First of all congratulations on reaching alpha status.
I was wondering if you people are implementing multiple layer support
into the codec. I don't know if it should be in the container (ogg) or
codec (theora) but perhaps the syncing requires at least support in the
codec.
For example a commercial: a cup of hot chocolate with steam escaping.
Little action, low bandwidth. Then comes the rendered animated text
across 'Hot chocolate'. Now the animation interferes with the static
logo on the cup, complex patterns occur and bandwidth use shoots up.
Why? The text animation was an alpha channel put on top and might by
itself even be lower bandwidth then the cup video. Perhaps if the two
video's would remain alpha channel separated the total bandwidth would
be lower.
Some more examples:
'Sorry, we're closed'
'Sorry, we zijn gesloten'
As a conversation goes on the director of a movie ups the suspense by
letting the viewer read a card, a letter, or a report. While the
subtitles are busy translating the conversation the on-screen text is
lost in translation or reduced to a oneliner to fit in, even if done
well it kind of breaks concentration as you must choose what to read.
Would it not be cool to have the possibility to overlay the text of a
scene with a localized version of the text. Using an alpha channel
gives low bandwidth, expressive freedom and streaming choice. Yes, the
stream could name the available language overlay channels and the
streaming client could say no, I don't need that part of the stream.
The overlay track could be called a translation overlay coded 'nl NL'
and 'nl BE' meaning Dutch translation suited for the Netherlands and
Belgium.
Fixing
Some people prefer to have the broadcast logo removed because of
personal preference, because you have a licence to rebroadcast with
your own logo, or because it interferes with subtitles. This may leave
a smudge in the corner and some people may prefer to just see the logo
instead, so the smudge could be on an alpha cannel and the viewer can
decide to use it or not. A removed logo layer. It could also be a
fixing layer, like the removal of the huge JVC logo in Highlander
Endgame Special Edition. If good timecoding is available users could
even share small overlay movies that fix visual bugs in already bought
movies.
Underneath It All
Remember the No Doubt video where the singer straddles and orgasms and
blinks of screen (to that happy place:-) to quickly return back on
screen? Perhaps it would easier for the codec if she would be on a
layer that simply jumps behind the background layer. Perhaps even more
so if the motion in that layer can be frozen in time and continue when
it is brought back to the front.
Also think about rougher videos where the drumsolo makes two different
videos interweave like a flashlight, demanding complete screen redraws
during the entire scene. Would it not be more efficient if you have two
video streams where the player is instructed to franticly hustle them
back to front with a simple rearrangement of the layer stack? Maybe,
but definitely yes if the background video layer can be frozen in time.
If you allow continued play of background layers you could have
integrated parallel video's. A guitar player sits by the camp fire
singing his song about life, which comes to life in MTV style action
sequences. Cool for an MTV broadcast but what if I want the video as
live background picture on my plasma 'painting' on the wall when
receiving visitors, I've only got so many MTV-live DVDs. Well if the
layer of just the singer by the campfire would continue in the
background and the composition would be named 'Default - Action' and
'Romantic' I would have a great live painting on the wall by choosing
'Romantic'.
We can all remember video's with scene reuse, well maybe not if you
don't like electronic music. Would it not be efficient to let the
composition track (sort of like a midi track) know that a scene will be
reused and when a scene is the same as a previous scene. OK, you are
making a streaming codec, but wait what if the scenes are so well
documented in the stream that even though the stream itself is
continuous and can be picked up at many intervals, the player can say
'if you want, you can skip the upcoming scene (video layer) because I
already have it cached and verified as complete' to streaming server.
On the other hand the stored movie as a whole is smaller, while the
streaming server knows to send duplicate scenes always by default as
the client may have had trouble receiving the first time or maybe has
just tuned in.
Censorship
Different cultures have different censorship preferences, American
bible belt prefers not to see female breasts, Dutch start frowning at
genitals and Japanese at pubic hair. Let's just say that MTV Europe is
a strange mix of (un)censorship depending on from who they got a video
and what the target market was. Khia loses lip sync because someone
decided to put the uncensored lyrics under the USA videoclip. Why not
have it all and let the player decide what to play. Multiple layers for
censored and uncensored scenes, bandwidth saved by a composition track
which tells what scenes / layers to show and what can be used in all
movies displayed. Standardized naming of compositions so that a player
can be set to not play obscenities or sound effects today.
Also alpha channel is cool by itself, imagine a loop of a butterfly
flapping on the background of a website, no you grab the movie from
Konqueror and drag it into a dir, while it keeps flapping! Can you
resist taking it for a spin around the screen, of course not, it's
cooler then quicktime movies that continue playing in the Mac OS X dock.
<p>So you are creating an open source alternative, great, my point is that
an alternative becomes a lot more viable if it not only it has feature
parity with better license structure but also has compelling new
features. Which brings me to overscanning, wait this mail is just too
big I'll send another one.
So what do you think? Am I a madman or do I have some good idea's. :-)
Idea's only BTW I can't code.
Greetings,
Dennis SCP
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