[whatwg] Codecs for <audio> and <video>

[Dr. Markus Walther]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> PCM in wav is useless for many applications: you're not going to do
> streaming music with it, for example.
>
> It would work fine for sound effects...

The world in which web browsers live is quite a bit bigger than internet
and ordinary consumer use combined...

Browser-based intranet applications for companies working with
professional audio or speech are but one example. Please see my earlier
contributions to this list for more details.

> but it still is more code to
> support, a lot more code in some cases depending on how the
> application is layered even though PCM wav itself is pretty simple.
> And what exactly does PCM wav mean?  float samples? 24 bit integers?
> 16bit? 8bit? ulaw? big-endian? 2 channel? 8 channel? Is a correct
> duration header mandatory?

To give one specific point in this matrix: 16-bit integer samples,
little-endian, 1 channel, correct duration header not mandatory.
This is relevant in practice in what we do. I can't speak for others.

> It would be misleading to name a 'partial baseline'. If the document
> can't manage make a complete workable recommendation, why make one at
> all?

I disagree. Why insist on perfection here? In my view, the whole of HTML
5 as discussed here is about reasonable compromises that can be
supported now or pretty soon. As the browsers which already support PCM
wav (e.g. Safari, Firefox) show, it isn't impossible to get this right.

Regards,
-- Markus