matroska : what should come next from your point of view ??

[ChristianHJW]

Hi,

as you all know matroska is released in public beta stage now. Cyrius has done an incredible job when making matroska supportfrom VdubMod, meaning the files created with it are spec compliant, stable and free of errors, so anybody wanting to switch to matroska can do so now, and safely.

It was always a part of our strategy to find out what the users want and need when we were designing it, and we want to continue doing so. The next 3 steps are already clear :

1. Implement rough and precise seeking in the DShow parser ( robux4, Blacksun, Toff and myFUN ), improve stability, avoid having to reload the filter each time after stopping a movie.

2. Allow muxing and playback of the new USF subtitle standard in the tools and the parser filter ( Toff, Blacksun, spyder )

3. Connect the DShow parser to the TCMP CDL API for enhanced tagging, etc. ( spyder )

The poll is giving you the next possible steps of how to develop the container further :

[Animaniac]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW


2. Allow muxing and playback of the new USF subtitle standard in the tools and the parser filter ( Toff, Blacksun, spyder )


This may be off-topic a bit, but does the USF standard allow advanced features such as those in advanced SSA? And according to the USF webpage there are no tools (except text editors). I understand that USF holds great potential since it is extensible, but it seems premature to use as the first (and only?) subtitle format. Early adopters of the Matroska format would probably want something more robust. Unless there are tools around, i.e. converters, that I do not know about.

[iwod]

is Rv9 in mkv possible for the next step?? :D

[alexnoe]

several languages + subtitles / menus.

I can't even remember when I made my last AVI with only 1 audio stream (except for TV captures).

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by iwod is Rv9 in mkv possible for the next step?? :D
Yes, if Real opens up their codec API so we can use their codecs from VdubMod

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by Animaniac This may be off-topic a bit, but does the USF standard allow advanced features such as those in advanced SSA? And according to the USF webpage there are no tools (except text editors). I understand that USF holds great potential since it is extensible, but it seems premature to use as the first (and only?) subtitle format. Early adopters of the Matroska format would probably want something more robust. Unless there are tools around, i.e. converters, that I do not know about.

On Linux we can already mux test subs into matroska and play them on mplayer, either ASCII subs or UTF8 subs. We'll hopefully have this on Windows soon also, Bill Baroud wanted to look at this occasionally.

Next step for us is USF then. We won't do SSA or ASS ourselves, but other people are invited to help here, the codec IDs are already defined for them ( http://cvs.corecodec.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/matroska/doc/website/specs/codex.html?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/html ).

[BoNz1]

Well, I would say enhanced XCD support but unfortunately I can't get XCD to work on either of my computers (stupid combo drives and stupid companies that never upgrade firmware) anyhow I would like AAC support the most. I guess you should already be able to mux it into a mkv but the directshow is what is needed, obviously. Yesterday, I downloaded the source code for borg technologies aac decoder. Now I am no programer but it didn't look that complicated. Maybe it would be possible to modify this filter to not work with mpx and to work with something like matroska or ogm.

EDIT: After doing a little research into this topic, it appears that we will need a aac parser to be able to use the borg tech ds or a modified version of it.

[CaptainCarrot]

I think multilanguage-support is already kind of implemented, though maybe not intentional and really crappy, but I had an mkv with 2 AC3-streams, and was able to switch from one to the other. It worked in so far pretty bad that the player (ZoomPlayer) stopped for a while, then played 1 frame/5sec for a while, but then resumed playing with normal framerate and the 2nd audiotrack.

EDIT: I rechecked, and the above described only works right at the beginning of the movie (3sec). I tried 30 sec into the movie, and it looked like it might restart playing sometime, since there was a new frame occasionally (like every min or so), but it probably takes ages.

[Atamido]

The intent to to be able to switch streams in the DirectShow filter. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Mosu is more skilled programming mplayer than the whole rest of the Matroska team is with programming DirectShow.

If anyone has any experience programming DirectShow, please visit #Matroska (irc://irc.corecodec.com:6667/matroska) and offer your assistance.

