Video stream switching

[Vincent Vega]

Are there any options right now for storing and viewing multiple video streams apart from using ogm as container and oggds with "enable all streams" disabled as splitter and switcher?

i just made a multiangle dvd rip and used the above "technology" on two DivX video streams. I'm starting this thread because I'm not satisfied how the splitter does the switching. When i choose another stream during playback current stream just freezes into a picture for a few secs; then the chosen stream begins to play.

I understand it takes a while to prepare the other stream for rendering because switching takes place inside the splitter and the required decoding chain is just not there yet immediately. But I was wondering if this behavior could at least be changed to the one used when playing dvds: when i switch angles in windvd it doesnt just stop playing the previous stream - it continues to play the same stream until the new is ready for rendering, then switches. Thus there are no irritating stops in playback when switching angles. And I think mpeg splitter used by windvd works just like oggds - doesnt output all found streams at once but just those that are required.

Another option would be to enable all streams and use an external video stream switcher... I've not heard of any...

So:
- is there a way to improve oggds behavior in this regard?
- is there any other splitter (ogm, mkv, mp4...) with "smooth" switching capability (or with any switching capability)?
- is anyone thinking of creating a standalone video stream switcher (like mmswitch for audio) ..or is there a media player that can do the trick with some built-in filter?
- are there any other solutions for multiangle movie files?

And if you have found any crappy statements above pls make allowance for my being a newbie - correct me ;)

[bond]

first of all there is no standalone video stream switcher for directshow available

the dev of bsplayer once meant he is looking into adding such a feature to his player, but last time i looked for it it wasnt there (maybe this changed already)
another person who once said to look into this is gabest, but he didnt manage to do it easily and gave up

maybe non-directshow players like videolan support this already?

quicktime definitely supports videostream switching of mpeg-4 streams (like divx5) in the .mp4 container
another possibility with .mp4 would be to author some sort of videostream switcher menu with mpeg-4 systems, but its not easily doable

[Vincent Vega]

thanks a lot for the answer. i will try all of these and post the results some time soon.

[Vincent Vega]

this is not my promised summary on exploring the various ways of putting multiple mpeg4 video streams in a movie file - as outlined by bond here. i still hope to come up with that later. but i think a perfect solution is right around the corner.

i tried latest haali's matroska splitter (can be found right there (http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/) ). works just like good old oggds - internal stream switching - but a lot faster, no freezing of the picture for so many seconds while changing video streams, no freezing of playback to death as was also sometimes the case with oggds. unicode chapters. i moved my 2-video stream rip of mylenium tour multiangle dvd from ogm to mkv, also changed chapters to unicode and it works like a charm, nice and easy, just like playing with a multiangle dvd in favorite dvd player.

another amazing thing - the splitter can also work as avi source/splitter giving the same multivideostream viewing functionality even to the old avi container.

bugs seem to remain just a few at first glance. in bsplayer there seemed to be none of them at all. in wmp9/10 seeking bar didn't function in non-fullscreen mode. wmp6.4 seeking was all right but it would freeze for a while on switching video streams.