Subject: Re: [dispatch] Standardization of FFV1, Matroska

From: "Peter B." <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 19:15:48 +0200

I thought it might be a good idea to present some additional information about importance of and interest in an IETF specification for the users of FFV1 in Matroska (MKV) for lossless video encoding:

At the Austrian National A/V Archive (the Austrian Mediathek) [1], we've
performed extensive tests of FFV1's implementation in collaboration with
other archives and companies. The U.S. Library of Congress has also
included FFV1/MKV as archiving format in their recent list of
preservation formats [3].

Technically, FFV1 can be considered not only stable, but very suitable
for long-term preservation.
Its origin and current reference implementation was written by Michael
Niedermayer, project leader of FFmpeg [2].

Yet, for easier adoption among institutions that deal with long-term
preservation of video, it is desirable to have a proper standardization
reference for the format of choice. Format decisions in that case must
consider future accessibility, as well as proper interoperability
between the applications used.

Therefore, it is strongly advised to use standardized, open formats.
FFV1 is currently completely open, but its paper specification is still
under development, and its lack of standardization is preventing many
organizations from using it in their archives.

At the moment, the only alternative would be JPEG2000-lossless in MXF
container. Although both are defined in ISO standards, codec as well as
container implementations are suffering from diverse interoperability
issues.

In practice, FFV1 has turned out to be a very good, faster and simpler
alternative, and using Matroska as container format has several benefits
over others (like AVI or MOV).
Some companies have already deployed installations at broadcasters and
national archives using FFV1, and have already offered financial aid to
fund the technical specifications of FFV1.

I'd therefore be very grateful and happy to see engagement by the IETF
community in discussion of the specifications and suitability of
FFV1/MKV for IETF.

Thank you very much in advance,
Peter Bubestinger

== References:
[1] http://www.mediathek.at/
[2] http://ffmpeg.org/
[3] http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/video_reformatting_compare.html

---

From: "Peter B." <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 19:36:03 +0200

On 06/25/2015 07:18 PM, Tessa Fallon wrote:
> :)  +1 thanks!

:)

btw: I've just seen that this year's World Conference of FIAT/IFTA
(International Federation of Television Archives) [1] mentions FFV1
explicitly in their Call for Papers [2]:

[quote]
Archives and technology evolution [...]
Is FFV1 the new JPEG2000?
[/quote]

Yet another indicator that standardization of FFV1 gains more interest :)

Regards,
Peter B.

== References:
[1] http://fiatifta.org/world-conference-2015-vienna/
[2]
http://fiatifta.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/call-for-presentation-world-conference.pdf