[Vorbis] .ogg extension and Theora

[Jon Doda]

<20040617194522.GA17559 at xiph.org>
Message-ID: <40D21148.3090707 at sympatico.ca>

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?

That's a straw man argument.  Different audio codecs hardly require a
completely different UI, therefore there is no reason any audio player
can not support all of the ogg audio codecs.  An audio player can never
support the ogg video codecs though, and that's the point.  If your
current audio player only plays Vorbis but you have a lot of FLAC files
than you'll clearly have to switch to a different player.  If you only
have a few FLAC files than it's not a huge problem to have to open those
files in a player that can handle them.

In any case, this is a much rarer problem than the one the new
extensions would solve, and therefore the fact that the extensions
doesn't solve it is not a valid argument against them.

> 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.

That's may be true, but if it is, it's a problem with every major OS and
filemanager in existance.  It would probably be easier to allow for some
new extensions rather than try and "fix" dozens or hundreds of other
programs.

> 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.

Only if you needed to open work and personal files of the same format in
different programs.  If you did, you probably would have to use
different extensions.

--
Jon Doda