[vorbis] File Extension .OGG

[Monty]

> You have to install the launcher. Either you force the user to 
> install it separatedly, or you convince all possible player makers to 
> include it.

That's a fair point.

> Then you have to explain to users who have never seen 
> such a thing why it is necessary. "But I change the file associations 
> under View|Options|File Types, why can't I do that for OGG?"

You still can.

> And 
> frankly, I couldn't answer that question. Or you make it invisible -- 
> then it's practically useless since users can no longer change the 
> associations easily.

I did not suggest making things harder for folks who know what they're doing.
:-)

> That's clumsy: One more program to install, which people will not at 
> all understand, since no other audio or video format requires a 
> "launcher". (Well, Real has something called similar, but that's a 
> tool that is used to spy on their users.)

Shall we insist that things never change in the Win world; every new system
must behave identically to some system that preceeded it?

> More annoying for me would be the fact that if I have a directory 
> full of downloaded stuff, I couldn't easily see which ones are movies 
> and which ones are audio.

That problem already exists.  It is very easy for anyone running a download
site to make it easy to tell.  It's not our problem to force lazy admins to
DTRT.  In fact, it's impossible.  

> AFAIK, even under Linux, the listing 
> problem persists, since if file explorers do at all try to list 
> different files with different icons, they usually check the 
> extension, not the file headers.

That is also an easy thing to fix so long as one doesn't insist that it must be
done the way things are done now.

> I can easily do that if I have two different extensions. No additions 
> required. Prog1 can register *.vox (audio)

.vox is taken by at least two other audio formats.

> As has already been pointed out, practically everywhere where you get 
> a list of files without further information about their content, be 
> it on Gnutella, FTP, IRC, often Usenet as well -- the additional 
> subroutines required to read out the info would be simple, but that 
> doesn't mean that they will be included, just like many programs 
> don't display the bitrate for MP3 files. That is a pain in the ass, 
> but unavoidable. Collisions between audio and video are avoidable.

Sigh.  One more time: why is it trivial for a site admin to use the right
extention, but it isn't trivial to make that information available in any one
of a hundred other ways? 

The .3 extention, as a tool for uniquely defining file type, was a bad idea
when it was first conceived and it a laughable anachronism now.  It *is*
useful... but in a non-mandantory way.

> The rule of thumb here is "different extensions for different media 
> types". A single picture should not have the extension for audio or 
> video, just like JPG doesn't use AVI or MOV. But animations or 
> slideshows should be recognizable by the movie extension.

'different media types' scales poorly in mixed media.  What happens when we get
to the point of ten streams types that may or may not be present, perhaps not
even uniquely?  Even if you collapse 99% of those possibilities into
pigeonholes, you still have to come up with ten or twenty extentions, most of
which will already be registered to something else.

I'd suggest a different extention for every stream type mixed in an ogg stream
(A music video with cover art and lyric subtitles could be .vog.mog.cog.sog,
but then the Win users scream again).

> And mind you, mox and vox even rhymes on OGGs! And according to 
> www.wotsit.org, they are both not taken.

They are taken, albeit by unpopular, proprietary formats.

Monty

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