[theora-dev] RE: [vorbis-dev] File extensions

[Monty]

On Mon, Jan 13, 2003 at 11:59:27AM -0500, Dan Miller wrote:
> jeez, Outlook sucks.  AS I was saying:
> 
> > I would make exactly one exception to this rule: we should 
> > define .ogv for any OGG file with a video stream. 

People out there are already doing the exact same thing with .ogm
('ogg movie').  This is not a new suggestion.

Let's leave extentions out of it, really... it's a discussion of MIME.
Let the people with OSes who care what extention a file has use the
extention they want.  This is a fight I'm not going to get involved in.

(There's a specific reason; only Windows does its file determination
according to extention and extention only.  Putting a file extention
in the spec is a slap in the face to everyone else, especially those
who pride themselves on running 'smarter' systems that use mime (Be),
file metadata (MacOS) or file magic (UNIX).  We can *suggest* an
extention, or let the masses decide.  The masses will converge on an
answer just fine by themselves; there's no standards body demanding we
do it for them.)

As for audio players playing video, the current generation of media
players clearly combine the two.  Quicktime, WMP and Real are all
audio/video, and the trend continues in that direction whether it's a
good idea or not.  The only standout exceptions are WinAMP (which will
play video with plugins) and iTunes (which I honestly expect to play
video someday soon if it doesn't already.  Music video anybody?).

>It should also be a separate MIME type, application/ogv.

It should be video/ogg, counterpart to audio/ogg and subset of
application/ogg.

I'll weigh in on the list discussions tonight.  I've been avoiding it
only because I know it's going to suck away days of my life in the
argument.

> I think in general it seems to make the most sense to have a
> one-to-one mapping of extensions to MIME types (for application/ types
> at least).  They pretty much serve the same purpose: to decide which
> application is capable of handling the file or http stream.  An http
> stream is just a file on the server.

With this I agree.  MIME is clearly application-oriented (not media
type oriented, as another list member insightfully pointed out). It's
status quo to have audio/xxxx and video/xxxx and I think for good
reason.  The trend is away from audio-only players (at least for the
mass of users) but for now, the world is this way.  With
application/xxxx, we have all the bases covered for the forseeable
future.

Monty
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