Re: MIDI

Hi Simon,

On Mon 11 Aug 2003, Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> 
> At:
> http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/#smil2-audio
> 
> It states:
> "It is an open question what audio formats, if any, would be required
> for conformance. For the image element, SVG mandates support of PNG,
> JPEG and SVG formats and allows others. All three mandatory formats may
> be implemented without royalty payments. Many common audio formats, such
> as MP3, require payment of royalties. One option under consideration is
> the Vorbis audio compression in the Ogg format. Ogg/Vorbis audio files
> are believed to be implementable without royalty payments. Another
> option is to say that there are no required formats, and each
> implementation supports whatever format the operating system provides.
> Clearly, this would lead to non-interoperable, platform-dependent
> content."
> 
> May I also suggest MIDI files?  They're common, readily available,
> widely supported and very very compact.  

Interesting suggestion. You're the first to make it (unless I've
forgotten). 

Any idea how much a MIDI implementation would be (ie. is it small
enough for SVG Tiny)?

> I'm trying to figure out how best to distribute a presentation I
> recently gave using SVG, minus the impediment of a 2MB MP3 file. The
> corresponding MIDI file (not ideal sound, no, but it'll do) is 24K.
> MIDI is also sort of the vector format of the music industry, so it
> seems to me like a good fit for SVG. (Especially SVG for smaller
> devices.)

OK. Can someone tell me if there is a standard audio format for
ringtones (or is it phone specific)? What audio does 3GPP mandate?

> I'm aware that there are MIME type issues - audio/mime wasn't
> registered, and audio/sp-mime seems to have disappeared from the I-D
> archives.  I don't know if the W3C has any relation with the MIDI
> Manufacturers Association (MMA - http://www.midi.org), or what their

None that I know of.

> licensing is, but it looks reasonably unencumbered, though publications
> cost money.
> 
> Also, they're working on an XML format:
> http://www.midi.org/dtds/midi_xml.shtml
> 
> Might be a nice audio complement to SVG.

It's a valid suggestion.

However, to be honest the feeling is that it will be really
difficult to mandate any audio format for SVG. THe arguments
are usually: too big or not common or requires a license.

Multiply this by 10 for video.

I'd still like it to happen though.

Dean

Received on Tuesday, 12 August 2003 09:50:22 UTC