[whatwg] Scripted querying of <video> capabilities

[Tim Starling]

timeless wrote:
> yes, i'd expect it to just work. however i'd also expect the apis not
> to work correctly. which means we'd probably be stuck with a case
> where we either lie and say ogg isn't supported (because we have no
> way to figure out if it's supported), which means it wouldn't work. or
> we'd lie and say it is supported (which means that if someone sniffs
> for ogg first, they'd send you ogg only and you would get nothing).
>
> people should just provide <source> tags for all formats they have in
> the order in which they'd like to send them. let the user agents
> figure it out.
>
>   
We only have one format: Theora. We can play it with <video>, <applet>
or <object>. The challenge is to determine which is best.

> please don't encourage sniffing.
>
> footnote: if someone's annoying/evil and only provides one <source>,
> then yes, bad things will probably happen.
>
>   

There is only one format that is feasible for web deployment and
patent-free, and that is Theora. Are you saying now that it's evil to
support patent-free codecs?

> Could i put in a plea for browsers to consider flagging "this site
> isn't nice, it probably won't work if you visit it with another
> device, you should complain to the content provider". if possible,
> useragents should be encouraged to encourage their users to demand
> more availability of content in more formats :).
>   

So not only do you want to derail my attempt to bring Theora content to
users, you want to turn those users into amateur MPEG-LA license salesmen?

-- Tim Starling