Re: [whatwg] Video proposals

Matthew Raymond schreef:
>> Sure, native video playback, yay. But what has that got to do with 
>> creating a <video> element instead of using <object>. Objects can play 
>> Theora, too, you know. Natively. Just like browsers can render SVG in 
>> <object> tags, natively.
>>     
>
>    It's all about ease of authoring. If you were new to HTML, would you
> want to do this...
>
> | <object data="TheEarth.mpeg" type="video/ogg-theora"></object>
>
> ...Or this...
>
> | <video src="TheEarth.mpeg"></video>
>   

First of all, that isn’t so bad at all. Second, quote from the HTML 4 
specification: “This attribute specifies the content type for the data 
specified by data 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html#adef-data>. This 
attribute is optional […]”. So the fair-comparison snippet would be:

   <object data="TheEarth.mpeg"></object>

Third, if you look at any actual embedded media, you will see that it is 
not that simple. Being able to do the first would already be a huuge 
improvement over the current <embed>-within-<object> with all parameters 
duplicated and both big amounts of plugin finder and ActiveX attributes. 
Because <video> would also need to be pluggable, you can not avoid that 
same cruft on the <video> tag as well.

It must be pluggable, because otherwise you’ll be limited to the 
intersection of implemented codecs and file format (which might very 
well yield an empty set), and hinder third-party developers from 
creating new technologies or provide plugins for old ones so that they 
can be more uniformly supported.

Fourth, those two examples are not equivalent. The former is much more 
specific. To the point of saying that even though the file has an 
.mpeg-extension, it is really video/ogg-theora.

Anyway, the current mess that is embedding via the <object> tag does not 
reflect how it is specified, and how it /could/ be.

>    Do you know the MIME type for Ogg Theora? I don't. I made it up. If
> the MIME type on the object listed doesn't say "video" in it, would you
> even know if the <object> element was for a video???
>   

The MIME type is optional, so the point is rather moot. Furthermore, 
looking up a MIME type isn’t that troublesome.

Ogg seems to use application/ogg by the way, being the exception. It is 
interesting to read their final summary message [1] on the matter (which 
does mention a video/ogg-theora type), where they basically say that 
making a distinction between video and audio and images isn’t important 
enough to complicate matters by creating separate MIME types.

With regard to determining if it’s a video or not, if you do not know, 
would that really matter? The author puts in something in the page, that 
he wants displayed there. Whether this be a still image or a video clip 
or an audio clip or a small game… that knowledge is not really important.


~Grauw

[1] http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/speex-dev/2003-February/000172.html

-- 
Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san nan da!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laurens Holst, student, university of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Website: www.grauw.nl. Backbase employee; www.backbase.com.