[Blueseb]

I often need muxing multiple language, but cannot resist from voting menues & control tracks: such a cool thing!!!:D

btw, 67 votes in ~20 hours: who said matroska isn't interesting?:p

[Nic]

@Christian:
Might be a little offtopic ;) but has anyone compiled a Win32 version of mkvmerge by moritz/Mosu ? It looks very good :) I had a quick go at compiling it (needs a fair few libraries ;) ) and got very close but didn't get time to finish it, might be easier to do in Cygwin rather than VC6, but if someones already done it I won't bother :)

Take Care,
-Nic

[unmei]

@ Animaniac

USF will be able to do pretty everything you can do with SSA.
like styles / images / karaoke / multiple subs at same time + overlapped

AFAIK the effects are planned but not yet specified

All in all i was that excited at reading the specs that i decided to write a converter/editor for it :D *hint hint*

It will be written in Delphi and be able to create USFs from scratch, convert from .SRT and .SSA (and maybe micro-DVD .SUB later)

It will take some time to come to a convienent release, but i will publish a preview supporting load/save .USF and basic .SRT import soon
more info and the first preview to come this weekend (i'm at school atm so i can up it right now)

making the seeking 1st priority is exactly the right thing to do, ppl like me want something to play with :D it's a important feature to make the user jump on the train. i voted for mpc because i love that format and prefer it over aac but sadly enough it was a no-go in video up to now

[Mosu]

Originally posted by Nic
@Christian:
Might be a little offtopic ;) but has anyone compiled a Win32 version of mkvmerge by moritz/Mosu ? It looks very good :)

A couple of weeks ago someone already tried to port my tools to win32 and sent me a couple of patches. Unfortunately he vanished, and I haven't heard from him since. If you get it to compile then please send me the changes you've made so I can include them with the official sources.

[Nic]

Hi Mosu,

I was getting pretty close, but after installing libmatroska, libebml, vorbis 1.0sdk, iconv, etc (and the intel compiler was moaning, (doesnt like having lots of paths). I gave up ;)
But ill keep going, there shouldnt be any real need for patches, as long as all the libs are installed, it shouldnt be too tricky.

Ill let you know how I get on :)

-Nic

[Animaniac]

Originally posted by unmei
@ Animaniac

USF will be able to do pretty everything you can do with SSA.
like styles / images / karaoke / multiple subs at same time + overlapped

AFAIK the effects are planned but not yet specified

All in all i was that excited at reading the specs that i decided to write a converter/editor for it :D *hint hint*

It will be written in Delphi and be able to create USFs from scratch, convert from .SRT and .SSA (and maybe micro-DVD .SUB later)

It will take some time to come to a convienent release, but i will publish a preview supporting load/save .USF and basic .SRT import soon
more info and the first preview to come this weekend (i'm at school atm so i can up it right now)

making the seeking 1st priority is exactly the right thing to do, ppl like me want something to play with :D it's a important feature to make the user jump on the train. i voted for mpc because i love that format and prefer it over aac but sadly enough it was a no-go in video up to now

Awesome. :D

[robUx4]

Well, I think the most important feature right now is a working DirectShow filter :(

[mf]

I vote for renaming the project back to mcf, and implementing MCF's current specification as "MCF Compact" and rebranding Matroska "MCF Extensible" :D.

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by mf I vote for renaming the project back to mcf, and implementing MCF's current specification as "MCF Compact" and rebranding Matroska "MCF Extensible" :D.

Hi mf !

Too late now, we have a logo for the russian doll theme ( well, more than one, we have to make a decision :D ), a working domaine name ( sf.net is down most of the time ) and a established brand .... but its nice to see that the two teams may have a chance to come closer again, this kind of thinking was exactly what robux4 was missing when he decided to split. mf, send my warmest regards to Tronic if you talk to him, we owe him a lot.

Christian

[mf]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
Hi mf !

Too late now, we have a logo for the russian doll theme ( well, more than one, we have to make a decision :D ), a working domaine name ( sf.net is down most of the time ) and a established brand .... but its nice to see that the two teams may have a chance to come closer again, this kind of thinking was exactly what robux4 was missing when he decided to split. mf, send my warmest regards to Tronic if you talk to him, we owe him a lot.

Christian

1) Your marketing is inferior :p
2) You can always drop a domain (unless you paid in advance for 10 years, which is a BAD thing)
3) As for the established brand, people will only be happy if they hear that MCF and Matroska are back again ;)

[robUx4]

Originally posted by mf
1) Your marketing is inferior :p
2) You can always drop a domain (unless you paid in advance for 10 years, which is a BAD thing)
3) As for the established brand, people will only be happy if they hear that MCF and Matroska are back again ;)

It's up to you, not us now ;)

[mf]

Originally posted by robUx4
It's up to you, not us now ;)
What do you mean?

