AAC in AVI possible now!

[Neo Neko]

There is no problem with thinking outside the box. Or at least I have none. :D But strictly speaking trying to moddify, trick, or hack AVI to work with moddern codecs is a clear case of thinking inside the box if I ever saw one. Not that there is anything horribly wrong with that.

AVI "IS" dead. Nothing Alex or anyone else outside Microsoft can do will change that. Personally I would love to see Alex put some of his considderable tallent behind one or more of the new formats. But they are his tallents and he is free to put them where he wants. We don't have to like it but we have to deal with it.

But when you really think outside the box you can see that in a round about way Alex's efforts will really only hurt AVI and help alternatives in the long run. Think how many novices give up when faced with something as basic as AC3 in AVI. To us it may be trivial to find out the codec used. But to the average joe it is near impossible. Now there will just be more AVI out with more nonstandard things which will only frustrate the average user. And if they ever do find the codec used and a way to play it back they will likely someday want to create similar files of their own. Which will again lead only to frustration as they are unable to find the one page on the internet they need because when dealing with AVI Alex's page IIRC is not even in google's top 10. Or the relative vecinity of it. Should I mention standalone woes?!

What is technically possible and what should be done are not synonimous. It is technically possible to moddify AVI to handle one or two new formats it was not designed to. But this will only make using AVI harder in the long run if it catches on to any extent. Heck it already has. Technicians should be free to think of what is technically possible. But they should also considder what would be responsible.

[SSIXS]

"AVI "IS" dead" ? then would you or someone else be a real sport and let me know where I can find a utility that will allow me to capture video in one of these "supposed" more advanced formats? I'm all for something new if it exists and doesnt require any more processing power than the AVI container.

Yes, some people might have trouble with figuring out the technique that Alex has come up with, but that's why this community is here, to develope new things and lend a hand explaining how they're used. As for people obtaining a video file and trying to figure out how to play it, you'd think that whoever was distributing the file would offer some insite as to what was required for playback, correct? Though, if you're refferring to obtaining a file from some peer-to-peer type utility chances are they might be violating copyrights, in that case I feel no pity for them whatsoever. :D

Standalone woes? maybe I've missed something (wouldnt be the first time ;) ) but are there hardware players for containers such as OGM, Matroska etc...? As far as what standalones will and wont play, we're at the mercy of the manufacturers, not the developers here who are implementing things that we can use for one purpose or another.

"Technicians should be free to think of what is technically possible. But they should also considder what would be responsible."

I have to wonder...what IS considered "responsible"?

I dont know Alex, but I would wager, that if someone approached him with a question concerning how something was done, he'd be more than willing to explain it to them, as any developer would more than likely do.

Are you thinking responsible means dedicating an individuals talents to further developing a newer format that you and a smaller niche of people make use of? Are you, somewhere in the back of your mind, wanting to halt any further additions to the AVI container because if may somehow affect the use of your own format of choice?

I just dont understand what is so irresponsible about making an addition to a container that most of us use in some form or another.

Yes, I'll grant you that the MP4, OGM, Matroska etc...containers may be more flexible or feature packed, but for my own personal purposes these extra features (such as DVD-like menus) are just frivelous and take up room on a CD that could be better used for the actual video. I just prefer a more straight forward approach.

Everything is dependent upon individual taste, some people will swear by WM9, others SBC, divx 4.x, Divx 5.x, Xvid, 3ivx etc... That's the beauty of this, people have the ability to read guides, look at examples and try things for themselves. Only THEY can decide what's best in their own eyes.

For example, I've always been partial to manual encoding with SBC or Divx 4.x. Just last night I had some time to kill and tried AutoGK...for a simplified almost single click backup solution I was quite impressed. (and heaven forbid, it outputs to an archaic "dead" container) Will I abandon manual encoding? Probably not, but it's nice to see something very simple for the masses that still delivers good quality.

