[ogg-dev] adwantages of ogg container?

[Sampo Syreeni]

On 2010-08-27, Ralph Giles wrote:

>> My question to you, What advantages has ogg vs matroska.
>
> They're both free containers, and there isn't a significant 
> performance difference, so either one works from a free media 
> perspective. [...]

Personally I would add the following points/bullets:

* Ogg has a lesser semantic burden, so that e.g. embedded
   implementations which necessarily have to be minimal are easier and
   cheaper to build; this of course means that a conforming Ogg
   implementation might not be as feature-rich as a Matroska one
* Ogg is a pure streaming protocol, whereas, IMO, Matroska tries to go a
   bit beyond that; so I'd argue Ogg is a bit better at "doing just one
   thing and doing it well"; I'd say it's "cleaner"
* Ogg goes more with the traditional single-use paradigm than Matroska,
   with its EBML and whatnot; it is still extensible in the IETF sense of
   the word, but more centralized control is effected; IMO that is a good
   thing -- or would you really like such an infrastructure oriented
   protocol to be extended willy-nilly? (think what would happen if
   people did that to IP? :)
* OTOH, the centralized decision process of Xiph/Ogg is much more open
   than Matroska's
* Because it's a stream protocol, Ogg decidedly isn't fit for
   bit-for-bit file storage; I tend to dislike the idea that an Ogg
   stream is stored as an Ogg file upon transmission
* For one reason or another -- which I'd really like somebody to
   research and document -- there are huge differences in the kind of
   content that is being disseminated using the two formats; I'm
   reasonably sure at least part of the difference has to have something
   to do with the specific needs of the communities using the protocols,
   instead of just adoption discrepancies
* There might just be a bit more coupling between the multiplexing and
   codec design within Ogg than there is with Matroska, which then of
   course means better layer separation/win for the latter; from what is
   seen in the wild Matroska is certainly used to multiplex a far wider
   set of codecs and whatnot than Ogg; but then Xiph/Ogg has its open
   source political aspirations as well, which severely limit what
   is/can be offered
* As a more centralized and "committee-bound" thingy, Matroska was much
   more tighly engineered at its inception than Ogg, and it also seems
   a bit better geared to handle today's
   piece-of-media-over-stream-of-media preferences; I'm thinking this
   could explain much of its current market value

I'm certain I've left out a *ton* of points, so do continue with the 
topic. I mean, the reason I responded in the first place is that I 
personally have the tendency to *really* overengineer stuff, which would 
make me a Matroska lover, yet then I have a persistent bad feeling about 
that tendency because that's "not the internet way". I would *love* to 
learn about some further/finer points, and of course counterpoint.
-- 
Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - decoy at iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front
+358-50-5756111, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2