Re: [gentoo-user] I want to play movies without hangs [SOLVED, sort of]

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 13 May 2012 17:01:07 -0400
Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Alan McKinnon
> <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, 13 May 2012 14:12:04 -0400
> > Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 4:56 AM, Alan McKinnon
> >> <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > [1] .avi files are notorious for this shit. It's what happens
> >> > when you are Microsoft and you release any old crappy format
> >> > without consulting the other experts out there (who will always
> >> > outnumber you)
> >>
> >> Which better container formats were available at the time AVI was
> >> released (1992)? The only contemporary container format I'm aware
> >> of is RIFF, which came out in 1988. MPEG-1 didn't come out until
> >> 1993, which was the same year the Ogg project started. Real's
> >> stuff didn't come out until 1995. Matroska was announced a decade
> >> later, in 2005.
> >>
> >> Matroska, MP4 and even OGG are nicer container formats, sure, but
> >> they weren't around yet. And even with any of them, it's perfectly
> >> possible to accidentally get A/V desync or stuttering if you don't
> >> mux your streams properly.
> >>
> >> (This post draws heavily on Wikipedia for date information, and
> >> dates may be considered only as accurate as Wikipedia...)
> >>
> >
> > You missed the essence of my post entirely.
> 
> Anti-Microsoft snark? I thought I was calling you on it.
> 

I said .avi is a crappy format, and it is, that much is obvious to
anyone who understands the simple basics of what a container should do.
It would have been obvious to the .avi developers then. And yet it
somehow made it's way to market and got used extensively

You asked what alternatives were available. That is not a question I
asked. It matters nothing that the public used .avi so much (they had
precious little in the way of choice). So whether they had
alternatives or not is irrelevant.

The entire gist of my post was about how .avi as it stands is crappy
and should never have been released by an entity with the engineering
clout of Microsoft as they don't have the excuse of being one dude in
Mom's basement who didn't know better. They really should have known
better.


-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com