[VCDImager Bugs/Devel] reusing parts of libvcd and/or vcddebug

[R. Bernstein]

First, many thanks for such a good and useful tool!

I would like to improve VCD and SVCD handling in GPL players to handle
to make use of the wonderful things I can create using vcdimager.

In thinking about a library for extracting VCD information, libvcd.a
and vcddebug come to mind.  I notice however that libvcd.a is not
installed outside of the source directory. More importantly it seems
geared for doing what vcdimager does -- make VCD's. Duh!

But there is another simpler class of uses which vcdimager knows about
and could possibly help other projects such as players out such as:

   query the volume label
   query the format used (vcd 1.0 2.0, svcd 1.0, ...)
   find out how many entries are in a given segment
   query next/preview/return/selection entries for a given selection

I could be wrong and perhaps libvcd.a has these interfaces. In fact,
I'd *love* to be shown wrong!

vcddebug shows these listed above, but along with lots of other things
and that's the problem: one has to filter the output to pick out the
pieces one wants.

Although, I think the right thing to do would be to work on libvcd.a,
probably the easier and more expidient thing for me is to add options
to vcddebug so that the output displayed is reduced.

So soon I'll be adding options to vcddebug. Probably options like
--show-label --show-format --show-xxx.  However if this is
ill-advised, or if folks have comments or suggestions (perhaps there
is already is a VCD library for such purposes) I'd appreciate hearing.

This is a little off topic, but related here. In trying to improve VCD
handling in various GPL players, I can't help but be saddened by all
the duplication of code and effort - for example xine versus
mplayer. Some if it is due the the lack of comprehensive libraries or
libraries which have forked off (think libmpeg3, libmpeg2 in mpeg2dec,
ffmpeg), and some of it due to difficulty in getting patches merged
back in (discretion dictates leaving off project names -- after all
they are all volunteer GPL projects). I believe if folks could work
together and pull together the state of the art could be much much
better.

vcdimager is fantastic! In fact the only program I know of of its kind! I
just have a feeling that either it could export some of its vast and
growing knowlege to other projects (such as in the form of a library),
or perhaps if there is such a (S)VCD library out there it might be
able to make use of one and benefit from it and contribute to it,
strengthening both projects.

And thanks for listening.