OSTA Announces MultiPhoto/Video Specification 48
krazyninja writes "The Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA), and the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), have announced the release of v1.0 MultiPhoto/Video specs. This specifies a standard framework for storing and managing digital image content on CDs/DVDs. Companies such as HP and Roxio are involved in this development. Note that there is a similar spec for audio called MultiAudio, also from OSTA."
anti piracy too ? (Score:1, Interesting)
or that would be the headache of the recording companies or whoever employ this technology
But will it work? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But will it work? (Score:1)
MPV includes support for the following file types: JPEG, MP3, Windows Media Audio, Windows Media Video, MPEG 1,2 and 4 plus popular digital camera formats AVI and QuickTime MJPEG Video...
Re:But will it work? (Score:2)
things like which codec to use are separate. For stills it is all jpeg or successor, with whatever music you want.
I've been thinking about a scrapbook standard.. (Score:4, Interesting)
My mother, gave my sister, the family foto album.. now I have it, and I'm in the process of digitizing it...
all of my kids, will have copies (albeit digital) and with video clips, and with audio snippets... and their children (presumably) will, and so on.. how about a standard, that saves these scrapbooks, so they can be merged easily..
Fictionalized example- I use kodaks 'scraps' program, and give my son a 500 gig optical disk with everything.. he meets and marries in due time a woman who's family chose to use polaroids 'memories' they buy one or the other, and just 'merge' the memories.. they can hand each child a copy issued custom to them.. with added material.. (lables for photos now say great grandparent in stead of grandparent, et'cetera..)
of course, it has to be open format, something that allows new technologies to add gracefully (a hologram or other 3-d memory)
a starting point (Score:2)
Here's a practical start. Check out igal [stanford.edu], which generates and publishs an entire online picture show (HTML slides, thumbnails and index page included) with just one command line invocation. HTML is open and easy to parse, not to mention edit by hand to add those custom touches. You can build your classes of relationships external to the archive itself to merge things as you wish or simply make new indexes to the images.
I'm crurrently building html indexes of my files. It's easy enough to put friends and family into seperate directories then family names in seperate directories under family then link events by hand elsewhere. Such segmentation helps at archive time and adding to it is as easy as dropping a new directory. Good organization makes itself felt in any media, paper or digital.
Re:I've been thinking about a scrapbook standard.. (Score:1)
.jpg for photos
.mpg for videos
.wav for audio (or .mp3 or .ogg)
HTML for the organization and presentation of all this.
Why in the world would you need a kodak "scraps" program and a polaroid "memories" program, etc.etc.?
Hmmm... what kind of DRM nasties are in this? (Score:3, Interesting)
I smell trouble. I smell lots of trouble. Whenever companies like HP and Roxio get involved, I am concerned for the well being of embedded, appliance-like devices.
Distopian future? Absolutely. Soon we wont be able to print our own photos without a watermark of the printers manufacturer. Free advertising! And it will be against DMCA to remove the watermarks! What a joyus future indeed!
Re:Hmmm... what kind of DRM nasties are in this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like their attempting a hardware specifc combo. So this will work with my HP camera and my HP CD/DVD/RW/WHATEVER drive. Great! Oh wait, I don't have one. Curses!
Re:Hmmm... what kind of DRM nasties are in this? (Score:2)
This is not a disney-makes-consumer-watches kind of format, this is a you-make-and-send-copies-of-to-your -relatives format, and a your-photos-come-from-kodak/fuji/walmart in this format kind of thing.
Its core is really an XML file atop a normal files system describing what to play, the photos, the full screen versions thereof &c. Which will result in a photo album format that your DVD player will handle, your PC will handle, and 50 years from now, provided a CD reader exists, your home console will still be able to process and read. Think about it: finally all those vendor supplied photo albums will be independent of apps, especially windows ones.
And if everyone supports it, it means that linux boxes will be able to read and write everyones photo albums.
This is definately a good thing
-steve
(disclaimer, worked on related work about a year ago; know lots of people involved, etc).
Speaking finnish as mothertongue may be hazardous. (Score:3, Funny)
Scary when you think about it.
Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
P.S. I wish Linux UDF-write support worked - then I could start using CDs as giant floppies...
metadata not filesystem (Score:3, Informative)
From a quick look at the spec, this is a metadata format, not a filesystem. It's intended for more than CD/DVD media as well, notably flash filesystems, which are different of technical necessity.
It seems to be mostly oriented toward labelling, describing and presenting collections of images. For what a first look is worth it doesn't necessarily suck, either. They mention dublin core metadata [dublincore.org].
A nice add on to comments in the jpeg header, anyway.
Not a CD format!! (Score:2, Informative)
You misunderstand. This is a format for the metadata and layout. Metadata such as structural metadata, linking one image to another (say, to describe formally that images 1-100.jpg are a sequence of stills from a video, and that 101-200.jpg are thumbnails of same) or technical metadata about the image creation/capture process (and a whoooole lot more which I won't even start on).
This stuff is important, complex and probably not for 99% of the Slashdot crowd. We (at a national copyright library) are using METS [loc.gov] (Metdata Encoding and Transmission Standard) as metadata on our digital objects, and METS has an extension schema for AV [loc.gov] stuff, which seems to be similar to this.
Ummm (Score:1)
Its just meta data folks... (Score:4, Insightful)
Repeatedly all I can find is that this is hardware/OS independant, and that non 'MPV-aware' software/hardware will still play the media because its just an extension system, that it is royalty-free...
So what is this - well this is my interpretation:
This is a index and archiving approach, using XML as a metadata format to support the approach.
Currently on a CD/DVD you have the ISO9660 filesystem that tells the firmware/software the bare minimum to access the data.
