changeset 27737:3bc7a4a22f2d

Remove section about containers. Its contents are non-informative, redundant, outdated and generally not worth the trouble.

--- a/DOCS/xml/en/containers.xml	Tue Oct 14 21:15:59 2008 +0000
+++ /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
@@ -1,520 +0,0 @@
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
-<!-- $Revision$ -->
-<chapter id="containers">
-<title>Containers</title>
-
-<para>
-It is important to clarify a common mistake. When people see a file with a
-<filename>.AVI</filename> extension, they immediately conclude that it is
-not an MPEG file.  That is not true. At least not entirely. Contrary to
-popular belief such a file <emphasis>can</emphasis> contain MPEG-1 video.
-</para>
-
-<para>
-You see, a <emphasis role="bold">codec</emphasis> is not the same as a
-<emphasis role="bold">container format</emphasis>.
-Examples of video <emphasis role="bold">codecs</emphasis> are: MPEG-1, MPEG-2,
-MPEG-4 (DivX), Indeo5, 3ivx.
-Examples of container <emphasis role="bold">formats</emphasis> are:
-MPG, AVI, ASF.
-</para>
-
-<para>
-In theory, you can put an OpenDivX video and MP3 audio
-into an <emphasis role="bold">MPG container</emphasis>. However, most
-players will not play it, since they expect MPEG-1 video and MP2 audio (unlike
-<emphasis role="bold">AVI</emphasis>, <emphasis role="bold">MPG</emphasis>
-does not have the necessary fields to describe its video and audio streams).
-Or you might put MPEG-1 video into an AVI file.
-<ulink url="http://ffmpeg.org/">FFmpeg</ulink> and
-<link linkend="mencoder"><application>MEncoder</application></link>
-can create these files.
-</para>
-
-
-<!-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -->
-
-
-<sect1 id="video-formats">
-<title>Video formats</title>
-
-<sect2 id="mpg-vob-dat">
-<title>MPEG files</title>
-
-<para>
-MPEG files come in different guises:
-</para>
-
-<itemizedlist>
-<listitem><para>
-  MPG: This is the most <emphasis role="bold">basic</emphasis> form of the
-  MPEG file formats. It contains MPEG-1 video, and MP2 (MPEG-1 layer 2) or
-  rarely MP1 audio.
-</para></listitem>
-<listitem><para>
-  DAT: This is the very same format as MPG with a different extension. It
-  is used on <emphasis role="bold">Video CDs</emphasis>. Due to the way VCDs
-  are created and Linux is designed, the DAT files cannot be played nor copied
-  from VCDs as regular files. You have to use <option>vcd://</option>
-  to play a Video CD.
-</para></listitem>
-<listitem><para>
-  VOB: This is the MPEG file format on <emphasis role="bold">DVDs</emphasis>.
-  It is the same as MPG, plus the capability to contain subtitles or non-MPEG
-  (AC-3) audio. It contains encoded MPEG-2 video and usually AC-3 audio, but DTS,
-  MP2 and uncompressed LPCM are allowed, too. <emphasis role="bold">Read the
-  <link linkend="dvd">DVD</link> section</emphasis>!
-</para></listitem>
-<listitem><para>
-  TY: This is a TiVo MPEG stream. It contains MPEG PES data for audio and
-  video streams, as well as extra information like closed captions. The
-  container is not an MPEG program stream, but a closed format created by
-  TiVo. For more information on TiVo stream format, please refer to
-  <ulink url="http://dvd-create.sourceforge.net/tystudio/tystream.shtml">
-  the TyStudio page</ulink>.
-</para></listitem>
-</itemizedlist>
-
-<para>
-Series of frames form independent groups in MPEG files. This means that you
-can cut/join an MPEG file with standard file tools (like
-<command>dd</command>, <command>cut</command>), and it remains completely
-functional.
-</para>
-
-<para>
-One important feature of MPEG files is that they have a field to describe the
-aspect ratio of the video stream within. For example SVCDs have 480x480
-resolution video, and in the header that field is set to 4:3, so that it is
-played at 640x480. AVI files often lack this field, so they have to be
-rescaled during encoding or played with the <option>-aspect</option>
-option.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="avi">
-<title>AVI files</title>
-
-<para>
-Designed by Microsoft,
-<emphasis role="bold">AVI (Audio Video Interleaved)</emphasis>
-is a widespread multipurpose format currently used mostly for MPEG-4 (DivX and
-DivX4) video. It has many known drawbacks and shortcomings (for example in
-streaming).
