Jérôme Martinez

FFV1 is a lossless, royalty free and open source video coding format. We'll present the work made around it, especially the IETF standardization work (RFC 9043), the reference encoder/decoder (FFmpeg), a FFV1 conformance checker (MediaConch), and a practical usage of it through the RAWcooked project, as well as its planned usage in MXF. We'll also talk about the standardization of its audio counterpart, FLAC, and the accompanying container, Matroska.

RAWcooked encodes RAW audio-visual data into the Matroska container (MKV), using the video codec FFV1 for the image and audio codec FLAC for the sound. The metadata accompanying the RAW data are preserved, and sidecar files, like MD5, LUT or XML, can be added into the Matroska container as attachments. This allows to manage these audio-visual file format in an effective and transparent way (e.g. native playback by VLC), while saving typically between one and two thirds of the needed storage, and speeding up the back-up on LTO cartridges. When needed, the source is retrieved bit-by-bit.

In this talk, MediaArea founder and technical lead Jérôme Martinez provides a global view of the different tools we use (or facilitate use of) for media analysis. We will cover the following: Metadata extraction and review with Mediainfo; file format validation and local policy conformance checking with MediaConch; embedding and editing of audio metadata with BWF MetaEdit; and audiovisual quality control tool developed for analysis of digitized analog video files with QCTools, with support from FFmpeg. MediaArea is an open source software company focused on digital media analysis. We develop and support tools that aid developers in integrating digital media file investigation into their work.

MediaConch is a project built upon MediaInfo that develops tools to test the conformance of audiovisual files to their associated specifications, to evaluate files against declared policies and to fix metadata in audiovisual files. MediaConch currently focuses on the formats of Matroska, FFV1, and LPCM as implemented by the audiovisual archiving community. Jérôme will present on the process and challenges in creating these tools, address the role of conformance in open media projects, and demonstrate the utility of the project and its components to other open media projects. Jérôme will also provide an update on the IETF working group focused on standardizing web video, including the FFV1 codec and Matroska wrapper.

MediaConch is an extensible, open source software project consisting of an implementation checker, policy checker, reporter, and fixer that targets preservation-level audiovisual files (specifically Matroska, LPCM and FFV1 for use in archives, providing detailed and batch-level conformance checking via an adaptable and flexible application program interface accessible by the command line, a graphical user interface, or a web-based shell. MediaConch is currently being developed by the MediaArea team, notable for the creation of open source media checker software, MediaInfo. Furthermore, the MediaArea team is dedicated to the further development of the standardization of the Matroska and FFV1 formats to ensure their longevity as a recommended digital preservation file format.