PROPOSAL STAGE

LBRY File Format

The LBRY format is a multimedia-format designed to promote interoperability and transmission of complex digital media.

What It's For

A lbry-format file is a compressed web site, much like a zip file. More specifically, it's a directory of files individually zipped with Zstandard, then collected into a tar archive.

It is recognized and launched by the LBRY-desktop app to enable rich, interactive media in the client.

When the LBRY desktop app encounters the .lbry extension, and the user presses "play," it decompresses the .lbry file, launches a sandboxed web server in the background, and 'serves up' this file like a real web server might.

This enables a lot of possibilities. To see what is currently possible with this format, check out the LBRY channel @OpenSourceGames.

There are more restrictions to a .lbry archive than normal websites, because of the security issues and the fact that it's not running on a domain.

Name

• Name Format: *.lbry
• Character Set: UTF-8
• Extension: lbry

Metadata

• Media Type: application/x-lbry

Container

• Compression: Zstandard
• Archival: tar

Contents

Descriptor

• Format: JSON, UTF-8

lbry-format

Requirements

• Node.js v11.6.0 (see https://nodejs.org/docs/v11.6.0/api/esm.html)

Usage

WARNING: These method signatures will change as the JSON Descriptor is finalized.

Install npm i https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-format.git

Pack

const lbryFormat = require('lbry-format');

// Pack `./` to `package.lbry`
lbryFormat.packDirectory('./', {
  fileName: 'package.lbry',
});

Unpack

const lbryFormat = require('lbry-format');

// Unpack `package.lbry` to `./`
lbryFormat.unpackDirectory('./', {
  fileName: 'package.lbry',
});