[vorbis] Time for Vorbis File 1.1? (was Vorbis Comment question)

[Carsten Haese]

On Wed, 2003-03-05 at 15:36, David K. Gasaway wrote:
> Carsten Haese wrote:
> 
> > 1) Because Monty says so.
> 
> Monty says very little on the subject. :)

That's because the subject has come up often enough already, and he
doesn't have enough time to engage in pointless debates.

> > 2) To make backwards compatibility with older players and forward
> > compatibility with newer players easier.
> 
> Ah.  I need to clarify.  I don't believe that Vorbis comments should be 
> changed to support binary data, or otherwise break compatibility.  I 
> simply propose they might be reclassified as "metadata," while the 
> format remains the same.

And this won't work. First, let's define metadata. I define metadata to
be "any additional information that is related to a piece of
multimedia." In this sense, tags (or Vorbis comments) already provide a
_subset_ of metadata. On the other hand, there are kinds of metadata
that are not vorbis comments (Just like a car is a vehicle, but not all
vehicles are cars!)

Allowing to store any metadata in vorbis comments is incongruent with
what vorbis comments are designed to do.

> Another thing: I'm not quite keen on the idea of having a profusion of 
> metadata formats.  It seems only likely to cause confusion and headache. 
>   As in "I like this handheld player.  Does it support metadata format 
> ABC?  Nope, only XYZ.  Well, I guess I'll convert all my metadata from 
> ABC to XYZ or find another player!"  As if ID3v1 vs. ID3v2 isn't bad 
> enough... ;)

Well, Vorbis cuts through the ID3 mess neatly by using Vorbis comments
instead. As far as "arbitrary" metadata streams are concerned, I'm not
advocating a "profusion" of metadata formats. I am, however, in favor of
having one standard format for each different application. (i.e. one
standard for subtitles and timed lyrics, one standard for storing cover
artwork, etc...) If a new application happens to fit neatly into another
standard, reuse that by all means. However, I'm very much against trying
to cram every conceivable type of metadata into one Uberstandard,
because such a monster is never going to fly.

Hope this helps,

Carsten Haese.

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