[Vorbis] .ogg extension and Theora

[Eric Seppanen]

<001c01c49ce0$c39425d0$a720a8c0 at NESCAFE>
<40D1EF69.4030405 at ellisfoundation.com>
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<20040617194522.GA17559 at xiph.org>
Message-ID: <20040617200205.GA25434 at reric.net>

On Thu, Jun 17, 2004 at 12:45:22PM -0700, Arc Riley wrote:
> And who draws the line between "audio" and "audio+subtitles"?  What
> about "audio of a brand new codec which I cant decode"?  What if your
> favorite media player only supports Vorbis, but you have a Ogg FLAC file
> which is supported by a media player which you like less, and want it to
> open in a media player which you most like?
>
> The problem cannot be solved in the extension.  Your OS is the problem,
> or prehaps just your file manager.  If you /want/ different icons and
> different programs to open files depending on the file's _content_, not
> just it's _type_, then you need something more advanced to fill this niche.
>
> Ogg is the file format.  Wanting different extensions depending on it's
> content is like wanting different text file extensions depending on if
> the content is personal or work related, etc.

Yet the unfortunate reality is that 95% of end users will get irritated
that there's no easy way to get their audio file to load in their audio
player, and their video file to load in their video player.  Then
they'll go use somebody else's codec who's not so hard-headed.

You imagine a world where some vast number of users have all variety of
unsolveable problems, despite the fact that there's mostly one really,
really big problem, and it's very solveable.

It's technically unappealing, but serious enough that it could hinder
adoption of every Xiph codec because it won't "just work" for many end
users.

It's not like having two or three common filename extensions makes the
situation any worse than it is now.  If you have to build a "switcher"
app it can just as easily handle all three.  And if the day ever comes
where OSes will be smarter about this, then wonderful, things will work
even better.

It it smart for Xiph to risk everything on forcing OS developers to fix
the file-extension problem right now?

Bikeshed.  Sorry.