[whatwg] Video Tag Proposal

[Ashley Sheridan]

On Sun, 2010-03-28 at 13:11 -0700, Kelly Clowers wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 10:49, Ashley Sheridan <ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, 2010-03-28 at 10:29 -0700, Kelly Clowers wrote:
> >
> > 2010/3/28 Sir Gallantmon (ニール・ゴンパ) <ngompa13 at gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > When the img tag was made, all browsers initially supported BMPs, didn't
> > > they? Nobody complained about implementing support for an image format. The
> > > GIF format made things hairy later, but with JPEG and PNG, the issues
> > > eventually resolved themselves. But the img tag was made at a time when
> > > there was no format soup for images... Or at least, not one nearly as
> > > serious a problem as the video tag.
> >
> > Also, image formats are less complicated to implement than video, both in
> > the codec itself and the fact that images don't have to worry about subtitles,
> > containers, seeking, sound, etc.
> >
> > > Without a baseline codec, there is no guaranteed usefulness to the audio or
> > > video tags. As for audio, I suggest supporting at least WAV (or FLAC) and
> > > Vorbis at least.
> >
> > That was the recommendation before all codec references where removed.
> > Currently among HTML5 browsers, I believe only Safari does not support Vorbis
> > (they all support pcm wav). Safari uses QuickTime, so if Apple would bundle
> > XiphQT, Safari would be set. Who knows what MS is planning for IE9, but I don't
> > think they would object too much to having Vorbis as an option,
> > especially if they
> > are using DirectShow. A great many high-profile games have used Vorbis,
> > including MS-published Halo and Fable.
> >
> > Really, the audio situation seems fairly manageable. Vorbis even has an
> > advantage in size/quality over most other codecs, especially the so-common
> > MP3.
> >
> > > For video, our best shot is either Dirac or Theora. Unless
> > > somebody else has any other decent reasonably available open source,
> > > royalty-free codec that can be used for the video and audio tags?
> >
> > Well, if Google frees VP8...
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Kelly Clowers
> >
> > I was under the impression that Apple were one of the main opposers to using
> > free codecs in-place of their proprietary QuickTime.
> 
> For Theora. They haven't really said much about Vorbis AFAIK. And I think an
> audio codec is less likely to have patent issues than a video codec (especially
> since Vorbis has a lot of high profile use that should have drawn out any patent
> trolls) , and that is what Apple supposedly is worried about.
> 
> > Also, when was the last time you ever knew Microsoft to go with standarised
> > formats when they can just as easily push one of their own?
> 
> <shug> MS isn't quite who they used to be. They open-source things, and put
> things under the open specification promise, and they seem to be very serious
> about CSS3 and (X)HTML5 standards now. I think there is at least a chance of
> them supporting Vorbis.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Kelly Clowers


I see MS as the same they've always been. The open specification that
they have for their document formats they've tried to change already
because they don't follow it themselves. The recent open source code
they gave to the Linux kernel was only given because they were obliged
to, as they'd used GPL'd code themselves, and the GPL required their
resulting code to be given back to the community.

In the area of web standards, well, as any web developer knows, it's an
absolute mess at the moment, with each version of their browser behaving
completely differently, and even IE8 has only just caught up to where
other browsers have been for a long time. As such, I can't see them
supporting much (anything?) beyond what Windows Media Player will
support by default.

Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk


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