[vorbis] The OGG Extension...

[Jack Moffitt]

> As for the launcher... an undoubtedly neat idea, but it seems more like a novelty than something that would actually work well. (a la M$'s "Briefcase" that came with Win 3.1 and 95) The main problem I see here is implementation. How are we going to get this launcher onto the client machines? Are we going to "require" WinAmp to distribute the Ogg Launcher? is it going to come bundled with the WinAmp Plug-in? Are we going to say... "Well, if you want ogg to work, you need to download another program". On top of distribution problems, this would probably require the average user to RTFM... and how many of them want to do that?  While the launcher would be a neat tool for a Windows "power user" the average flip-the-computer-on-and-play-music user isn't going to like it.

Come on...  the launcher is an addon.  And it's only needed IF you want
your video files going here, your audio files going there, and your
animations going way over there.  For typical users, .ogg will bring up
their favorite media player and all will be well.

> The only other point that stands on it's own is the fact that OGG is the format for all of the specifications. Nevertheless, that doesn't make it easy on the user. We shouldn't expect every Audio player to handle (or intentionally ignore) video, and we shouldn't expect every video player to know what to do when it encounters a "sound only" type of file. We also need to keep in mind that, if this spec catches on, we'll probably get some third-party developers working on stuff independently of this group.

Ok, name me one media plyaer that supports video that doens't also do
pretty well with audio by itself.  Go on.  Windows Media Player and
RealPlayer both do this quite seemlessly.  So does Quicktime.

As for the audio only players, why are they audio only?  Because they
can't play proprietary video.  Well if they could they probably would
don't you think?  Especially if the decoding was done for them in
libtarkin (or whatever it gets called).

This argument is silly.  A typical user will click on an ogg file and it
will just work.  Case closed.

How will hte player know if it's audio or video?  easy.  THe plugin can
tell it.  This is not a problem.

We actually have quite a good relationship with most of the creators of
these players, and I know that Sonique at least will be doing video as
soon as they can.  I can't speak for Rob, but I'm sure Freeamp would
too.  Xmms already does for MPEG i think, so the argumnet about audio
players vs. video plyaers doesn't have any weight.

For power users, who want really customized systems, well, they can use
a launcher, hack it to work, or whatever.  For the average joe, clicking
on a file and knowing it will play is a big plus.  Windows usually hides
the extensions anyway, so differentiating based on them is just silly.

jack.

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