RE: Timed tracks

Comments inline.
Geoff/WGBH

________________________________________
From: public-html-request@w3.org [public-html-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Maciej Stachowiak [mjs@apple.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 6:06 PM
To: Philippe Le Hegaret
Cc: Edward O'Connor; Ian Hickson; public-html@w3.org
Subject: Re: Timed tracks

On May 5, 2010, at 2:33 PM, Philippe Le Hegaret wrote:

> On Wed, 2010-05-05 at 14:25 -0700, Edward O'Connor wrote:
>>>>> while I appreciate your enthusiasm and time that you're spending
>>>>> on this
>>>>> issue, I'm surprised to see that you're incorporating a new
>>>>> captioning
>>>>> format in the HTML5 specification without discussing about it.
>>>>
>>>> We've been discussing this for close to a year now.
>>>
>>> Nowhere did we say that the HTML5 specification should include its
>>> own
>>> captioning format in that discussion.
>>
>> I think the unsuitability of many existing formats for use on the Web
>> has been pretty well established during those discussions, so I'm not
>> sure what's objectionable here.
>
> I'm not objecting to exploring new formats or new versions of existing
> formats, but I don't believe that the HTML5 specification should the
> definition of such thing. At the minimum, it should be in its
> document.

I think a separate document would be a good choice. Even if we define
a new caption format for use with HTML5 <video>, people will want to
use the new format outside HTML5, and people will want to use HTML5
with other caption formats. Thus, the interface between WebSRT and
HTML5 has to be generic enough to work with other formats or other
embedders anyway. Putting it in a separate document should help guide
the right abstraction boundary.

GF:
So WebSRT will be different from SRT, which is different from TTML... speaking from a broadcaster/content producer point of view, I find this very discouraging.  We already have a plethora of formats to deal with, each with its own limitations.  WebSRT, too, will have its own limitations.  Is the goal now to extend SRT into WebSRT in order to cover basic features already available in TTML, simply in order to eliminate the need for TTML?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what seems is happening.

Received on Thursday, 6 May 2010 00:53:29 UTC