[whatwg] Video proposals

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

In theory, standardized file extensions or type attributes allows
non-supporting browsers to not issue a request for the content, if they
could trust producers to correctly label content



Or at least it would, if user agents could trust producers to correctly
label their content. But even if user agents assume that authors can
correctly label content with the right element, type attribute, or file
extension, the efficiency gains may be more marginal than is sometimes
assumed. For example, you might think text browsers could just ignore
audio content. But actually people do configure such browsers to
dispatch audio to audio players (for example, Emacspeak can dispatch
audio to RealPlayer). You might think text browsers could just ignore
video content. Similarly, even if it only has audio captioning, it could
be dispatched to RealPlayer. Even if audio is not available, a text
browser might wish to access included transcriptions or text captions.

On Sat, 2007-03-17 at 15:26 +0000, Gareth Hay wrote:
> I don't see the problem with this.
> 
> Object is a tag to represent just about anything, even text/html  
> renders in an object.
> Can you identify a use case where you *need* to know before you get a  
> content-type header?
> 
> Gaz
> 
> On 17 Mar 2007, at 15:17, Matthew Raymond wrote:
> 
> > Laurens Holst wrote:
> >> So make the object mime type optional, only indicative. It will  
> >> receive
> >> it from the server anyway.
> >
> >    The problem with dropping the MIME type is that files on the  
> > Internet
> > don't require extensions. They already have MIME types. Therefore,  
> > as a
> > web author looking at someone else's markup, how would you identify if
> > the following are images, video or audio?...
> >
> > | <object data="sonido"></object>
> > | <object data="immagine"></object>
> > | <object data="série da televisão"></object>
> > | <object data="suono"></object>
> > | <object data="MyFamily"></object>
> > | <object data="película"></object>
> > | <object data="pintura"></object>
> > | <object data="Nature"></object>
> > | <object data="Ton"></object>
> > | <object data="Fernsehenerscheinen"></object>
> > | <object data="WhoKnows"></object>
> >
> >
> >    With a <video> element, you know it's video just by looking at it.
>