[Theora] Other extension for Ogg Theora then "ogg"

[Shawn Riley]

I remember this being discussed before. The most potent explanation I heard _for_ distinguishing type by extension (rather than contents), is that when you browse a directory across a slow network connection, it could take several minutes to look inside each file to see what is there, possibly causing both computers to lag. I prefer to have the ability to tell files apart by extension, than not have this ability. (I have some very large Vorbis Oggs >100 Mb, that appear indistinguishable from Vorbis+Theora Oggs.)

Then there's the education-or-lack-thereof thing, that Average Users see ".ogg" on the end of the file, & automatically think audio-only, that is, if they even know what Ogg is. If they get a Theora+Vorbis file, Windblows loads it into their Vorbis-decoding program (probably Winamp), the file refuses to play because the codec can't handle the presence of a non-Vorbis stream, then maybe the user becomes apprehensive about Ogg files in general.

But for the other side of the argument, Michael Mutschler's mp3ext is able to determine the bitrate on each MP3 & display this bitrate as an icon in Windblows Explorer when the directory is viewed. Maybe something like this could be used to determine bitrate (or rather, q-setting) & stream contents for audio-only Oggs vs audio+video Ogg, then display an appropriate icon. If it can also be made to choose the default program to read the file, we might have a Windows solution. But I'm not a programmer. :-( A VorbisExt program exists, but it doesn't seem to like Ogg files that contain a Theora stream, which is again a reflection/acceleration of the ".ogg means audio" problem.

- Shawn