[whatwg] Scripted querying of <video> capabilities

[Kristof Zelechovski]

All right, in that case I give up.  It is plainly insane.  The VIDEO element
is for displaying movies, not for displaying funny messages that the user
should install codec XYZ.  If it cannot display the movie, it should display
the fallback content provided.  If the author wants the user to install the
codec, she can put it into the fallback content explicitly.
The downside is that the poster frame has to be dropped even if it can be
displayed.
Besides, there is no API to test whether the browser supports image/targa
either.  If we allow video support API, why not image support API as well?
IMHO,
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org
[mailto:whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org] On Behalf Of Chris Double
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 12:46 AM
To: Kristof Zelechovski
Cc: WHATWG List; Tim Starling
Subject: Re: [whatwg] Scripted querying of <video> capabilities

On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 3:35 AM, Kristof Zelechovski
<giecrilj at stegny.2a.pl> wrote:
> Falling back to another method of displaying media is possible without a
> dedicated media API.  In this particular case, you can have a video
element
> with an ogg source and an object running Cortado to display it.

I don't believe this to be the case. See my previous message about
this. There's one specific instance of it not working as far as I
know:

<video src="foo.ogg">
 <object>....fallback for Ogg playback using plugin</object>
</video>

A browser that supports <video> but not Ogg will not use the fallback
<object>. Instead it will just give an error when loading the foo.ogg
file. If some way of having this case work is supplied then a media
sniffing API is possibly not needed. Tim, can you confirm that?

Chris.
-- 
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz