[vorbis] File Extension .OGG

[Erik Moeller]

On 5 Jul 2000, at 15:58, Monty wrote:

> > 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.

Yes, but not individually for audio and video files.

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

Using just OGG for different media types does that--both for newbies 
AND for experienced users. The reaction by many others in this thread 
shows this. Doing things different than everybody else is not always 
a good thing.

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

No, and as I pointed out, the problem with file associations under 
Windows is not the only reason to use different extensions for 
different media types.

> > 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.

Yes, but it's even easier if there are different extensions.

> > 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.

You see, if you start arguing "Everyone else has to change, why 
should we?" your point is not very strong.

> > 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.

OK, then how about .v0x and .m0x? Number in the middle could be 
increased after significant codec changes. 

Or whatever your heart desires. 

> 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? 

Because this information would already be properly included in the 
extension by the encoder. Of course you can also include it in the 
filename itself, like PamelaAnderson-MOVIE.ogg, but that is 
impractical, since it is not a standard that can be easily enforced 
(and that is therefore not consistent for searching etc.). That's why 
no other format uses it.

> 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.

It has one advantage: it's short. That's why I prefer .v0x to 
.ogg.vorbis.

> '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 see no real problem with this if you use a system of different 
levels for different media types:
        
   {level 0: text               TXT}
    level 1: audio              V0X
   {level 2: single picture     L0X}
    level 3: video/anim/slides  M0X

If you have a combination of those you always choose the highest 
level for the extension, like audio+text=v0x

Regards,
Erik Moeller

-- 
Scientific Reviewer, Freelancer, Humanist -- Berlin/Germany
Phone: +49-30-45491008 - Web: <http://www.humanist.de/erik>
The Origins of Peace and Violence: <http://www.violence.de>

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