Re: Codecs for <video> and <audio>

On Thu, 2 Jul 2009, Doug Schepers wrote:
> Ian Hickson wrote (on 7/2/09 8:07 PM):
> > 
> > Audio codecs really weren't part of my consideration; I removed audio 
> > codecs section just for consistency and because in the big picture it 
> > doesn't make any sense to have just that section if we don't have the 
> > others (since as far as I'm aware, all the codecs that we could put in 
> > this section -- namely just Wave PCM -- are being implemented by 
> > everyone anyway).
> 
> Not to be too facetious, but that's a bit like not including the <a> 
> element because browsers will support it anyway.  One of the things I 
> most admire about HTML5 is that, for all its flaws, it at least set out 
> to document what browsers actually do.  Please don't make an exception 
> in this critical instance.

The difference is that <a> is actually part of the language, whereas Wave 
PCM is another language that this language can refer to.


> > This would be pretty unusual for W3C specs. Why the change?
> 
> Hardly unprecedented. [...] SMIL 3.0 [...] suggests that "audio/AAC" and 
> "video/H264" also be supported.

(Really? Doesn't that violate the W3C's RF guidelines? That's what I 
thought one of the objections against H.264 in HTML5 was.)


> So, I'd expect at least as much from HTML5.

If people think that HTML5 should list a set of technologies that must be 
implemented by implementations of HTML5, I don't mind adding such a list. 
Coming up with the list seems like a can of worms. Would anyone like to 
take an action item to discuss with the relevant implementors of each 
relevant conformance class what the requirements should be, and report 
back to the group? If there is are prepared lists for the various relevant 
conformance classes that the relevant implementors agree on, I'd be happy 
to add it to the spec.

(Given my experience trying to get browser vendors to agree on a video 
codec and a font format, I don't really want to try my luck with another 
set of formats myself.)

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Friday, 3 July 2009 06:45:13 UTC