Re: [media] Moving forward with captions / subtitles

On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:14:35 +0800, Eric Carlson <eric.carlson@apple.com>  
wrote:

>
> On Feb 14, 2010, at 10:35 PM, Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
>
>>
>> <trackgroup role="subtitles">
>>  <track src="subtitles.en.srt" lang="en">
>>  <track src="subtitles.sv.srt" lang="sv">
>>  <track src="subtitles.fr.srt" lang="fr">
>>  <track src="subtitles.zh.srt" lang="zh">
>> </trackgroup>
>> <trackgroup role="captions">
>>  <track src="captions.en.srt" lang="en">
>>  <track src="captions.sv.srt" lang="sv">
>>  <track src="captions.fr.srt" lang="fr">
>>  <track src="captions.zh.srt" lang="zh">
>> </trackgroup>
>>
>> role="" isn't what makes the tracks alternative, it's that they are in  
>> the same <trackgroup>. If <trackgroup> isn't used then all tracks are  
>> in the same implicit group and are mutually exclusive.
>>
>   I see that now, though I think it is much less clear ;-)
>
>   "track" has a well defined meaning in the context of media files, as a  
> source of a particular type of media data. This is really what and it is  
> what you are calling "trackgroup" here.

I don't recognize this usage. I would call each individual audio or video  
stream a separate track, e.g. I talk about the "English audio track" or  
the "commentary track". If I used "track" to describe text at all it would  
be "French subtitle track" and the "Swedish subtitle track", certainly not  
describing all subtitles collectively as a track.

If all we are disagreeing on is terminology then all we have to do is find  
out which usage is more common and would be the least confusing to authors  
and go with that.

-- 
Philip Jägenstedt
Core Developer
Opera Software