Ordinarily, I disdain overpriced gourmet food stores (in fact, I research my own low-cost knock-offs). Though I will still browse through them. And I actually caved and bought this item because I thought it would be an appropriate addition to my extensive collection of CD-ROM media:
You might think I would hear about these things sooner. Here is a project that has been around since last May that I just learned about yesterday:
From what I gather based on the website, it is a container format that allows complete encapsulation of a DVD for internet distribution. It can retain menus, navigation, subtitles, special features, etc. It apparently also transcodes video to a custom format named XEB. It also uses some custom variant of the Dolby AC-3 codec called AC-3 VS (virtual surround). These details are a bit sketchy since there is not much code available. The developer claims to want to work with the Linux community to come up with a suitable playback solution.
My first impulse at seeing this was similar to my reaction towards Matroska: Special Microsoft operatives attempting to distract open source multimedia hackers from focusing on more important matters. Not to be outdone in the more-work-for-the-community department, the Matroska developers have a draft of a similarly capable system.
An impromptu search on BitTorrent networks reveals that people are already pressing ratDVD into service for its stated purpose, e.g., making available for P2P distribution such niche-interest media content as Star Wars Episode III and full seasons of 24. So I imagine the demand for this format will eventually grow.
I just learned that a new version of DivX (version 6) is available when I found a file on BitTorrent that mentioned DivX6 in the filename. Fortunately, the file uses the fourcc DX50 which implies that the bitstream syntax is the same as the previous version. Version 6 of the encoder likely features general improvements to the encoding engine but packs the data into the same bitstream (which is apparently compatible with ISO MPEG-4). The DX50 data decodes fine with FFmpeg.
In my multimedia research I have purchased a lot of used video games and investigated a lot of full motion video (FMV) formats. Some of the material is beyond appalling. But I have finally found the cheesiest FMV of all:
Quite good, too.