[whatwg] Video proposals

[James Justin Harrell]

>From HTML 4.01:

type = content-type [CI]
    This attribute specifies the content type for the data specified by data. This attribute is
optional but recommended when data is specified since it allows the user agent to avoid loading
information for unsupported content types. If the value of this attribute differs from the HTTP
Content-Type returned by the server when the object is retrieved, the HTTP Content-Type takes
precedence.

The type attribute is already optional and only indicative. It can claim that something is
different from what it actually is and just be ignored. To someone reading the markup, it's no
better than a comment.

A video element not only lets people reading the markup know that something should be a video, it
also should prevent anything else from being loaded. So if I embed a video from another site, and
they change it to a nasty applet because they weren't too happy about my hotlinking, the applet
wouldn't get loaded and executed.


--- Matthew Raymond <mattraymond at earthlink.net> 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="s�rie da televis�o"></object>
> | <object data="suono"></object>
> | <object data="MyFamily"></object>
> | <object data="pel�cula"></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.
>