[Vorbis] A Macromedia Shockwave Flash-based Ogg player?

[Ian Malone]

Andrew Lentvorski wrote:
> Ulrich Windl wrote:
>> Helix Realplayer plays Vorbis (in Linux at least), so what is the 
>> whole discussion about? If you want to hear Vorbis, you can. There are 
>> also Vorbis add-ons for Windows Media Player, so what?
> 
> So, why is it that it took YouTube to make Internet video a reality?
> 
> Zero install.
> 

Not zero, but a lot of people had Flash.

> 99.9% of end users are unable to do anything other than click a link. 
> Launching anything is a big lose.  Installing something is instant death.
> 
> Flash provided a codec that every end user had.  YouTube converted any 
> uploaded video into that really crappy format.  Viola!  Instant revolution.
> 
> Even WMV via plugin wasn't fast/convenient/ubiquitous enough to 
> kickstart everything.  Think about that.
> 

It's hard to say, no-one tried it. As you point out the key point is
that they converted from submitted formats to their one true format.
(That and suddenly enough people have enough bandwidth)

> Ogg is so far down from that in convenience that it simply doesn't exist.
> 
> A script-based Ogg audio decoder is great.  However, it can't cope with 
> video speeds, and it needs a nice, fast, modern machine even for audio.
> 
> People, this isn't a technical problem.  It's a marketing problem.  And 
> Ogg desperately needs to do some marketing.
> 

The question is how does Flash get onto machines?  It doesn't come
bundled with Windows or Linux, don't know about the Mac, so people
are still downloading it.  Maybe target the Google download package?

-- 
imalone