Proposed roadmap for Musepack

[Antonski]

Hi guys,

Happy New Year to everybody!

I'd like to share my view about the Proposed roadmap for Musepack.
It seems to me that the first two steps are almost complete (except the improving entropy coding perhaps?). I know that the code cleanup and optimization is a never ending process, but since there are no big issues with the beta discovered upto now, maybe it's time to see an official release?
You know, this is the main excuse for many developers about the missing sv8 support in their products.
However, even after releasing of an official version, some people (including the mentioned developers) would still have some embarrassments because of the further stream incompatibility proposed by step 3.

So, my suggestion is development of the sv8 to be finalized at the current point (the forthcoming code cleanup and optimization could be included in version subreleases) and the new (incompatible) changes to the stream to be released as sv9.

Regards,
Tony

[Seed]

This is (roughly) our plan. If bugs aren't discovered in the next month, we will start to finalize SV8.

[Shy]

Entropy coding by the way refers to the bitstream's huffman coding, which was improved by now (2% smaller files and faster decoding ).

[Antonski]

Originally Posted by Shy

Entropy coding by the way refers to the bitstream's huffman coding, which was improved by now (2% smaller files and faster decoding ).

Sorry for my ignorance, it was just a shoot in the dark .
It's true that compression is improved, so we can accept that step 2 is completed, can't we?

~

[Shy]

No ignorance at all, not many may know that's what it refers to, compression of the bitstream itself.
It's pretty much complete feature-wise. There are a few minor features we haven't decided if to include yet, but none will break compatibility even if introduced after SV8 is finalized.

A main focus has been on making sure that the design of every feature is completely thought out, so that SV8 will make Musepack a perfect audio format for flawless integration into any possible application. Right now the main focus is on stability testing before the finalization of the specification.

[Antonski]

I just want to say, thank you guys for everything that you are doing. It's just a pity that sv8 was not complete some days ago, then the last poll on Hydrogenaudio would look a bit different perhaps.
However, the most important is that the format is moving ahead again and it still rocks
~

[xmixahlx]

alpha, beta and finalized have been added to the sv8 specs to note the status of each subtopic/key/etc.

http://trac.musepack.net/trac/wiki/SV8Specification