Hello,<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/30/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Lachlan Hunt</b> <<a href="mailto:lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au">lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Ian Hickson wrote:<br>> On Mon, 30 Oct 2006, Charles Iliya Krempeaux wrote:<br>>> Would you be open to hearing suggestions about how to add native video<br>>> and video player support?<br>><br>> Sure. FWIW, there's a lot of interest in browser vendors about introducing
<br>> a <video> element or some such (or maybe making browsers natively support<br>> video in <object>, or both).<br><br>I don't like the idea of a <video> element just for the purpose of<br>embedding video. What I think needs to happen is for browser vendors
<br>and plugin vendors to improve the usability and add better support for<br>video formats. Places like YouTube and Google Video work around this by<br>building their own interface using Flash, which handles multiple formats
<br>seamlessly for the user.</blockquote><div><br>Not exactly. Flash players only play FLV video files. And that's it (AFAIK).<br><br>Behind the scenses... server-side... other video formats a transcoded to FLV.<br><br>
The problem with Flash is that Flash is NOT a video. It's an "application" like Java applets. (Although Java has way way way more power than Flash.)<br> </div>The point is that potenially you do NOT have access to the video file(s) at all. And that is a big problem!!!
<br><br><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">With the current plugin architecture, each plugin provides it's own UI.<br> So that, for example, a Quick Time video (.mov) gets the Quick Time UI
<br>and a WMV gets Windows Media Player. That's a bad user experience, the<br>browser should provide a common UI for all videos, regardless of the format.</blockquote><div><br>As I'm going to mention more in my list... I'd recommend that web developers can create their of UIs... create their own Video Players.
<br><br>There could be a default styling. But web developers should be able to have full control of the look.<br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Perhaps, to go along with the Audio() interface, we could have a Video()<br>interface as well. Maybe it would be wise to introduce a MultiMedia()<br>interface, which is then inherited by both the Audio() and Video()<br>interfaces and extended by each with APIs specifically for their
<br>respective media. e.g. Video() could have an API for capturing a frame<br>and exporting it as a JPG or PNG.</blockquote><div><br>The frame capturing would be cool (and useful).<br><br><br>I guess I wasn't paying attention when the Audio interface was being discussed, because I totally missed it.
<br><br>Looking at it now, I'd make some alterations to it.<br><br>For example, there's a difference between "pausing" and "stopping". (With "pausing" you still have your "position" and a "velocity" in the audio stream. With "stopping", each of those are null/nil.) And there should be different procedures for each.
<br><br>Also, there should be a way of playing at different speeds and playing backwards too.<br><br>Previously, I've defined this as the "velocity" in APIs. A velocity of "1" is normal playing. A velocity of "-1" is playing backwards. A velocity of "-
2.5" plays backwards 2.5 times the normal speed. A velocity of "0.25" is playing forward at 1/4 the speed.<br><br>Also... when implementing UIs, it's useful to have a "toggle()" procedure. Something that makes it "pause" if it is "playing". And makes it "play" if it is "pausing". Without this you have to keep track of the state of the player.
<br><br>(This is part of my item #6 on my list.)<br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Those interfaces could also possibly be implemented on the <object> and
<br><embed> elements.<br><br>Charles Iliya Krempeaux wrote:<br>>> #1: A natively supported video format. (Like the way GIF's, JPEG's, and<br>>> PNG's are natively supported.)<br><br>Defining which video format for browsers to support is out of scope of
<br>the WHATWG and HTML5.</blockquote><div><br>That's unfortunate.<br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">However, I do agree that there needs to be a more
<br>widely supported format so that websites don't have to offer the user a<br>choice (commonly WMV, Quick Time and Real).</blockquote><div><br>Getting a little off topic... but those aren't the main ones I've seen. I don't even see Real used anymore. (Maybe I'm not looking hard enough though, but....)
<br><br>Certainly QuickTime and WMV are common. But (as I remember from a survey someone did on the Videoblogging mailing list) people are also procuding M4V (for iPods/iTunes), MP4 (for PSPs), DivX, and some people are even producing Ogg Theora. (I think there were some others too... but I don't remember off the top of my head.)
<br><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> If offered a choice, it<br>should only be to pick one suitable for their bandwidth.
<br><br>> Given this, I would suggest Ogg Theora be the natively supported video<br>> format common to all browsers.<br><br>It would be very nice to have a widely supported, non-proprietary,<br>patent free format on the web, which is also completely free of DRM. I
<br>would love to see Ogg Vorbis/Theora become as successful in the audio<br>and video market as PNG has for images, but the current problem holding<br>it back is the lack of implementation in the major media players and<br>
browsers.</blockquote><div><br>This might be the chicken and the egg problem.<br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
In comparison, alpha transparency in PNG hasn't taken off significantly<br>despite having major benefits over index transparency, primarily because<br>IE hasn't supported it until now. I suspect that will change once IE7
<br>becomes more widely deployed.<br><br>I aware that there are many implementations of ogg available, but<br>Windows Media Player,</blockquote><div><br>Use this...<br><a href="http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/">http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/
</a><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Quick Time </blockquote><div><br>Use this...<br><a href="http://xiph.org/quicktime/">
http://xiph.org/quicktime/</a><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">and Real Player</blockquote><div><br><br>Use this...
<br><a href="https://helixcommunity.org/frs/?group_id=7">https://helixcommunity.org/frs/?group_id=7</a><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
don't. Of course, it<br>would also be nice if VLC (when it matures enough) became the most<br>popular player, but that's not going to happen any time soon.</blockquote><div><br>A little off topic... but VLC is extremely popular where I live.
<br><br>Most people know about it and use it.<br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">So, I<br>think it would be a good idea for the video and audio community to
<br>strongly encourage native implementation of ogg in the major players and<br>authoring tools.<br><br>Once the major players support it, we'd then need to see digital cameras<br>and other authoring equipment adopt ogg as the native format, instead of
<br>MPEG and Quick Time. Aside from the companies who have a stake in<br>proprietary formats, I'm sure they would like to because they could save<br>money on licensing fees.<br></blockquote></div><br><br>See ya<br><br clear="all">
<br>-- <br> Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.<br><br> charles @ <a href="http://reptile.ca">reptile.ca</a><br> supercanadian @ <a href="http://gmail.com">gmail.com</a><br><br> developer weblog: <a href="http://ChangeLog.ca/">
http://ChangeLog.ca/</a><br><br>