[steve at i2it.co.uk: Re: [dvd-discuss] Possible suggestion for LiViD team]

[Tom]

and now for something completely different...


this was an idea on the dvd discuss mailing list. in essence, the
thought was to have an "added value" on the GPL players that the
commercial players do not have - fan provided subtitles. in an external
file that is read by the player. e.g. I'm fairly sure I could do a
better job at translating some parts of the movies I have at home than
the guys who actually did the job. so if I could say "at timestamp X,
display THIS instead of whatever else you'd display otherwise", I could
provide a "better subtitles for xyz" file for download.


----- Forwarded message from Steve Hosgood <steve at i2it.co.uk> -----

Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 10:23:05 +0100
From: "Steve Hosgood" <steve at i2it.co.uk>
To: dvd-discuss at eon.law.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Possible suggestion for LiViD team 

Tom Vogt wrote:
> > ...which will be reverse engineered and incorporated into the GPLed players.
> 
> which will lead to a new lawsuit since it will be a trade secret that
> you have to license. and this time, the player manufacturers will
> likely be in the boat, too.
> 

Unlikely to be a problem. Reverse engineering for compatability is better
proved in court than the problem we're facing with deCSS, where conflict
with DMCA is the issue.

Anyway, the OSS community can work faster than industry. If they set to it and
design a well-thought-out format for timestamped multimedia addons to DVD,
chances are that some of the player manufacturers would choose to support it
before the studios get their version out the door. Hell, the studios might not
even bother competing - it is, after all, outside their normal business
experience.

If this is to prevail, the LiViD and VideoLAN guys need to get talking together
quite soon. The goal (I think) would be to spec an XML-type language
in which chunks of text can be marked up with timestamps and other details
for use as subtitles. Also, as with HTML, there should be the ability to
specify other types of files as if they were 'hotlinks' to allow the injection
of (say) .WAV files or .mp3 files at specified timestamps. That would permit
all the MST3K-type ideas to be done pretty easily.

The start of the file would need to specify the serial-number of the DVD(s)
with which the addon file needs to work, along with some way of identifying
which point of the movie is to be regarded as the zero-datum for the
timestamps in the addon file.

It would be very nice if the timestamps were not absolute, but each relative
to the previous one. This would allow the editing of the addon file's contents
to cope more quickly with alternative versions of the same movie. (Like for
instance taking the addon file for an R1 disk, and adapting it to work with
a disk for a different region).

Also, chunks of addon file content could be selectively skipped if the DVD is
the director's cut, not the ordinary one.

Whatever (Tom and others) you need to get ideas like this nailed down quite
quickly. The studios are reading this forum for sure, and the race is already
on. Even if the internet standard for these addons is not perfect, as long as
it gets out first then if the studios choose to compete, they'll look like
they're copying ideas from the very place that's supposed to harbour their
enemies! Good P.R for the OSS camp if so!

--

Steve                                       |
S.Hosgood at swansea.ac.uk                     | "A good plan today is better
Phone: +44 1792 540009 + ask for Steve      |   than a perfect plan tomorrow"
Fax:   +44 1792 295811                      |              - Conrad Brean
--------------------------------------------+
        http://tallyho.bc.nu/~steve         |  ( from the film "Wag the Dog" )



----- End forwarded message -----

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