Bret Busby wrote:
> ken wrote:
> > Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> >> Bret Busby wrote:
> >>> I wonder whether a multimedia player for the video filteype .qs exists
> >>> for Debian Linux.
> >>
> >> Just for the archives, the file extension is a poor indicator of the
> >> file type and was originally meant more as information for humans.
> >> Fortunately smart programs (like mplayer or vlc) don't rely much on it.
They have an easier task of identifying the file. They only need to
identify the file for the file types that they can play. They don't
need to identify every possible file type.
> > Yes, the 'file' utility is a much better indicator of the file type
> > ("file filename.ext"). I haven't seen it written anywhere, but believe
> > that the same capability is built into the shell, at least into bash.
I have never seen the file utility built into any shell. The file
utility relies upon the magic file which contains a small descriptive
language programmed to identify files by content. I think that would
be too much to incorporate as a shell builtin. It just does not get
executed that often so not enough return on the investment.
> :~$ file /media/Lexar/QS_Files/20140610_004549_[2_ABC1]_[Slaughterhouse-Five].qs
> /media/Lexar/QS_Files/20140610_004549_[2_ABC1]_[Slaughterhouse-Five].qs: data
>
> So, what information does that give us, that is useful for finding
> software to view the file type qs ?
That says that there isn't anything programmed into the magic file in
order for the file program to identify the file. If someone programs
in the identification then the file command could identify it. But
regardless of you showing that it does not handle qs files the file
utility does quite well with most file types.
> Microsoft Word woth the proprietary .docx extension, would also
> probably show as data, but, I doubt that mplayer, or vlc, or totem,
> would work with that .docx filetype.
Actually file can identify docx files.
$ file foo.docx
foo.docx: Microsoft Word 2007+
:-)
> And, I have found that vlc (running on Debian 6), has a problem with
> some of the files, in that the output for some of the files, as with
> the output for mplayer, is choppy (if that is the correct term),
> meaning that it will play a little bit, then stop, then play a little
> bit more, a bit like the reproduction from the movie projectors from
> the days of the silent movies, when output was also, not flowing.
Different players use different codec libraries. And in Debian things
are more confused because of the fork between ffmpeg and libav.
Debian chose the libav fork. In hindsight that was probably a bad
choice and I think we would be better off with ffmpeg instead.
In the end it means that every player is slightly different. It is
all related to the file encoding. Some work great and others don't
work so well. (shrug)
Bob
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature