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Topic: Complete Music CD in one matroska file (Read 10220 times) previous topic - next topic
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Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Hi,

recent progress of mkvmerge, as well as the installer packs make it now possible to pack a complete Music CD, with

- one huge FLAC audio stream
- songs divided as chapters
- covers and booklets as JPEG attachements

possible.

Here is the Bittorrent Link to a new sample file we made, we call it 'Christmas Surprise' because its well Christmas related  ....

To play it back, you need either jccston's fb2k matroska plugin ( i hope Peter will finish his Vorbis and FLAC packet decoders soon ) or the latest DirectShow playback 'matroska full pack' from http://packs.matroska.org . Its coming with a DShow FLAC decoder filter, and the matroska splitter will now recognize the codec ID for native FLAC and call the decoder when the playback graph is built ( this wont work with older splitters, so you need the latest one ).

To get access to the covers and booklets, you need the matroska shell extension . Right click on the file in explorer, and goto 'properties' 'attachements' ....

EDIT : I forgot to say that of course you can use any supported audio compression format you like for that, not only FLAC, be it

- MP3
- AAC
- HE AAC
- Vorbis
- FLAC
- AC3
- DTS
- MP2 ( maybe buggy ? )
- RealAudio ( Cook, ATRAC, RALF, etc. )

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #1 –
Chris... also do not forget The Core Media Player already supports this. Although  you need to use the 'Media Streams' to switch tracks ATM. To access the picture attachment do this by right clicking the file in the ML, goto file properties, goto attachment tab and there is the attachment.

We are going to add additional keyboard shortcuts for MKA chapters as well as the ability to show .MKA picture attachments automatically in our next release.
Dan "BetaBoy" Marlin
Founder CoreCodec
The Future of Audio/Video Development and Technology

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #2 –
Not working for me. I have windows 98. I have tried it in windows media player classic and foobar. I used flac and wav inside the matroska file. I couldn't play the flac one in foobar and in windows media player classic the sound was corrupted. The wav one sounded corrupted in foobar. I installed both the jccston's fb2k matroska plugin and the DirectShow playback 'matroska full pack'.

I haven't tested the sample file because I am on dialup.

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #3 –
Quote
Not working for me. I have windows 98. I have tried it in windows media player classic and foobar. I used flac and wav inside the matroska file.

In fact, i was told i am talking rubbish. With the current version of jcsston's fb2k plugin only MP3, AAC and maybe meanwhile Vorbis will work, because Peter has to make new 'packet decoders' so that he can decode audio streams stored in matroska. Sorry about this, it seems i dont really understand how fb2k is working yet

Quote
I couldn't play the flac one in foobar and in windows media player classic the sound was corrupted. The wav one sounded corrupted in foobar. I installed both the jccston's fb2k matroska plugin and the DirectShow playback 'matroska full pack'.


If you are using Media Player Classic, make sure to disable the internal matroska splitter, so that it will use the external, new splitter filter. Or try with WMP6.4 or TCMP.

Quote
I haven't tested the sample file because I am on dialup.
... well, roughly 300 MB via dialup is maybe not a good idea, i agree  ....

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #4 –
Quote
In fact, i was told i am talking rubbish. With the current version of jcsston's fb2k plugin only MP3, AAC and maybe meanwhile Vorbis will work, because Peter has to make new 'packet decoders' so that he can decode audio streams stored in matroska. Sorry about this, it seems i dont really understand how fb2k is working yet

jcsston just told me this on IRC :

<jcsston> ChrisHJW: The mka fb2k plugin can playback FLAC, I wrote a packet_decoder patch for the foo_flac plugin and it is included in the foobar2000 0.7.6 on Case's site.


so, it SHOULD work ? Anybody having success playing the file ?

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #5 –
ok, i was doing the impossible and installed fb2k on my machine .... just pray for me that Blacksun doesnt read this here, he will kill me  !!

The file plays perfect, but you need the beta installer from Case's site, it has the very latest matroska plugin with the FLAC patch ....

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #6 –
Thanx! Now it's working! In both foobar2k and media player classic, without disabling the internal matroska splitter for the second one:o

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #7 –
I have been hosting a file on my site for demonstration purposes of this plugin.  Its using very low bitrate MP3, but it gives you an idea.
ELiZA WREN - Living on the Outside.mka (4.7MB)

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #8 –
Wow...
I'm downloading the 300mb deal now.  I'm not sure I would use this (kind of like the ability to play one song off of one album without opening that whole album) but it does really show off the extensibility of the matroska format.  Very Impressive!

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #9 –
Can't the OGM container already do all of this?

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #10 –
Quote
Can't the OGM container already do all of this?

You cant mux FLAC into OGM right now, even if there is OggFLAC, simply because the OGM muxing tools have no idea about FLAC at all. On the other hand, Ogg itself has no chapters, only OGM has.

jcsston's CoreFLAC DirectShow encoder can encode FLAC into OGM just like any other ACM audio track, with a wFormat tag, but this has nothing to do with the official Xiph CoreFLAC implementation, and the files will not play with the other Xiph parsers.

Also, OGM has no way to add attachement files for the covers and booklets .....