[CaptainCarrot]

Hi,
kaxdemux 0.3.1 is a real improvement! Playback is more fluent, and switching between audiotracks with morgan stream switcher works perfect (at least for me). Considering this, I'd really like to change my vote from multiple language support in the parser to xcd-support :D.

Greetings

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by CaptainCarrot and switching between adiotracks with morgan stream switcher works perfect (at least for me). ... what player are you using ??

[CaptainCarrot]

... what player are you using ??
ZoomPlayer 3.0. The audio switching is actually quite amazing. When I switch (between two ac3-tracks) while music is playing, the language simply changes whereas the music keeps playing flawlessly, no cracking, no gaps, no nothing! You don't recognize the switching. It's just perfect.

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by CaptainCarrot When I switch (between two ac3-tracks) while music is playing, the language simply changes whereas the music keeps playing flawlessly, no cracking, no gaps, no nothing! You don't recognize the switching. It's just perfect. I understand these are 2 AC3 5.1 streams of same sampling rate ... can you try

AC3 5.1 + AC3 2.0
AC3 5.1 + Vorbis 48 KHz 5.1
Vorbis 48 KHz 5.1 + Vorbis 44.1 KHz Stereo ( 2.0 )

?? Thanks in advance !

[CaptainCarrot]

Vorbis 5.1 48kHz and AC3 5.1:
AC3 plays with 3times the speed when switching from vorbis to ac3 (vorbis first, ac3 second track), but drops back to normal when you open ac3filter-contextmenu and click ok. When switching from ac3 to vorbis (ac3 first, vorbis second track) there is no sound, ac3 plays normal when switching back. An additional problem occured with ac3 and trombettworks channeldownmixer (which i need for ogg 5.1->2.0 conversion during playback): when the AC3 5.1 was remapped by this filter, the player crashed after 1-2 sec.
EDIT:Hm, I just tried to reproduce that, and when i have a 5.1 ogg as first and any ac3 as second stream, movie won't start. It plays fine with only the ogg.


AC3 5.1 + AC3 2.0:
switching works both ways.

2 oggs:
movie starts playing, after the first switching there's only silence, and sound won't come back no matter how often you switch

2x5.1 AC3 + 2x2.0 AC3 + 5.1 OGG +2.0 OGG :D:
movie plays fine, i can switch between all tracks, all ac3 play fine, the ogg are just silent.

Something diffrent: I noticed that the playback is still not very fluent. When I look at the fddshow-info-tab during playback, the framerate is rapidly changing from 15fps to 35fps. My CRT is running at 75Hz so 25fps should be possible. Just to let you know (you probably know already, but better said twice than never).

[Animaniac]

As I understand, the CDL's in TCMP are similar DS filters. Would it be possible to easily port them to DS so that they could be used system-wide. I'm especially interested in a MusePack DS filter, in order to use MPC in MKV's and play MPC's in general. ^_^

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by Animaniac As I understand, the CDL's in TCMP are similar DS filters. They use DirectShow, but have a completely different structure.
Would it be possible to easily port them to DS so that they could be used system-wide. I'm especially interested in a MusePack DS filter, in order to use MPC in MKV's and play MPC's in general. Sorry, this requires a complete rewrite. Wont happen before MPC SV8 is available or sure ...

[maormini]

I loved the idea of menus, man that would be just perfect!

Anyway, I hope to see more programs supporting this container format, it looks like it is gonna be pretty amazing.

Thanks guys.:D

[ChristianHJW]

Well, it seems i needed 20 options in the poll to list everything thats going to come in future :D ....

Anyway, probably before the end of the week we'll have a new DShow filter to play with, and it will correct the following bugs, or add new functionalities :

- stuttering playback gone
- stop/pause working
- reporting frame types ( I/P/B ) correctly to decoder ( WMV9, Rududu )
- meta-seeking ( keyframes )
- better subtitles support

Downside : this new filter will not work with XCD for the start :( ...

Other improvements :

I am also bugging Cyrius and Belgabor to make a new VdubMod release, containing some bugfixes of 1.5.1.1a and a new tag field for matroska allowing the user to set any AR flag he wants ( PAR or DAR ) :D ;) .... this flag can be read in TCMP when using the new matroska CDL plugin, being worked on by spyder and Blacksun currently.