MPV looks like it takes this a step further, similar to what Kodak did with the PhotoCD standard, so that aware applications can get access to a fast loading and more descriprive index of the media on the disk.
So its an evolution of the filesystem that supports media content rather than raw data files.
I don't see that it mandates a particular underlying file system, or file format, or DRM, or brand of hardware.
Its just a standard to provide and index so that 'MPV aware' software/hardware can understand the media better and do more with it. If you're not MPV aware - then you just get the data in the filesystem like you do today.
Now if you've ever tried to use something like Uleads Photo Explorer to find the image you want off your CD-R archive and waited whilst the drive thrashed through the whole 700MB to generate thumbnails, or tried to use WinOnCD to generate CD PhotoAlbums by a neat use of the VCD standards - then you will know that this is possible, but not the easiest it should be.
How much nicer would it be just to dump your images onto media with some notes and categories, and for it to just work, in your PC, on your folks DVD player, in your mates IMac, heck even your local tame guru's *NIX boxen?
And I'm a lot happier seeing this done by an organisation with a broad range of interests, software, hardware, industry, consumers etc. I don't want OS forcing this on me with thier own agenda - M$ or *NIX - I don't want Media Industry influenced hardware companies like Sony utting thier own spin on it.
If this is to succeed then it needs contributions from a wide range of sources, that will keep it balanced and open. Look at how common HTML has become under the care of the W3C - and it still by and large resists customisation and bending towards specific views because so many diverse interests are part of the process.
Lets not view every technology announcement as a modern day 'REDs under the BED'('DRM under the HOOD??') paranoia - yes lets keep our eyes out, and when we are worried DO SOMETHING rather than rant. But lets not let the actions of RIAA/Fritz/M$/MPAA et al colour our views of every new announcement - that way they win. Lets remember that spirit of 'gosh wow' that drove the early internet and gave us
I'm prepared to be wrong, but to paraphrase 'To a hammer every problem is a nail' lets not end up as 'To the slashdot community every announcement has hidden DRM'
I've got to agree (Score:1)
TIFFs (Score:1)
That's always a danger where there are a number of things that you can embed in the format, and only a number of 'mandatory' sections.
But we've learnt - HTML works largely because stuff that clients don't understand is ignored, and good quality HTML degrades gracefully.
Re:Its just meta data folks... (Score:2, Informative)
Granted it appears to be non-OS specific, but I did find this in section 10.6.4."Computer Harddisks"
The user may expect that many different MPV-aware applications should be able to access the same set of albums. This requires a convention for locating a root MPV collection. the following directories are recommended for storing the root MPV collection, in order of preference:
*
* C:/Documents and Settings/users/My Documents/My Pictures
* C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Applications Data/MPV/user.PVM
* Breath-first aplhabetical scan of all directories up to three levels below the root directory.
If that doesn't sound OS oriented, I don't know what does...
They should get better proofreaders too. Section 11.5 starts with the heading "Finding an Photo/Video Manifest File"
Last time I checked, "an" was only used before words that started with a vowel or a vowel sound, such as the words Hour, or Image.
Re:Its just meta data folks... (Score:1)
Granted.
With removable media there's an obvious place to put an index, to whit the root of the filesystem on the floppy/CD/DVD/memory card.
With a hard drive you probably need to think up a number of 'logical' places that relate to the user on that system. I'd be surprised if a Windows example wasn't there as that is the major OS that consumers use - I'm saddened that there isn't a corresponding example for MacOS and *NIX. Lets hope they are in the final issue.
They should get better proofreaders too. Section 11.5 starts with the heading "Finding an Photo/Video Manifest File"
Last time I checked, "an" was only used before words that started with a vowel or a vowel sound, such as the words Hour, or Image.
Amen to that.
Exactly what is wrong with the OLD standards? (Score:1)
Re:Exactly what is wrong with the OLD standards? (Score:2)
then the player: your DVD player, your linux app, reads this and acts on it.
No DRM, no new royalty fees, nothing. This format is to set your home photos free, forever.
Thought #1 (Score:2)
How much will we have to pay to use this standard and how many restrictions will it place on how our software works ? (I.e. can we decide not to implement a part of it we don't want ? (DRM))
Re:Thought #1 (Score:2)
MPV info (Score:1)
As others have said, this is a metadata standard. It's not a new video/image format. It's about how existing formats relate to each other. It works over existing file systems and is file system neutral.
This is a standard for defining collections of digital media in an xml-based format. This can be useful for things like stating explicitly in metadata the relationship between a full size image and its thumbnail (simple example). A more complex and interesting scenario would involve defining a collection of images, video and audio so that they can be played in a certain order, creating a slideshow. If a device is MPV aware, it parses the xml file that defines the slideshow and presents the media. If the device is not MPV aware all of the files are still on the file system, just as they are today and they can still be accessed.
Another example: Say you had an MPV-aware digital camera that stored this metadata. You decide to burn the MPV and files created by your camera onto a CD. You could then watch it in your MPV aware DVD player or MPV aware PC. Nothing would stop you from seeing the underlying files.
There are numerous other examples of why having extensive metadata information on digital assets can be quite useful.
The other cool thing about this is that it is open source and available on sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpvtools.
This standard is similar to the High-MAT standard announced recently by Microsoft and Panasonic. But MPV is actually out and unlike High-MAT it is open source and requires no licensing fees.
Cat-Photo (Score:2)
http://cat-photo.sourceforge.net/
Dybdahl.
Last Post! (Score:1)
have included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products.
This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's
reign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go
buy some more."
-- timw@zeb.USWest.COM
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...