It all comes down to this, if something is developed that you yourself have no use for, then fine dont use it, but dont rain on the accomplishments of the individual that developed it and tell them their time was wasted. ;)

[hoola]

Now there will just be more AVI out with more nonstandard things which will only frustrate the average user. And if they ever do find the codec used and a way to play it back they will likely someday want to create similar files of their own.

well hopefully they arent downloading illegal files with or without nonstandard or standard output.and if they do and have trouble well that is what they get.that is why i love this place. it is a place to go to get help with standard?nonstandard? video/audio yes?

but doesnt this happen with newer formats already as well? i see posts on the net all the time like. ((how do i play a ogm file? how do i play a mkv file? oh no not another codec i have to install on my pc.)) yes the newer ones may not be NONstandard but still cause havoc to newbies.

i myself use rv9/ogg in matroska container which i may add will probably never be able to be played on any kind of standalone hardware player but who cares its for me and me only.I love to see new ways AVI can be used beit a hack or not because even though i dont use avi anymore the majority of the peeps out there do. it (IS) the preffered container unfortunatly. lets face it all these means are *for a big part* used for piracy anyways so i think they could really care less what is standard or not.

great work to all authors. thinking outside the box is very usefull but when your working on the inside of the box sometimes its better to be on the inside. :cool:

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by SSIXS
"AVI "IS" dead" ? then would you or someone else be a real sport and let me know where I can find a utility that will allow me to capture video in one of these "supposed" more advanced formats? I'm all for something new if it exists and doesnt require any more processing power than the AVI container.

You are treading a fine line. Use the search young padewan. -> http://forum.doom9.org/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=821439&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

Originally posted by SSIXS
Yes, some people might have trouble with figuring out the technique that Alex has come up with, but that's why this community is here, to develope new things and lend a hand explaining how they're used. As for people obtaining a video file and trying to figure out how to play it, you'd think that whoever was distributing the file would offer some insite as to what was required for playback, correct?

If you thought that you would be wrong. And as good as this site is it is not unfortuantly where everyone gets their information. But I am always finding quirky files or files that are unlabled as to anything in them. I even found some AVI recently with Vorbis in Ogg inside the AVI!! I experimented with it years ago. But it was never a feesable or responsible thing to do. But people do those sort of things anyway.

Originally posted by SSIXS
Though, if you're refferring to obtaining a file from some peer-to-peer type utility chances are they might be violating copyrights, in that case I feel no pity for them whatsoever. :D

You may not feel pity. I don't see a need for pitty. But it most ceartainly have a backlash no matter what you think of them.

Originally posted by SSIXS
Standalone woes? maybe I've missed something (wouldnt be the first time ;) ) but are there hardware players for containers such as OGM, Matroska etc...?

No. But see here is the issue that is key. ATM no one is going to burn a MKV or OGM to CD and expect it to play in current standalones. But you can rest assured that when it is possible it will work better than AVI even when dealing with unknown codecs. OTOH lots of people might just get these stand alones and burn an AVI figuring that they either use MP3 or AC3 and get frustrated when it refuses to play at all or play without synch.

Originally posted by SSIXS
As far as what standalones will and wont play, we're at the mercy of the manufacturers, not the developers here who are implementing things that we can use for one purpose or another.

But manufacturers are likely only going to implement features specified by the developers. And since last I saw Microsoft was the developer of AVI and not Alex. So who are the manufacturers going to go to if they have questions or issues? Microsoft who will tell them to get bent and support the new ASF format or Alex? They will go to MS of course. :D

Originally posted by SSIXS
"Technicians should be free to think of what is technically possible. But they should also considder what would be responsible."

I have to wonder...what IS considered "responsible"?

I dont know Alex, but I would wager, that if someone approached him with a question concerning how something was done, he'd be more than willing to explain it to them, as any developer would more than likely do.

Unfortunatly he is not AFAIK on any of their contact lists. And is rather invisable outside of such usercentric communities. It would be a boon indeed if any manufacturer consulted him. I see no chance of that happening.

