[whatwg] Some <video> questions

[Charles]

Martin,

>> I'll be satisfied if someone tells me that <video> is not intended
>> to be the preferred way to embed video on web pages, in which
>> case I'll quietly return to my corner.
>
> I may be misinterpreting your tone, but from reading this discussion
> it seems that you're deliberately being difficult.

You're quoting a two-month old email on a topic I'd resigned myself to, and
I'm a bit reluctant to respond because any discussion about it seems to be
perceived as "difficult".  That said...

> The Quicktime browser plugin is a video player.

Great, this helps me understand your terminology.  In my world the (for
example) QuickTime plug-in is more just a "shim", since the plug-in isn't
playing the media but is instead instantiating QuickTime (the API) to play
the media.  I think we'd be in general agreement if we spent a few minute
trading terminology.

> The HTML5 spec should ultimately require at least one video format
> that will be available in all compliant implementations.

I understand, assuming that by "video format" you include an associated
audio bitstream format and container format.  It might be clearer for us to
say "linear media format".
	
> It's a nonsense to suggest that <video> could be "player-agnostic",
> because <video> *is* a player.

In my world, <video> is just an HTML element.  It's by definition
player-agnostic in the sense browsers will use different players (depending
on what's available on the host OS) to play the media associated with a
particular <video> element.

And just to repeat the facts as I understand them:

- <video> will universally support a base video/audio format ("linear media
format") defined by the final HTML 5 specification, assuming a suitable
combination of container and bitstream formats can be found.
	
- <video> will not universally support any other format.

Is that correct?

Thanks,

-- Charles