for NUT, except they don't have much thing to add over matroska.

[Sagittaire]

really good demonstration to show that pool doesn't mean anything ... lol

AVI or MPG are by far the more popular
WMV and MOV are the more popular and by far for internet

mkv, mp4 or ogm are simply marginal

[unmei]

sagittaire, that is not what the poll is about.

Usage statistics "in the real world", "on the internet", "in scene XY" may vary greatly as function of what part one sees and how one counts (ie no. of releases vs no. of logged downloads vs. what pirate collection a random person may find on its harddrive). Thus they cannot be reliably determined.

[BetaBoy]

I chose MPEG-4 because its highly unlikely that Matrosoka will become an industry standard

Wanna take bets on that? /me finishes the ISO documentation to be submitted.

[Liisachan]

This poll might be rather meaningless, but it's interesting to hear others.
Btw the question is "Which is your choice?" not "Which do you think is the ppl's choice?"

About "NUT"--seriously, iirc it was first called "Egg" (play of words: Egg is not Ogg), but renamed as NUT, because Egg would sound like a fragile container. NUT sounds robust, compact, strong, error-resistant.

@setarip_old
Oh, then I'll be honest and confess that I don't really know about "avarage" ppl's choice.
I know new containers are usual in anime fandom; even noobs can play ogm/mkv in Japan;
but I also know that is rather exceptional in the whole world, among the whole ppl.

@communist
That's a valid point. I use AVI for hardsubbing... something is so common that you don't appreciate its commonness.

@unmei
Yup. that's what I meant: passive "read-only" or "in-the-middle" use vs active "final-format" use. I still use OGM even now, passively tho.
On a second thought, MKV is open-source while OGM wasn't, so probably they are essentially different.

[bond]

ok, a little bit late, but i now added .ogg, .nut and .asf (one vote for .wmv, not hard to quess who was this ;) ), .mpg is part of mpeg-2 (or mpeg-1), .mp4 is not quicktime but part of the mpeg-4 standard, .ogm is not ogg media but .ogm

[robU*4]

Can I change my vote ? :D

[siddharthagandhi]

I rest my case.

[zambelli]

I'll assume you mean OGM when you say Ogg. Therefore, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Matroska a big reason why few people use OGM?
I consider OGM to be a subset of Ogg. Am I wrong?
Sure, people moved away from OGM to Matroska, but that's kind of my point: what's to stop people from moving from MKV to Next Big OSS Container?

It's always possible for something better to come along. But, right now, I just don't think that something is asf (I know you didn't say it was). MP4 is of much greater concern to me.
Right, I totally agree. I'm not trying to bash on Matroska or its quality. I'm just saying that I don't have much faith in its long term support.

Is it industry support that keep formats going or is it that the industry notices that a format has a substantial and dedicated user base and decides to support it thereby giving the appearance that the industry is keeping the format going when in fact the industry is simply a latecomer jumping on the bandwagon in hopes of financial gain?
That's exactly right. Sometimes it does happen that way - just look at MP3 and AVI support. My point is that when that does happen - it adds years to the expected lifetime of the format. It's hard to extinguish support for a format when there are hardware devices out there counting on the support.

I know that Linux is an OS and not a container but the analogy is good because I think makes a point about the influence mainstream availability has on and being a determining factor of the success of any software endeavor. Am I wrong?
I think you need to have some big "players" involved in order to consider something mainstream. If you ask me, Linux went mainstream when companies like IBM and Sun got behind it - not when 15-yr old kids were installing it on their parents' computers.
The day I see Matroska support on a Sony player, I'll tip my hat to the Matroska guys and say, "Congrats, you've guys have gone mainstream." :)

Maybe I missed it, but who's talking about market penetration?:confused: I thought the discussion was about being able to play a format 10 years from now? Did I miss someone's post?
Aren't they connected? Isn't a format with greater platform support and greater userbase expected to live longer?

To sum up, you might be right, you might be wrong. I might be right, I might be wrong. Only Marty McFly and Doc Brown knows for sure and they're not talking.:)
Yeah, pretty much. I'm just making a bet based on what I've seen happen to other formats in the past. I could turn out to be wrong, I won't deny that.

[zambelli]

ok, a little bit late, but i now added .ogg, .nut and .asf (one vote for .wmv, not hard to quess who was this ;) ), .mpg is part of mpeg-2 (or mpeg-1), .mp4 is not quicktime but part of the mpeg-4 standard, .ogm is not ogg media but .ogm
I repeat: Windows Media Video is not a file format.
The name of the format is "Advanced Systems Format". The entry should say: Advanced Systems Format (ASF, WMV).

Not that it matters much... But we might as well keep it accurate. :)

[zambelli]

MP4 is just silly. Interopability? For what? For silly hardware manufacturers who mostly support AVI/DivX anyways? Or you enjoy watching your video on your mobile phone or PSP.
If you ran a company thinking like that, you'd be bankrupt in less than a month.
Are you aware that mobile phones are more widespread than PCs in this world?

Are you just being funny now? Where is all the asf support in CE devices? Where is all the RealVideo support in CE devices? A format doesn't need that at all to survive. CE devices are crap and outdated.
Riiiight. DVD players. iPods. Car audio players. Those are just niche products. Nobody buys those.
And FYI, ASF is supported in every hardware player that plays WMA or WMV files. Tell you what? You seem like the stubborn type, you might want to check this out for yourself: go to Amazon.com, Electronics department, and search for WMA. Tell me how many hits you get. If that's not hardware ASF support, would you mind telling me what is?

Don't be ridiculous... you can try to troll all you want, but it wont get you any far here. Mr. ASF is free as long as you dont violate our crappy EULA. Just leave or something.
Watch your tone, Mr. I Just Joined Two Months Ago and Now I'm Calling People Trolls. I'm not the one picking fights here. I come in and say "I trust MP4, AVI and ASF to be supported in 10 years more than I do Matroska", and suddenly that's blasphemy. If you ask me, I'm just making observations based on how things work in the real world. If you don't like it or feel like you have to defend something just for the sake of arguing, perhaps you should take your arguments elsewhere.

[shon3i]

Currently use MKV for x264 and vote for him becouse is realy good container. MP4 is aslo good but have big problem with subtitles with different country codes, aslo need more free space to mux streams

[siddharthagandhi]

"Are you just being funny now? Where is all the asf support in CE devices? Where is all the RealVideo support in CE devices? A format doesn't need that at all to survive. CE devices are crap and outdated."


Of course it doesn't need that to survive, but it needs that to prosper. MPEG-4 has that. And look at it now. Proves my point.

And anyways, does ASF and RealVideo look successful to you? I surely hope not, because a very low percentage of distributed videos are in those formats, especially the former.

[BetaBoy]

what's to stop people from moving from MKV to Next Big OSS Container?

There is NOTHING you can do but provide the reliability, tools and features people need.

Get ready for what the next year has in store for Matroska... Not sure if you know it or not... but there are currently over 5 million portable hardwre devices that are capable of playing Matroska Audio and Video files right now... and with an estimated 20+ million more coming in the next year alone, Matroska is starting to garner alot more adoption at the corporate level.

Now, with the menu system and some other related Matroska projects coming... it will be a great year indeed.

BTW... its pretty cool to play Matroska on my A1000 cell phone ;-)