Originally posted by SSIXS
Are you thinking responsible means dedicating an individuals talents to further developing a newer format that you and a smaller niche of people make use of? Are you, somewhere in the back of your mind, wanting to halt any further additions to the AVI container because if may somehow affect the use of your own format of choice?

No I would halt further additions to AVI simply because it's developer has declaired it dead by creating a new format and not updating AVI in any way for many many years. I have no specific dislike against AVI. I still use it regularly. Notice when I said AVI was dead I did not say it was gone. It is still in the process of rotting slowly and degrading to an eventually almost non-existant state.

Originally posted by SSIXS
I just dont understand what is so irresponsible about making an addition to a container that most of us use in some form or another.


It is considderation for the user public at large. Back when I found how to get Vorbis in AVI and have it keep synch I could see that in the long run it would be most problematic and best if I dropped it in favor of other solutions. Which I did and another now dead format burst on the sceen. OGM of course. It was a bit more dificult to handle. But that was being actively addressed and uniformly implemented unlike these AVI solutions. Till today it has been replaced by much more capable formats like MP4 and Matroska.

Originally posted by SSIXS
Yes, I'll grant you that the MP4, OGM, Matroska etc...containers may be more flexible or feature packed, but for my own personal purposes these extra features (such as DVD-like menus) are just frivelous and take up room on a CD that could be better used for the actual video. I just prefer a more straight forward approach.

For one preffering a straight foreward approach it is supremely ironic you arrive at it by such serruptitious and circumventing routes.

Originally posted by SSIXS
Everything is dependent upon individual taste, some people will swear by WM9, others SBC, divx 4.x, Divx 5.x, Xvid, 3ivx etc... That's the beauty of this, people have the ability to read guides, look at examples and try things for themselves. Only THEY can decide what's best in their own eyes.

Yeah but that cant change the fact that something is dead. SBC is dead. Divx4 is dead. Divx3 is dead. MSMPEG4vX is dead. Just not yet gone. But soon to be.

Originally posted by SSIXS
For example, I've always been partial to manual encoding with SBC or Divx 4.x. Just last night I had some time to kill and tried AutoGK...for a simplified almost single click backup solution I was quite impressed. (and heaven forbid, it outputs to an archaic "dead" container) Will I abandon manual encoding? Probably not, but it's nice to see something very simple for the masses that still delivers good quality.

Again your misconception that if something is dead it is gone. When you die you will not automatically disappear. Sure whould save on funeral expenses if that were the case though. No you will linger around on a cold slab till they get to putting you in the ground. Then you will linger there untill your flesh is dissolved away. But even after that your bones may linger on forever as fossils. But they never again actively grow etc.

Originally posted by SSIXS
It all comes down to this, if something is developed that you yourself have no use for, then fine dont use it, but dont rain on the accomplishments of the individual that developed it and tell them their time was wasted. ;)

I am not that concerned if he wastes his time. It is his to waste however he likes it. But don't expect me to praise what I might see as pointless or even misguided or dammaging. Alex is a very capable guy and quite skilled. But I believe that even in this thread he expressed he did this as more of a dare rather than thinking this will bennefit the world. I am not here to put Alex down or belittle his work. Because it is impressive. But don't blame me if I think he could work wonders for more current formats as well. ;) Notice I am not saying which format. Pick one. Because I think he could bring something to all of them.

[avih]

@Alexnoe, Chris,

you're both respectable, don't do this pls.
this thread is about announcing AAC in avi. it's not a political thread.

[IvS]

Originally posted by avih
@Alexnoe, Chris,

you're both respectable, don't do this pls.
this thread is about announcing AAC in avi. it's not a political thread.
A political thread? Alex himself admits his AAC in AVI project is a "proof of concept". Someone who proves a concept expects opinions about it. And this is exactly what is happening here, an exchange of opinions. There is nothing "political" about this thread, not as far as i can see. I've been reading interesting posts of users here. And indeed there have been annoying "attacks" but as you can see everybody's moving on. Many opinions and exchange of words here that anyone can learn from. I consider this a good thing, don't you?
Regards.

edit: and people can determine who is or is not respectable by the words that person says.

[Atamido]

Originally posted by IvS
I seriously don't understand why *developers* would choose to hang on to an outdated suboptimal container such as AVI. I think a better question would be, "Why does alexnoe want to do goofy stuff like put AAC in AVI?" The answer to this actually points at a particular part of alexnoe's psyche. Two parts really. One part of him can't stand to see something incorrect. He constantly corrects spelling and grammar mistakes that people make. He will point out how some point is impossible in physics (unless using some particular piece of technology from StarTrek). If he reads some specs and sees that some extreme situation is possible, and asks someone if it can be done, if they say "no", then they basically committed him to doing it.

AVI isn't he only thing that he has hacked. For instance, in Matroska, Blocks(frames) are grouped into Clusters. A Cluster usually contains up to 32 seconds worth of Blocks. (This is because the Blocks each have a timecode that is stored in a signed INT16. So, it can be -32Kms to 32Kms. But really only positive intergers are used.) Well, alexnoe was reading the Matroska specs and saw that it was theoretically possible to put up to 64 seconds worth of Blocks in a Cluster. When he asked if it was possible, he was told that it was in theory, but it would be a b0rked way to do things. So, he did it.

In the US we might use the term "quirky" to describe alexnoe, but thats what we love so much about him.

[alexnoe]

Microsoft who will tell them to get bent and support the new ASF format or Alex? Any developer who wants to waste his time with a bloated format, which has a 100 pages long unreadable spec like ASF is free to do so.
this thread is about announcing AAC in avi. Actually, I did neither start this thread, nor did I inform Doom9 about this being possible... it made its way to the main page on its own :p
He constantly corrects spelling and grammar mistakes that people make. I just say *frenglish* each time someone talks frenglish :D
I even found some AVI recently with Vorbis in Ogg inside the AVI!! I experimented with it years ago. But it was never a feesable or responsible thing to do. But people do those sort of things anyway.Do you seriously claim that someone else having failed makes Vorbis-in-AVI impossible? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Hint: Just think about how VBR seeking works, think about the typical size of an OGG page, check how long it takes to play that, and then you'll see why OGG-in-AVI is a b0rked idea.
No I would halt further additions to AVI simply because it's developer has declaired it dead by creating a new format and not updating AVI in any way for many many years. The same this developper which released Win ME to haunt users? The same developper which is not able to write a DirectShow Muxer or Demuxer, compliant with their own format? The same developper which installs spyware into their OSes? The same developper which released a mail clients which can be made crash the entire OS by clicking onto a certain email adress?

You know, M$ is trying to gain control over the entire world....but the manufacturers of standalone players want to sell units. And unless they are stupid, then support what users want them to support :-)
Well, alexnoe was reading the Matroska specs and saw that it was theoretically possible to put up to 64 seconds worth of Blocks in a Cluster. When he asked if it was possible, he was told that it was in theory, but it would be a b0rked way to do things. Don't forget the long laces of 1 seconds, meaning like 42 MP3 frames in one block. I think some of you did not like that either :p This would never have been possible if I were using libmatroska :)

[Suiryc]

I just say *frenglish* each time someone talks frenglish :D

Oops :D

Do you seriously claim that someone else having failed makes Vorbis-in-AVI impossible? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Hint: Just think about how VBR seeking works, think about the typical size of an OGG page, check how long it takes to play that, and then you'll see why OGG-in-AVI is a b0rked idea.
The same this developper which released Win ME to haunt users? The same developper which is not able to write a DirectShow Muxer or Demuxer, compliant with their own format? The same developper which installs spyware into their OSes? The same developper which released a mail clients which can be made crash the entire OS by clicking onto a certain email adress?
BTW I think that Ogg Vorbis in AVI (yeah, not Ogg in AVI ;p) would require 2 'major' hacks ;). One in the AVI container (since the 'standard' VBR hack wouldn't work all the time), but also one in all the AVI parsers and the decoders that are attached to the streams when playing back the file.
Indeed don't forget that you need to initialize the Vorbis decoder for playback, and none of the 'official' (talking about OggDS and CoreVorbis ;), I think many of the players under Linux wouldn't handle it out of the box either) decoders would be able to handle something coming from this hack out of the box.
Moreover those decoders generally (actually I would even say 'always') need to be given one Vorbis frame (a Packet) at a time. The hack you have been considering (packing frames in each chunk) would thus be a problem for normal AVI parsers which don't interpret the stream (to get back each individual Vorbis frame).