-It supports one video stream and 0 to 99 audio streams and can be as big as
-2GB, but there exists an extension allowing bigger files called
-<emphasis role="bold">OpenDML</emphasis>. Microsoft currently strongly
-discourages its use and encourages ASF/WMV. Not that anybody cares.
-</para>
-
-<para>
-There is a hack that allows AVI files to contain an Ogg Vorbis audio
-stream, but makes them incompatible with standard AVI.
-<application>MPlayer</application> supports playing these files. Seeking is
-also implemented but severely hampered by badly encoded files with
-confusing headers. Unfortunately the only encoder currently capable of
-creating these files, <application>NanDub</application>, has this problem.
-</para>
-
-<note><para>
-DV cameras create raw DV streams that DV grabbing utilities convert to two
-different types of AVI files. The AVI will then contain either separate
-audio and video streams that <application>MPlayer</application> can play or
-the raw DV stream for which support is under development.
-</para></note>
-
-<para>
-There are two kinds of AVI files:
-<itemizedlist>
-<listitem><para>
-  <emphasis role="bold">Interleaved:</emphasis> Audio and video content is
-  interleaved. This is the standard usage. Recommended and mostly used. Some
-  tools create interleaved AVIs with bad sync.
-  <application>MPlayer</application> detects these as interleaved, and this
-  climaxes in loss of A/V sync, probably at seeking.
-  These files should be played as non-interleaved
-  (with the <option>-ni</option> option).
-</para></listitem>
-<listitem><para>
-  <emphasis role="bold">Non-interleaved:</emphasis> First comes the whole
-  video stream, then the whole audio stream. It thus needs a lot of seeking,
-  making playing from network or CD-ROM difficult.
-</para></listitem>
-</itemizedlist>
-</para>
-
-<para>
-<application>MPlayer</application> supports two kinds of timings for AVI
-files:
-<itemizedlist>
-<listitem><para>
-  <emphasis role="bold">bps-based:</emphasis> It is based on the
-  bitrate/samplerate of the video/audio stream. This method is used by
-  most players, including <ulink url="http://avifile.sf.net">avifile</ulink>
-  and <application>Windows Media Player</application>. Files with broken
-  headers, and files created with VBR audio but not VBR-compliant encoder
-  will result in A/V desync with this method (mostly at seeking).
-</para></listitem>
-<listitem><para>
-  <emphasis role="bold">interleaving-based:</emphasis> It does not use the
-  bitrate value of the header, instead it uses the relative position of
-  interleaved audio and video chunks,
-  making badly encoded files with VBR audio playable.
-</para></listitem>
-</itemizedlist>
-</para>
-
-<para>
-Any audio and video codec is allowed, but note that VBR audio is not well
-supported by most players. The file format makes it possible to use VBR
-audio, but most players expect CBR audio, thus they fail with VBR. VBR is
-uncommon and Microsoft's AVI specs only describe CBR audio. I also noticed
-that most AVI encoders/multiplexers create bad files when using VBR audio.
-There are only two known exceptions: <application>NanDub</application> and
-<link linkend="mencoder"><application>MEncoder</application></link>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="asf-wmv">
-<title>ASF/WMV files</title>
-
-<para>
-ASF (Active Streaming Format) comes from Microsoft. They developed two
-variants of ASF, v1.0 and v2.0. v1.0 is used by their media tools
-(<application>Windows Media Player</application> and
-<application>Windows Media Encoder</application>)
-and is very secret. v2.0 is published and patented :). Of course they differ,
-there is no compatibility at all (it is just another legal game).
-<application>MPlayer</application> supports only v1.0, as nobody has ever seen
-v2.0 files :). Note that ASF files nowadays come with the extension
-<filename>.WMA</filename> or <filename>.WMV</filename>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="mov">
-<title>QuickTime/MOV files</title>
-
-<para>
-These formats were designed by Apple and can contain any codec, CBR or VBR.
-They usually have a <filename>.QT</filename> or <filename>.MOV</filename>
-extension. Note that since the MPEG-4 group chose QuickTime as the recommended
-file format for MPEG-4, their MOV files come with a <filename>.MPG</filename> or
-<filename>.MP4</filename> extension (Interestingly the video and audio
-streams in these files are real MPG and AAC files. You can even extract them
-with the <option>-dumpvideo</option> and <option>-dumpaudio</option> options.).
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="vivo">
-<title>VIVO files</title>
-
-<para>
-<application>MPlayer</application> happily demuxes VIVO file formats. The
-biggest disadvantage of the format is that it has no index block, nor a
-fixed packet size or sync bytes and most files lack even keyframes, so
-forget seeking!
-</para>
-
-<para>
-The video codec of VIVO/1.0 files is standard
-<emphasis role="bold">h.263</emphasis>.
-The video codec of VIVO/2.0 files is a modified, nonstandard
-<emphasis role="bold">h.263v2</emphasis>. The audio is the same, it may be
-<emphasis role="bold">g.723 (standard)</emphasis>, or
-<emphasis role="bold">Vivo Siren</emphasis>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="fli">
-<title>FLI files</title>
-
-<para>
-<emphasis role="bold">FLI</emphasis> is a very old file format used by
-Autodesk Animator, but it is a common file format for short animations on the
-net.
-<application>MPlayer</application> demuxes and decodes FLI movies and is
-even able to seek within them (useful when looping with the
-<option>-loop</option> option). FLI files do not have keyframes, so the
-picture will be messy for a short time after seeking.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="realmedia">
-<title>RealMedia (RM) files</title>
-
-<para>
-Yes, <application>MPlayer</application> can read (demux) RealMedia
-(<filename>.rm</filename>) files.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="nuppelvideo">
-<title>NuppelVideo files</title>
-
-<para>
-NuppelVideo
-is a TV grabber tool (AFAIK:). <application>MPlayer</application> can read
-its <filename>.NUV</filename> files (only NuppelVideo 5.0). Those files can
-contain uncompressed YV12, YV12+RTJpeg compressed, YV12 RTJpeg+lzo
-compressed, and YV12+lzo compressed frames.
-<application>MPlayer</application> decodes (and also
-<emphasis role="bold">encodes</emphasis>
-them with <application>MEncoder</application> to MPEG-4 (DivX)/etc!) them all.
-Seeking works.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="yuv4mpeg">
-<title>yuv4mpeg files</title>
-
-<para>
-<ulink url="http://mjpeg.sf.net">yuv4mpeg / yuv4mpeg2</ulink>
-is a file format used by the
-<ulink url="http://mjpeg.sf.net">mjpegtools programs</ulink>.
-You can grab, produce, filter or encode video in this format using these tools.
-The file format is really a sequence of uncompressed YUV 4:2:0 images.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="film">
-<title>FILM files</title>
-
-<para>
-This format is used on old Sega Saturn CD-ROM games.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="roq">
-<title>RoQ files</title>
-
-<para>
-RoQ files are multimedia files used in some ID games such as Quake III and
-Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="ogg">
-<title>OGG/OGM files</title>
-
-<para>
-This is a new file format from the
-<ulink url="http://www.xiph.org">Xiph.Org Foundation</ulink>.
-It can contain any video or audio codec, CBR or VBR. You'll need
-<systemitem class="library">libogg</systemitem> and
-<systemitem class="library">libvorbis</systemitem> installed before
-compiling <application>MPlayer</application> to be able to play it.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="sdp">
-<title>SDP files</title>
-
-<para>
-<ulink url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2327.txt">SDP</ulink> is an
-IETF standard format for describing video and/or audio RTP streams.
-(The "<ulink url="http://www.live555.com/mplayer/">LIVE555 Streaming Media</ulink>"
-are required.)
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="pva">
-<title>PVA files</title>
-
-<para>
-PVA is an MPEG-like format used by DVB TV boards' software (e.g.:
-<application>MultiDec</application>,
-<application>WinTV</application> under Windows).
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="nsv">
-<title>NSV files</title>
-
-<para>
-NSV (NullSoft Video) is the file format used by the
-<application>Winamp</application> player to stream audio and video.
-Video is VP3, VP5 or VP6, audio is MP3, AAC or VLB.
-The audio only version of NSV has the <filename>.nsa</filename> extension.
-<application>MPlayer</application> can play both NSV streams and files.
-Please note that most files from the
-<ulink url="http://www.winamp.com">Winamp site</ulink> use VLB audio, that
-can't be decoded yet. Moreover streams from that site need an extra
-depacketization layer that still has to be implemented (those files are
-unplayable anyway because they use VLB audio).
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="matroska">
-<title>Matroska files</title>
-
-<para>
-Matroska is an open container format.
