OGG Media - can we use it safely for the future?

[prom3theus]

I think I am going to switch from messing with trying to mp3 enocde with divx because I use lame acm and it isn't very flexible and doesn't sync well outside of its approved settings. I get zero problems with muxing ogg vorbis audio with divx5 and playing them back. Great results, very small audio files.

But, how forward compatible is this going to be? I don't want to have to go back 3 years from now and transcode all of my videos because I won't be able to playback the ogm stream. I guess it depends on whether someone decides to write ogm filters for future versions of directshow right?

[Daelin]

DirectShow (and all of DirectX) is monstrously backwards compatible. That's its biggest feature. The current OggDS filter will work when DirectX 15.9z is released, unless Microsoft decides to break that trend.

As for Ogg itself... unencumbered by patents, it also stands as "prior art" against future patents, the specification is free to all, and most importantly, there is a BSD-licensed reference implimentation.

So, it'd probably take a nuclear war to erase knowledge of the container, and the only reason Ogg would be forgotten otherwise would be if it were so complicated and badly designed that it isn't worth anyone's time.

Ogg is being submitted to the IETF for consideration of endorsement.

I think you're aware of the immediate advantages of the transport. I'd be shocked if you had to worry about such an open standard becoming legacy. Even if that were the case, I'd be REALLY shocked if you couldn't demux/re-mux it into another container.

Like, don't worry.

[Belgabor]

Please keep in mind that afaik ogg specs do NOT (yet) include data on how to implement video streams and necessary data, that implemetaion is the work of one man (Tobias Waldvogel) who was at that time totally unafiliated with Xiph. Though he joined Xiph now no one can say if the video implementation won't change, though I belive they will remain backwards compatible. (I won't pour oil into the flames by mentioning matroska here :p)