I wrote:
From my perspective, and for what it's worth, I doubt that
the ideals of the W3C as expressed in 3.12.7.1 <http://3.12.7.1>
would
result in a situation that would be superior to simply letting the
international standards body for audio and video codecs deal with
these
technological areas.
Gervase Markham wrote:
Your plan would, at least, prevent the "standard" codec being
supported
on Free operating systems. Meeting 3.12.7.1 as it stands would not
prevent this. Therefore, it would be a superior situation.
David Gerard wrote:
The actual solution is a large amount of compelling content in Theora
or similar. Wikimedia is working on this, though we're presently
hampered by a severe lack of money for infrastructure and are unlikely
to have enough in time for FF3/Webkit/HTML5.
- d.
It will be very, very difficult to develop critical mass for content
encoded in Theora (or Dirac), much less ubiquity. I'm not saying
there's no point in trying. I applaud the effort, though I have
misgivings about the W3C setting itself up as a video/audio standards
organization when we already have the Motion Picture Experts Group.
But ... why not recommend that web developers encode in MPEG-4 AVC or
Theora? At least that would give some direction out of the current
morass. ISO/IEC standards, like AVC/h.264, are vastly preferable to
single-vendor (non)standards from Adobe, MS and Real. Why should the
W3C choose not create a better situation than the current one (which
is a mess for developers and a mess for users), while continuing to
work on the ideal?
____
Robert J Crisler