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by alexnoe
Any developer who wants to waste his time with a bloated format, which has a 100 pages long unreadable spec like ASF is free to do so.


Aaaah! You raise a good point. ASF has a complete well documented specification avalible to any manufacturer who will pay for it. OTOH AFAIK there is no such complete documentation for AVI anywhere. At least one that is in terms of what is possible and what is commonly supported.

Originally posted by alexnoe
Do you seriously claim that someone else having failed makes Vorbis-in-AVI impossible? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.

Just so you don't waste your time..... No. I actually got Vorbis in AVI and had synch. But it did not work in a convinient or overly usable way.

Originally posted by alexnoe
The same this developper which released Win ME to haunt users? The same developper which is not able to write a DirectShow Muxer or Demuxer, compliant with their own format? The same developper which installs spyware into their OSes? The same developper which released a mail clients which can be made crash the entire OS by clicking onto a certain email adress?

Yes. It would have killed any normal company. But MS has such a monopoly and so many people under their thumb that people are willing to forgive and even ignore catastrophic mistakes.

Originally posted by alexnoe
You know, M$ is trying to gain control over the entire world....but the manufacturers of standalone players want to sell units. And unless they are stupid, then support what users want them to support :-)

MS tells users what they want, where they wanna go today, and even what they can do. It's that simple. I don't like it. But I am not naieve enough to ignore it. ;) That is part of why I think it is rather important to form a united front to push one new format as an alternative to MS and ASF. MP4 is of a rather narrow focus but still a great and superior alternative to ASF. What MP4 does not cover matroska does in spades. MP4 has alot of industry support. But you are already doing a bit of support for Matroska so I have no real issues. I would just love to see you do more. But I am not here to force you or tell you that you must. Simply to guide and nudge. Those who might be seeking direction. ;)

[Atamido]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
OTOH AFAIK there is no such complete documentation for AVI anywhere. At least one that is in terms of what is possible and what is commonly supported. AVI OpenDML specs. (http://www.matrox.com/video/press/papers/odmlff2.pdf) (as per alexnoe) As far as what is supported, you can use Google to search MSDN, but sadly Microsoft is not the greatest at making knowledgebase articles that contain useful and complete information.

[Neo Neko]

Still there is no one central be all end all repository of things yoiu need to know about AVI. ASF OTOH. :D

[unmei]

moo this thread has some comical aspects :)

I don't care what alex does to avi since i stopped using avi some months ago -of course i still play avis (god beware me from converting them all to mkv), but i don't produce them anymore.

<rant>
It was partly "the fault" of the people bashing alex for the AAC in AVI that he implemented it, their disbelief or diapproval pushed him to do it "by all means" - kick your own bottom .)
</rant>

To me alex is simply a very valuable part of #matroska, his picky pointing out of problems and inconsistencies probably saved us from discovering problems only when they would really had turned into problems once the container is more etablished.

What he implements beside the matroska stuff influences my thinking of him not more or less than the brand of trousers he wears or his haircut (hmm i don't know these, but like i said it doesn't matter to me ;p ).

[Neo Neko]

All I can say is. Indeed.

I have nothing against what he has done. It is pretty much useless to me. But it's not like I am paying him to do anything. :P We all have to have our pet projects to keep us from going insane. :sly: And it appears that Alex's is AVI. :D