[whatwg] Codecs (was Re: Apple Proposal for Timed Media Elements)

[Håkon Wium Lie]

Robert O'Callahan / Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
  
 > > - Placing requirements on format support would be unprecedented for
 > > HTML specifications, which generally leave this up to the UA, with de
 > > facto baseline support being decided by the market.

It's not unprecedented in W3C; the SVG 1.2 WD requires support for Ogg Vorbis:

  http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20041027/media.html

 > I think having a single baseline codec will make <video> immensely more
 > attractive to authors than it otherwise would be. I also believe from the
 > point of view of Mozilla (or any other open source project) Theora is vastly
 > more attractive than MPEG. If we don't ship MPEG and other vendors don't
 > ship Theora, then the <video> element will be hobbled from the start.

Yes, a baseline format seems good for everyone -- users, authors, open
source and closed source browsers -- except for vendors pushing a
proprietary media platform.

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome at opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome