[vorbis] Vorbis Comment question

[Carsten Haese]

On Wed, 2003-03-05 at 12:53, Benjamin Weste Pearre wrote:
> > Do you truly feel there is a need for another format?  Tags currently 
> > work quite well for me.
> 
> I had the impression that the Holy Metadata Format would allow such
> things as lyrics/subtitles, etc (as in, show the metadata stream in
> sync with the data) or some such.  There is probably only a slight
> demand for that at the moment, but it's a case where tags fall short.

I don't think there's going to be One Holy Metadata Format. I'm
convinced that different metadata formats should (and will) be created
for different applications.

For example, there was talk a while back about designing a stream format
for subtitles (to go hand in hand with Theora) that could also be used
for timed lyrics. Of course, such a format won't allow storing cover
artwork. For that, you'd need another type of stream format, which could
be as simple as framing an arbitrary binary file with minimal padding
into an Ogg stream. 

The problem is that the stream format is only a small part of the
solution. You need tools to create the streams, and players that
understand them. Writing such tools takes time, which is a very sparse
resource among the core Xiph team members.
 
> > What are the limitations of the tag system that make it inappropriate 
> > as a metadata format?
> 
> The limitations: tags are too embroiled in parsing debates.

Actually, the limitations are that Tags Are Not Arbitrary Metadata. Tags
are freeform comments with a certain set of semantic interpretation
guidelines, but they're ultimately designed for a human to read. That
doesn't mean that a machine shouldn't attempt to ever read or parse the
tag contents, but it means that you should not rely on imposing a higher
level data format on the tag contents.

Best regards,

Carsten Haese

<p>--- >8 ----
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