[whatwg] Fwd: Discussing WebSRT and alternatives/improvements

[Julian Reschke]

On 18.08.2010 00:43, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 5:12 AM, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke at gmx.de
> <mailto:julian.reschke at gmx.de>> wrote:
>
>     On 12.08.2010 10:09, Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
>
>         ...
>
>         The core "problem" is that WebSRT is far too compatible with
>         existing SRT usage. Regardless of the file extension and MIME
>         type used, it's quite improbable that anyone will have different
>         parsers for the same format. Once media players have been forced
>         to handle the extra markup in WebSRT (e.g. by ignoring it, as
>         many already do) the two formats will be the same, and using
>         WebSRT markup in .srt files will just work, so that's what
>         people will do. We may avoid being seen as arrogant
>         format-hijackers, but the end result is two extensions and two
>         different MIME types that mean exactly the same thing.
>
>      > ...
>
>     (just observing...)
>
>     So when something that used to be plain text now carries markup,
>     what's the compatibility story for plain text that happens to
>     contain markup characters, such as "<", ">" or "&"?
>
>     Best regards, Julian
>
>
> I assume you mean: what happens to text that contains such characters?
> In most SRT systems, such stuff will just be displayed verbatim.

Yes, in SRT. But in WebSRT? Isn't there a compatibility problem when the 
format just switches from plain text to possibly escaped text?

(I recall the problems with title handling in RSS, and I want to make 
sure that people have considered this issue)

Best regards, Julian