I have find a great surprise. There are XML format but in binary
version. This can be very useful.
Multimedia open standards created by EBML:
http://www.matroska.org/index.html.en
I believe this is a great new for us.
Regards.
I am one of the creators of EBML and Matroska. Somebody from your
group contacted us to have more information about EBML.
Basically EBML is like XML but in binary format. It has some missing
features like namespaces, but some additions like default values (to
save space). To parse an EBML you need to know the semantic of each
elements, at least the "Master" elements (the ones that contain sub
elements).
You cannot map 100% an XML document to EBML (the opposite should
work).
There has been some discussion on making a new version of EBML where
one wouldn't need to know the semantic to parse the tree of elements.
And also the addition of the header of something like a DTD/Schema
(but written in EBML). Namespaces could be added this way.
There are EBML parsers already existing in the OSS world in C and C++,
maybe some in Java, Perl and Ruby too.
Steve Lhomme