I hope you like this news, although i admit we are not following the results from the poll with this ;) ...

[Eric B]

I've tried a bit mastroska with my movie I can't mux correctly yet :
1 video track xvid
1 audio track AC3 5.1
1 audio track Vorbis 2.0
1 audio track vorbis 1.0

With TCMP the 3 tracks are played at the same time. I hope it would be possible to switch and have one track only at the same time! Encouragements to the team!

PS: this mux also not possible with OGM, because of differents formats AC3 and vorbis, both track are played at the same time, and also because of differents channels (e.g. in a movie with a mono vorbis and a stereo vorbis, the mono track is played at 2x)

[Atamido]

What is the difference between Vobis 1.0 and 2.0?

The Morgan Stream switcher folks have agreed to release sources so it should quicken the development of the ability to choose which stream you want to play.

[Animaniac]

Originally posted by Pamel
What is the difference between Vobis 1.0 and 2.0?

The Morgan Stream switcher folks have agreed to release sources so it should quicken the development of the ability to choose which stream you want to play.

Maybe he meant stereo and mono?

[spyder]

My personal opinion is:

1) Multilanguage and better subtitle support
2) Chapters
3) XCD support
4) File attachments
and then the rest from there...

EDIT: I forgot... Capturing in VdubMod would let me do away with AVI altogether ;)

[frodoontop]

Now the direct show filter is reasonable, is there any chance that XCD will be supported soon? Especially the larger error correction? I found this an exiting feature, just would like to know when this will be reality.

[ChristianHJW]

Our priority list right now :

- selecting audio tracks from every DShow player ( IMediaInterface IIRC )

- correct SRT subtitles display from DvobSub. Gabest, Toff and robux4 have defined a new DirectShow Mediatype for that already ( MEDIATYPE_Subtitles , MEDIASUBTYPE_Image , MEDIASUBTYPE_Text ) plus a complete structure to pass all the relevant information from the MKV parser filter to DVobSub .. stay tuned

- adding Async_Reader capability to the DShow parser, so it works with XCD test6b DShow filter again ( kaxdemux.dll had that, but we removed ot for mkxds.dll to speed up development )

The tool you are asking for is unfortunately nowhere near down the road, we first have to talk to Frank Klemm about a suitable ECC algo to do that, and then add the EDC/ECC element types to libmatroska and make a tool to add them ... sorry i dont have any better news here :( ...

[robUx4]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
- adding Async_Reader capability to the DShow parser, so it works with XCD test6b DShow filter again ( kaxdemux.dll had that, but we removed ot for mkxds.dll to speed up development )

Not really a priority right now. It will add the XCD possibility, but we have not found a way to use it when linked files are used (a 2 or 3 CD rip on which each file tells what the next file to play is). That means making XCD ask you to load the Next CD/File named XYZ (written in the MKV file). This is an important feature of matroska we still don't know how we'll support it...

[CaptainCarrot]

- adding Async_Reader capability to the DShow parser, so it works with XCD test6b DShow filter again ( kaxdemux.dll had that, but we removed ot for mkxds.dll to speed up development )
Ah, that's why it doesn't work anymore :sly: ! I burned 1 movie 4 times on my sister's pc, none of which worked, and thought it was her pc messing it up...

[Kalewynn]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW

- correct SRT subtitles display from DvobSub. Gabest, Toff and robux4 have defined a new DirectShow Mediatype for that already

Does this mean that matroska already supports some basic SRT subtitling under Windows? If not, how advanced is the progress for this particular feature. Also unmei posted that when USF support is added, it should be able to produce all the cool effect of SSA (karaoke, positioning, etc) without actually having to burn them in the video like it is necessary now, but just muxing it as a separate stream. How difficult would this be to support, and how much if anything have you advanced in this feature?

Again, congratulations on your efforts of bringing true freedom to the multimedia department in computers, we needed things like matroska, specially if M$ keeps on pushing it's DRM thing. You guys are the best :)

[ssjkakaroto]

will you guys wait for the morgan stream switcher sources to implement multiple audio tracks or are you going to write a new one like corevorbis, coreaac and the directshow filter itself?

tia

[BoNz1]

Originally posted by ssjkakaroto
will you guys wait for the morgan stream switcher sources to implement multiple audio tracks or are you going to write a new one like corevorbis, coreaac and the directshow filter itself?

tia

I think they already have them, look at the cvs.