[lug] Open Source Video Encoding Formats...Multiple Video Layers?

[Zan Lynx]

On 3/31/2020 3:54 PM, D. Stimits wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've been tinkering a bit and thinking about video formats. I was 
> looking to see if there were any formats which support recording video 
> in layers which can later be edited on each layer, layers 
> enabled/disabled, so on. Unfortunately I never found anything, and 
> especially nothing for open source/free formats. Has anyone here ever 
> heard of an open source video encoding format or file format supporting 
> video in layers?

Pretty much every video editing program does that. Sort of. Layers as 
such aren't really a video thing. But editing software accepts multiple 
streams of video and provides ways to combine them with cuts, fades, 
split screens, etc.

You can also apply effects, which are a little bit like layers. The 
frames of scrolling text, the TV station logo, and the little video 
clips that play next to a newscaster's head are like that.

The editing software does not save these in a single special file 
format. Video files are too big for that. Instead there's a description 
file, sometimes in XML that describes the media assets, where to find 
them, etc, and what to do with them. Cut to asset #3 at time 0:03.33 
(frame 187) kind of thing.
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