[Techtalk] Open Standard for Video Streaming

[Sujita Purushothaman]

Alvin Goats wrote:

> >     What are the current standards for video streaming?
> > Do we have a open standard? What are the apps
> > available on Linux for this? What are the issues?
>
> Video streaming is not really standardized, even though a few companies
> try ;)
>
> Microsoft asf, mpeg, vivo, RealMedia and Quicktime are the most common I
> know of. As for a "standard", not really. There are some closed source
> efforts going on to force everyone to formats that restrict you to
> certain operating systems (guess which ones...) and there are some open
> source efforts as well.
>
> There is one that I heard about that involves the makers of cinelerra
> for the video codec and ogg vorbis for the audio codec.
>
> Their efforts are to avoid mpeg audio (mp3) with the patent issues
> currently going on, and to have a video codec that is license free. I
> think their efforts are along the same lines of the Independant JPEG
> Group with the release of the JFIF format for jpeg compression and the
> consequent mpeg compression based on the JFIF format. The IJPEGG became
> the ipso facto standard because there was soooo many images in their
> format that the proprietary formats (including the one that uses the
> patented compression format that causes a lot of trouble with viewing
> images) fell to the wayside.
>
> As for viewing streaming video:
>
> mtv (shareware mpeg player, US $10 the last time I bought)
>
> mplayer (from Hungary, docs literally suck, but if you persevere,
> extremely good for many different formats: realplayer, mpeg, .asf, .mov,
> vivo, .qt, ...)
>
> RealPlayer (free to download, plays realaudio and realvideo)
>
> These players can stream, though mplayer is still tricky to use as a
> streaming viewer.
>
> Hope this helps some.

Does a lot. Once again, proves that asking a question at Linuxchix
is the best way to get intelligent responses.

On a side note, itm ade me start thinking of the necessity of open
standards. With biotechnology making good progress and all, I don't
want my gene map to be stored on an Oracle database and give
Oracle unrestricted access to it, or probably, one fine day, say that it's
retracting all it's products..and poof!  there goes my genetic secrets :-D

Rgds,
Sujita