[whatwg] HTML 5 : The Youtube response

[Shane Fagan]

On Wed, 2010-06-30 at 18:11 -0700, David Singer wrote:
> I think it's interesting to look at these and ask to what extent they are in scope.
> 
> > 1. Standard video format
> > 2. Robust video streaming
> > 3. Content Protection
> > 4. Encapsulation + embedding
> > 5. Fullscreen video
> > 6. Camera and Microphone access
> 
> #1 has been debated a lot.

It has been debated a lot and even in flash itself has different codecs
shipped. I dont see the problem in allowing vendors to select a codec
they like and see which one sticks personally.
> 
> #2 is rather out of scope.  The beauty of HTML5 is that it is the presentational layer, and allows you to embed a video of any type (WebM, Ogg, MP4), delivered over any protocol (HTTP, RTSP, ...).  There is nothing to stop a reference to a robust stream being the URL in a source element, and I don't think it's the W3C's job to make it happen.  3GPP has already defined a solution, and MPEG is also looking.  Open IPTV Forum is basing their work on 3GPP, and others are looking closely at it.
> 

Is a technology issue but is an issue if you are a streaming site like
justin.tv for instance. Its up to mpeg, google..etc to provide a
solution to this. Its a technology issue but im sure if someone comes up
with a solution it can be used easily with the video tag spec currently
so its out of scope for this list.

> #3 is very easy to do if all you want is protection.  It's when you multi-vendor systems that nonetheless have the appropriate degree of robustness that you get into problems.  But it's like #2;  it's below the presentation layer of HTML5.
> 

Protection I think is mildly out of scope too. We cant spec anything
without the prospect of it being obsoleted half way through the lifetime
of html5. I think this one should be up to the website makers to protect
it the way they want. Oh and Flash isnt protected well at the moment
either a quick trip to google will give you any number of programs to
take the audio and/or video from flash files. So I encourage video sites
to think about this creatively and do it better.  

> #4 is soluble 'on top of' HTML5 and the media formats, if needed.  Web Archives, Web Apps, and so on.  I think.
> 

I dont have any ideas on this one myself.

> #5 is a problem only if you care about phishing attacks...or indeed apps that have the gall to believe that you should be able to see nothing else when they are running.
> 

We talked about this a week or two ago and the idea was to have a "allow
full screen" element in the video tag that makes a control that can be
used by the user to go full screen. The problem here is abuse but I
think the browser vendors should make some safeguards if this is the
route they take.

> #6 is well, rather different from the problem of delivering a/v to a user.  I'm not enthusiastic about web pages that can listen to me or watch me, myself...
> 

Camera and mic access could be done in the spec IMO and it would be
useful. How its implemented would be interesting. For sites like
hotmail, gmail, youtube(for their webcam capture)..etc that have
integrated chat it would be very useful. Obviously in terms of
implementation they would have to safe guard by asking. Id look for
something as simple as <webcam /> or <mic /> or something and dont have
any parameters and allow the browser to work out what to do would be ok
to put in the spec. Its a little bit out there but I think it would be
beneficial if its a blocker for some sites. 

--fagan