Ogg basics
For more detailed information, see the Ogg homepage or IETF RFC 3533 The Ogg File Format version 0.
The monospace text below is quoted directly from RFC 3533. For each concept introduced, tips related to liboggz are provided in bullet points.
The raw data of an Ogg stream, as read directly from a file or network socket, is called a physical bitstream.
The result of an Ogg encapsulation is called the "Physical (Ogg)
Bitstream". It encapsulates one or several encoder-created
bitstreams, which are called "Logical Bitstreams". A logical
bitstream, provided to the Ogg encapsulation process, has a
structure, i.e., it is split up into a sequence of so-called
"Packets". The packets are created by the encoder of that logical
bitstream and represent meaningful entities for that encoder only
(e.g., an uncompressed stream may use video frames as packets).
Within the Ogg format, packets are written into pages. You can think of pages like pages in a book, and packets as items of the actual text. Consider, for example, individual poems or short stories as the packets. Pages are of course all the same size, and a few very short packets could be written into a single page. On the other hand, a very long packet will use many pages.
- liboggz handles the details of writing packets into pages, and of reading packets from pages; your application deals only with
ogg_packet structures. - Each
ogg_packet structure contains a block of data and its length in bytes, plus other information related to the stream structure as explained below.
Each logical bitstream is uniquely identified by a serial number or serialno.
- Packets are always associated with a serialno. This is not actually part of the
ogg_packet structure, so wherever you see an ogg_packet in the liboggz API, you will see an accompanying serialno.
This unique serial number is created randomly and does not have any
connection to the content or encoder of the logical bitstream it
represents.
- Use oggz_serialno_new() to generate a new serial number for each logical bitstream you write.
- Use an OggzTable , keyed by serialno, to store and retrieve data related to each logical bitstream.
bos page: The initial page (beginning of stream) of a logical
bitstream which contains information to identify the codec type
and other decoding-relevant information.
eos page: The final page (end of stream) of a logical bitstream.
- Every
ogg_packet contains b_o_s and e_o_s flags. Of course each of these will be set only once per logical bitstream. See the Structuring section below for rules on setting b_o_s and e_o_s when interleaving logical bitstreams. - This documentation will refer to bos and eos packets (not pages) as that is more closely represented by the API. The bos packet is the only packet on the bos page, and the eos packet is the last packet on the eos page.
granule position: An increasing position number for a specific
logical bitstream stored in the page header. Its meaning is
dependent on the codec for that logical bitstream
- Every
ogg_packet contains a granulepos. The granulepos of each packet is used mostly for seeking.
The general structure of an Ogg stream is governed by various rules.
Some data sources require initial setup information such as comments and codebooks to be present near the beginning of the stream (directly following the b_o_s packets.
Ogg also allows but does not require secondary header packets after
the bos page for logical bitstreams and these must also precede any
data packets in any logical bitstream. These subsequent header
packets are framed into an integral number of pages, which will not
contain any data packets. So, a physical bitstream begins with the
bos pages of all logical bitstreams containing one initial header
packet per page, followed by the subsidiary header packets of all
streams, followed by pages containing data packets.
- liboggz handles the framing of packets into low-level pages. To ensure that the pages used by secondary headers contain no data packets, set the flush parameter of oggz_write_feed() to OGGZ_FLUSH_AFTER when queueing the last of the secondary headers.
- or, equivalently, set flush to OGGZ_FLUSH_BEFORE when queueing the first of the data packets.
The following rules apply for sequencing bos and eos packets in a physical bitstream:
... All bos pages of all logical bitstreams MUST appear together at
the beginning of the Ogg bitstream.
... eos pages for the logical bitstreams need not all occur
contiguously. Eos pages may be 'nil' pages, that is, pages
containing no content but simply a page header with position
information and the eos flag set in the page header.
- oggz_write_feed() will fail with a return value of OGGZ_ERR_BOS if an attempt is made to queue a late bos packet
It is possible to consecutively chain groups of concurrently
multiplexed bitstreams. The groups, when unchained, MUST stand on
their own as a valid concurrently multiplexed bitstream. The
following diagram shows a schematic example of such a physical
bitstream that obeys all the rules of both grouped and chained
multiplexed bitstreams.
physical bitstream with pages of
different logical bitstreams grouped and chained
-------------------------------------------------------------
|*A*|*B*|*C*|A|A|C|B|A|B|#A#|C|...|B|C|#B#|#C#|*D*|D|...|#D#|
-------------------------------------------------------------
bos bos bos eos eos eos bos eos
In this example, there are two chained physical bitstreams, the first
of which is a grouped stream of three logical bitstreams A, B, and C.
The second physical bitstream is chained after the end of the grouped
bitstream, which ends after the last eos page of all its grouped
logical bitstreams. As can be seen, grouped bitstreams begin
together - all of the bos pages MUST appear before any data pages.
It can also be seen that pages of concurrently multiplexed bitstreams
need not conform to a regular order. And it can be seen that a
grouped bitstream can end long before the other bitstreams in the
group end.
- oggz_write_feed() will fail, returning an explicit error value, if an attempt is made to queue a packet in violation of these rules.
This introduction to the Ogg format is derived from IETF RFC 3533 The Ogg File Format version 0 in accordance with the following copyright statement pertaining to the text of RFC 3533:
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