<div dir="ltr">On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 12:13 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mjs@apple.com">mjs@apple.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div></div>While the underlying media frameworks can't necessarily answer, "if I give you a file with this MIME type, can you play it?", they can at least give a yes/no/maybe answer, which can still be quite helpful, since the UA will know it does not need to check some media streams at all.</div>
</blockquote><div><br>I agree. If the API lets us answer "maybe", there is not much need or temptation to lie, and we can still return information that could be useful to scripts.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Also, should we make .load() asynchronous as far as selecting a media file<br>
goes? Right now, a media file has to be instantaneously and synchronously<br>
selected, so the UA can't try each one in turn.<br>
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I believe the original design intent was to make selection completely static and not not based on a fallback-like approach of trying each in turn. Let's assume IE implements <video> at some point but does not support Ogg or MPEG-4 out of the box. Then an author wishing to provide 3 media streams could still likely get the job done, since browsers could likely determine whether or not particular basic content types are supported. It might be hard to get more complex cases right though.<br>
</blockquote><div> <br>IMHO load() should be asynchronous and should try each in turn. That would dramatically increase the power of fallback and doesn't seem to cost too much. Chris Double points out that there are edge cases where some streams in a container are supported, but others aren't; for example a framework might support only Ogg Vorbis but not Theora, and you try to play a Vorbis+Theora file, and you get no error from the framework, but you might have preferred to fall back. However, if the author provided the right MIME information, the UA could know that there is supposed to be video, and detect that there isn't any video coming out, and fall back.<br>
</div></div><br clear="all">Rob<br>-- <br>"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah 53:5-6]<br>
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