Idea - Darkplaces support for playing video files on brushes

[divVerent]

Matroska is just a container format. Even AVI can be freely used, as it is just so simple that patents can't possibly be in its way.

The problem is the codecs, not the container format. Except that the container format sometimes restricts the choice of codecs:

• AVI does not allow Vorbis audio (there is simply no codec number for it). Because of this, AVI files almost always use MP3 as audio codec. The only viable AVI-supported audio codec is PCM (uncompressed).
• OGM and OGV don't allow MP3 audio (but Vorbis audio would be used instead).

[Alien]

Matroska can support anything, the problem is video because of U.S. it seems we can't use neither x264 nor xvid, only theora.

Btw, what is darplaces dpv video format? Something based on demo format or more bik (bink video file) like?

[MirceaKitsune]

Matroska is just a container format. Even AVI can be freely used, as it is just so simple that patents can't possibly be in its way.

The problem is the codecs, not the container format. Except that the container format sometimes restricts the choice of codecs:

• AVI does not allow Vorbis audio (there is simply no codec number for it). Because of this, AVI files almost always use MP3 as audio codec. The only viable AVI-supported audio codec is PCM (uncompressed).
• OGM and OGV don't allow MP3 audio (but Vorbis audio would be used instead).

In a worst case scenario, video files could only play the image without their audio if the audio couldn't be hearable from the screen's location. Video + audio would be best preferred but in games which use screens you often just see the video on them so if that wouldn't work this could be something at least.

[divVerent]

Audio is the smallest problem here.

[torus]

Good question, what IS dpv?

[[-z-]]

Good question, what IS dpv?

DPV stands for dark places video, the original intro video used this format. I'm not sure how to create it.

[divVerent]

It's a video-only format, and only usable for very short clips, as it does not compress well. On the other hand, it is free.

[SavageX]

But as long as nobody uses that format except for some weirdos, we can't expect good (and usable, even for Windows and Mac users) encoding tools for it to appear.

ffmpeg2theora isn't exactly difficult to use and there *are* GUI frontends for it. It's for sure much more reasonable to use than the DPV encoder

And right, Ogg Theora (and theoretically Dirac, too) are the only available free video codecs out there (XviD and x264 are open sourced, but not free due to patents). That's why Wikipedia uses Theora for all moving content, Archive.org has versions in Theora for all films and Firefox will play Ogg Theora out of the box beginning with version 3.1.

Anyway, the biggest problem wouldn't be the choice for a format (there aren't many free formats to choose from) but the actual implementation. I wouldn't bet that DP's renderer can just stream textures to arbitrary surfaces of the world.

[Alien]

I took a look and dirac is royalty free so not suitable either. There is LGPL'ed Snow and Tarkin.

[Taiyo.uk]

Dirac is GPL-compatible, and there are several GPL/LGPL/MPL implementations out there. The problem with x264 et al is not the license the code is released under but the patents that cover the algorithms that the code implements. Dirac and Theora have been developed to remain clear of any such patents.

Dirac is somewhat more CPU-intensive being wavelet based than the DCT based Theora though. Any long/high resolution videos will bloat the .pk3 sizes, but a 256*256 res video a few minutes long could still be practical.

Remember RoQ video in Q3A?

Further info:

BBC R&D Dirac page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/index.shtml
Wikipedia article on Dirac: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_(codec)
Dirac site: http://diracvideo.org/

Theora page at xiph: http://www.theora.org/
Wikipedia article on Theora: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora