Are there any specific requirements to enable "fast-start" progressive download with webm and ogg codecs?

Question

I know that with mp4, the moov atom must be placed at the beginning of the file to enable progressive downloading. That can be done by enabling "faststart" when creating the file.

I'm curious if there are any similar requirements when dealing with webm or ogg files, or are they "progressive download ready" by default?

Dextrin

Answer 1

Due to the way they are constructed, WebM (Matroska) and Ogg files do not have any fast-start remuxing requirements to make them suitable for progressive downloading.

Protium

Are you saying in other words that they are able by default to facilitate progressive download? – Dextrin

That's right. Not all containers are created equally. Ogg and WebM have characteristics which allow them to be downloaded progressively without any post-processing step. At least, I have never seen any demand for a 'webm-faststart' or 'ogg-faststart' utility (I'm the original author of the 'qt-faststart' utility that is in wide use for post-processing MP4 files for progressive download). – Protium

Mike, thanks a bunch for your help. Would you mind posting a link to your utility? – Dextrin

This seems to be the homepage for qt-faststart: multimedia.cx/eggs/improving-qt-faststart ... it comes with FFmpeg and Libav, and there are various ports to other languages. One should work for you. – Protium