[ExtractStream] Proliferation of too many different apps...

[Rob]

You have my vote on this.

I'm no stranger to poking about in data streams trying to make sense of 
them, and I know some of the problems, and can't it be infuriating at 
times.. I just havn't delved into the TiVo stuff myself yet, purely for 
lack of available time. Maybe once the decorating is finished, the house 
tidy, kids growm up ...

What I'd like to see before I did delve into it is some idea of where we're 
up to in decoding the format of the streans.. Whilst I'm quite happy to 
embrace the "I'll do it myself and be in control" mentality, I'm also very 
fond of not re-inventing the wheel for the basic stuff, and that doesn't 
mean simply hacking up or including other peoples source code, which might 
or might not work correctly anyway.

Is there anywhere any form of definitive document on what everyone 
understands to date the format of the streams to be?

If not, can we create one? Whilst I've not got the time for any serious 
code hacking, I'm happy to donate web space, set up discussion boards, etc, 
if it would help. I'm sure if everyone who is at present beavering away at 
their own could work together, then it's be solved in no time.

Once we have a definite format, that's 100% correct, then I have no 
objection to proliferation of apps, because they should all work, and it's 
then that people can start working on nifty extra features, auto ad-break 
omission, inclusion of subtitles(/closed captions) etc.. The problem at 
the moment seems to be that everyone is trying to do their own extracting 
and converting, resulting in loads of different bits of software, and I for 
one never seem to know what will work for a given recording, and what won't.

Just my two penny's worth..

Rob.

At 11:50 20/04/02 -0700, Michael Loftis wrote:
> I think we, as a community, really need to focus our efforts into a
>single project. Right now I know of no less than 5 or 6 different apps
>out there. What we really need to do is make a focal point for this
>whole effort.
>
>I'd like to opena discussion to that effect right now. I really htink
>that doing this would benefit the entire community and allow us all to
>have some really high quality apps.