VideoToTerminal

Displays a video in the terminal. The video first gets transcoded into a custom file format, VTDI (Video Terminal Display Information)

VTDI Specification

Version 1

The first 4 bytes are the file signature and when decoded as unsigned 8-bit integers should be 86 84 68 73
The next 2 bytes are the file's version number as a uint.
The next 4 bytes are the video's total frames as a uint.
The next 4 bytes are the video's FPS as a float.
The next 2 bytes give the transcoded video width within the terminal, followed by another 2 bytes for height.
After that is the actual video display information.
The video is displayed by using foreground and background ANSI RGB codes together with Unicode Block Elements.
Frames are compressed using a custom compression algorithm. Before every frame there is a 32 bit uint for the compressed size in bytes , followed by another 32 bit uint for the uncompressed size.
A frame is stored as a series of character information.
Information for a character consists of 3 bytes for the foreground RGB values, 3 bytes for the background RGB values and 1 byte for the character.
The character byte will take a value from 0 to 31, and will signify a Unicode character from U+2580 to U+259F.\

VTDI Compression Specification

Every frame is compressed to simply contain the bytes for a CharInfo, followed by 2 bits:

• 00 if a rectangle is following; The rectangle will consist of 2 bytes each for x and y position of the upper left corner and then again for the lower right corner.
• 01 if a single position is following; The position is given by 2 bytes for x and y respectively.
• 10 for the end of the CharInfo; New CharInfoBytes follow this.
• 11 for the end of the frame.
  After 11 there will be up to 7 0-bits for padding.
  After the padding there will be either:
  • 0, marking that the next frame contains new information.
  • 1, marking that the next frame is the same as the current one. Areas that haven't changed from the last frame won't be listed.

Version 2

Misaligned bits have been replaced with padded bytes for speed reasons.
What this means is that the signifier bits after a CharInfo now look like this:

• 00 -> 00000000
• 01 -> 00000001
• 10 -> 00000010
• 11 -> 00000011

The 0- or 1-bit after 00000011 are now also 00000000 and 00000001 respectively.