-Read more on the <ulink url="http://www.matroska.org/">official site</ulink>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="nut">
-<title>NUT files</title>
-
-<para>
-NUT is the container format developed by <application>MPlayer</application> and
-<application>FFmpeg</application> folks. Both projects support it.
-Read more on the <ulink url="http://www.nut-container.org/">official
-site</ulink>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="gif">
-<title>GIF files</title>
-
-<para>
-The <emphasis role="bold">GIF</emphasis> format is a common format for web
-graphics. There are two versions of the GIF spec, GIF87a and GIF89a.
-The main difference is that GIF89a allows for animation.
-<application>MPlayer</application> supports both formats through use of
-<systemitem class="library">libungif</systemitem> or
-another libgif-compatible library. Non-animated GIFs will be displayed as
-single frame videos. (Use the <option>-loop</option> and
-<option>-fixed-vo</option> options to display these longer.)
-</para>
-
-<para>
-<application>MPlayer</application> currently does not support seeking in GIF
-files. GIF files do not necessarily have a fixed frame size, nor a fixed
-framerate. Rather, each frame is of independent size and is supposed to be
-positioned in a certain place on a field of fixed-size. The framerate is
-controlled by an optional block before each frame that specifies the next
-frame's delay in centiseconds.
-</para>
-
-<para>
-Standard GIF files contain 24-bit RGB frames with at most an 8-bit indexed
-palette. These frames are usually LZW-compressed, although some GIF encoders
-produce uncompressed frames to avoid patent issues with LZW compression.
-</para>
-
-<para>
-If your distribution does not come with
-<systemitem class="library">libungif</systemitem>, download a copy from the
-<ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libungif">libungif
-homepage</ulink>. For detailed technical information, have a look at the
-<ulink url="http://www.w3.org/Graphics/GIF/spec-gif89a.txt">GIF89a specification</ulink>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-</sect1>
-
-
-<!-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -->
-
-
-<sect1 id="audio-formats">
-<title>Audio formats</title>
-
-<para>
-<application>MPlayer</application> is a <emphasis role="bold">movie</emphasis>
-and not a <emphasis role="bold">media</emphasis> player, although it can play
-some audio file formats (they are listed in the sections below).  This is not
-a recommended usage of <application>MPlayer</application>, you better use <ulink
-url="http://www.xmms.org">XMMS</ulink>.
-</para>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="mp3">
-<title>MP3 files</title>
-
-<para>
-You may have problems playing certain MP3 files that
-<application>MPlayer</application> will misdetect as MPEGs and play
-incorrectly or not at all. This cannot be fixed without dropping support
-for certain broken MPEG files and thus will remain like this for the
-foreseeable future. The <option>-demuxer</option> flag described in the
-man page may help you in these cases.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="ogg-vorbis">
-<title>OGG/OGM files (Vorbis)</title>
-
-<para>
-Requires properly installed
-<systemitem class="library">libogg</systemitem> and
-<systemitem class="library">libvorbis</systemitem>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="cdda">
-<title>CD audio</title>
-
-<para>
-<application>MPlayer</application> can use <application>cdparanoia</application>
-to play CDDA (Audio CD). The scope of this section does not contain enumerating
-<application>cdparanoia</application>'s features.
-</para>
-
-<para>
-See the man page's <option>-cdda</option> option which can be used to pass
-options to <application>cdparanoia</application>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ********** -->
-
-<sect2 id="xmms">
-<title>XMMS</title>
-
-<para>
-<application>MPlayer</application> can use <application>XMMS</application> input
-plugins to play many file formats. There are plugins for SNES game tunes, SID
-tunes (from Commodore 64), many Amiga formats, .xm, .it, VQF, Musepack, Bonk,
-shorten and many others. You can find them at the
-<ulink url="http://www.xmms.org/plugins.php?category=input">XMMS input plugin page</ulink>.
-</para>
-
-<para>
-For this feature you need to have <application>XMMS</application> and compile
-<application>MPlayer</application> with
-<filename>./configure --enable-xmms</filename>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-</sect1>
-
-</chapter>

--- a/DOCS/xml/en/documentation.xml	Tue Oct 14 21:15:59 2008 +0000
+++ b/DOCS/xml/en/documentation.xml	Tue Oct 14 21:41:25 2008 +0000
@@ -168,7 +168,6 @@
 &cd-dvd.xml;
 &faq.xml;
 
-&containers.xml;
 &codecs.xml;
 &video.xml;
 &audio.xml;