[whatwg] Video with MIME type application/octet-stream

[David Singer]

On Sep 8, 2010, at 12:58 , Aryeh Gregor wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 1:14 PM, David Singer <singer at apple.com> wrote:
>> what about "don't sniff if the HTML gave you a mime type" (i.e. a source element with a type attribute), or at least "don't sniff for the purposes of determining CanPlay, dispatch, if the HTML source gave you a mime type"?
> 
> What advantage does this serve?

It both significantly reduces the footprint of sniffing (knocks out a whole load of cases), and clarifies that 'canplay' decisions don't need to sniff (so you don't sniff a whole bunch of different files).  'Non-configured servers' is a valid excuse for HTTP content-type being wrong (for a few cases), but I can't think of any reason to disbelieve the page author, can you?

> 
> On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 3:13 PM, And Clover <and-py at doxdesk.com> wrote:
>> Perhaps I *meant* to serve a non-video
>> file with something that looks a fingerprint from a video format at the top.
> 
> Anything's possible, but it's vastly more likely that you just made a mistake.

It may be possible to make one file that is valid under two formats.  Kinda like those old competitions "write a single file that when compiled and run through as many languages as possible prints "hello, world!" :-).


David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.