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #11 –
Quote
Can't the OGM container already do all of this?

AFAIK the QuickTime file format has been able to do this for a couple of years, too.

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #12 –
Quote
Can't the OGM container already do all of this?

You can attach images in OGM?  What about the orignal CUE sheet and TOC?  Perhaps I should look at the specs...oh wait, it doesn't have any.  Remember, OGM != Ogg.  Ogg doesn't even have an official tagging system.  All they have is a text based Comments section that you put whatever you want into it.  Kudos for flexibility, but what if another program uses it some completely different way?  Blam, incompatibility.

I could keep going, but the big place that Ogg has the advantage is when storing/streaming low bitrate Vorbis, Ogg SHOULD have less overhead.
Quote
AFAIK the QuickTime file format has been able to do this for a couple of years, too.
Quicktime is basically the opposite of Ogg in this respect.  You could in fact do all of these things in .MOV.  The problem is that it is a proprietary format that has very little support anywhere.  How many tools will read/write QT?  How many of those tools will let you attach pictures and other random files to the audio file? How about using one of those files as a thumnail for the file?  What about storing FLAC in it? 

No, Matroska is really the only acceptable solution here.  (Excluding of course the possibility of putting an audio file, CUE sheet, and other files in a single ZIP file.  But thats not really the same is it.)

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #13 –
I am using the matroska shell extension version 2.3 and it crashes every time that I try to save the attachments of the mka file. The attachements are a jpg and a txt file.

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #14 –
Okay... you say it works, but you don't give out a link? Come on!!! I've been looking for this for months! I downloaded the ELiZA WREN sample and it looks fantastic (though FB2K errored on the MP3 playback). The Christmas Surprise sample doesn't download for me. I only get 22k.
[span style=\'font-size:8pt;line-height:100%\']I wouldn't know a subtle hint if it stood on my desk in a purple dress dancing and singing, "Subtle hints are here again!"[/span]

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #15 –
I wonder why it would produce an MP3 error?  Do you have the latest fb2k install?

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #16 –
No. Had 0.7.4. Updated to 0.7.6 and it plays. However, it still leaves me without mkvmerge so I can't merge my stuff yet.

<whine>
<whimper>
[span style=\'font-size:8pt;line-height:100%\']I wouldn't know a subtle hint if it stood on my desk in a purple dress dancing and singing, "Subtle hints are here again!"[/span]

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #17 –
Quote
Quote
AFAIK the QuickTime file format has been able to do this for a couple of years, too.
Quicktime is basically the opposite of Ogg in this respect.  You could in fact do all of these things in .MOV.  The problem is that it is a proprietary format that has very little support anywhere.  How many tools will read/write QT?

I'm sorry, but it's just not true that the QuickTime File Format, or QTFF, is proprietary. There are several independent implementations of QTFF, and Apple has a public specification on their web site. Yes, the most common implementation is proprietary, but the format itself isn't. I have mentioned in previous threads the Apple-independent implementations in FFmpeg, MPlayer, OpenQuickTime, OpenQT and 3ivx. Other than that, Apple has an open source library called QTFile as part of Darwin Streaming Server, although I don't know much about it. There are several implementations available of QTFF, and some of them are actually in very widespread use.

Quote
How many of those tools will let you attach pictures and other random files to the audio file? How about using one of those files as a thumnail for the file?  What about storing FLAC in it?

None, I believe. The lack of FLAC support is probably due to the ugliness of the QuickTIme API  The other features, however, could be probably be implemented, but I'd say the demand is limited.

Quote
No, Matroska is really the only acceptable solution here.  (Excluding of course the possibility of putting an audio file, CUE sheet, and other files in a single ZIP file.  But thats not really the same is it.)

This is your own, subjective opinion. I'm just saying that another alternative could be using a much more common file format.

BTW, does anyone know if it is (theoretically) possible to do this with the MP4 file format?

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #18 –
Quote
The Christmas Surprise sample doesn't download for me. I only get 22k.


The 22k file is probably the .torrent file.  Do you have a BitTorrent program installed?  http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #19 –
I can recommend burst!! as bittorent client, works like a charm for me ....
 

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #20 –
Quote
I'm sorry, but it's just not true that the QuickTime File Format, or QTFF, is proprietary. There are several independent implementations of QTFF, and Apple has a public specification on their web site. Yes, the most common implementation is proprietary, but the format itself isn't.

Just because there is public documentation and alternative libraries does not mean that it isn't proprietary.  Quicktime is proprietary.  To help understand, you must remember that things like MP3 are proprietary also.

But my point was that there isn't any application support for what we are talking about.  I know about the QT support in several applications, but there isn't any existing support for the topic on hand.
Quote
BTW, does anyone know if it is (theoretically) possible to do this with the MP4 file format?
MP4 is essentially a limited subset of the QT format, so yes.  If you can do it with quicktime, you could do it with MP4, just with a limited number of codecs.  In other words, you could make a legitimate MP4 file using AAC and chapters.

Complete Music CD in one matroska file

Reply #21 –
Well, except that QT chapters aren't part of the MP4 spec (of course, you could still use them I suppose)