[Vorbis] .ogg extension and Theora

[noprivacy at earthlink.net]

<007301c45480$89aa1a30$86389c3f at computername>
<20040617173110.GA19750 at derobert.net>
Message-ID: <000501c454a9$366dfac0$05649c3f at computername>

From: "Anthony DeRobertis" <anthony at derobert.net>

> On Thu, Jun 17, 2004 at 10:26:52AM -0500, noprivacy at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > If so, then that's pretty well established and it might be better to use
> > a
> > different extension indicate a Xiph version.  Just to seperate Theora
> > from
> > being Divx.
>
> Why? ogm is video in an ogg container format. No reason why there should
> be a different extension based on codec.

This has already been answered repeatedly, but you may have missed those
messages.  Or maybe I accidently sent a few directly to the people, instead
of to the list (since that requires explitly adding the vorbis at xiph.org
address.)

1) ogm is already pretty well established as being DivX and Vorbis.  Trying
to put Theora in there in people's mind probably wouldn't work too well.

2) the Theora specific extension would be more promotion etc.  Something
that regular users would automatically associate with, rather than some
generic container that might contain no telling what and require no telling
what codec to play.

That's one of the problems that effect the .AVI extension.  If you do video
from the web or p2p stuff, you gotta have a couple dozen codecs installed
because there's no telling what codec might be used.

I've downloaded video clips off p2p stuff.  Tv bloopers off live tv, or a
commercial that was only seen in a specific countery, etc.  A lot of times
it wont play and wont tell what codec is needed.  You gotta use some other
program to examine the video and see what codecs were used, and then go
search the web to see what it is and where to get it, and hope that it's
still available for XP and not just Win9x, etc.  And Linux users are in
worse shape, of course.

It's a mess, all because a generic container format can hold so many
different types of codecs.  Generic containers have their good points, but
they have bad points too.

Using some codec specific extension would mean the regular user would be
able to recognise it and know what codec is needed to play it.

Not very future-proof, no.  But it would help the average user.


Still, it could be done similarly if Xiph basically says ".ogv is the Xiph
only codec video extension and .ogm is the third-party codec video
extension."

That way if the user sees .ogv, they know to go one specific place to get
all the codecs (as a single package?) that would be used in a file with that
extension.  If it's .ogm, then they have to search the web, just like they
do with .avi files.