[thelist] video on the web, how?

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On Tue, 2005-01-11 at 02:23 -0500, john at johnallsopp.co.uk wrote:
> Aren't we supposed to be providing content that the widest group of
> people can use in ways that suit them best (rather than dictating how
> they view it)?

This was TimBL's original idea behind the Web, yes. Unfortunately too
many people have turned that on its head, reading "widest group of
people" as "people with relatively new PCs running the latest Microsoft
Windows", some even adding in a sprinkle of "screw everyone who dare run
something different, even if it's Mac OS X" just to be sure.

Getting some audio and video formats to play without using any non-free
software and/or on non-i386-compatible boxes, is painful at best and in
some cases may be outright impossible (I still haven't found a
satisfactory Quicktime player for my OS).

> A Flash format would only be viewable in a Flash enabled browser.

And it should be noted, that:

1) the Flash plugin is not free software, and the Flash specification is
only made available under what is essentially an NDA (despite
Macromedia's feeble attempt at calling it an "Open Internet Standard" it
is, in fact, anything but that);

2) Flash is used most often for (at least IMO) annoyances and fluff,
namely animations that don't conveniently stop upon pressing "Esc" (as
an animated GIF does);

3) given #1 above, running Macromedia's Flash plugin requires me to
trust Macromedia (which I don't, but that's beside the point), modifying
the Flash plugin to do what I want (mitigate the effects of #2 above) is
difficult to impossible (and I think, forbidden by the license agreement
anyway).

> There must be some people out there who prefer to use Quicktime or
> Real or something.

MPEG (specifically, MPEG1) is probably the best choice for
cross-platform compatibility, with Ogg Theora soon to take its place. I
applaud Real's efforts with Helix, but that's no reason to use their
proprietary codecs.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at speakeasy.net>