Discussions of the proposed <video> tag in HTML5 invariably make my ears perk up, maybe because it could be perceived — under the right circumstances — as alleged competition against what I do at my day job. But I’m still interested in all topics concerning multimedia technology, and this sounds like a big one. Plus, Mozilla recently announced that it would donate 100 grand to Wikimedia to help improve Ogg and Theora.
Quick glossary/refresher on key terminology: Vorbis = audio codec; Theora = video codec; Ogg = container format that wraps and delivers Vorbis, Theora and several other types of media.
So, the video tag is supposed to be the promised land of video on the web (just like SVG is supposed to be the open answer to Flash). I’m looking at this from a purely pragmatic perspective. Here are 2 big questions about media meant for delivery via the media tag:
- How do people create the media?
- How do people consume the media?
I want to ponder these questions. Continue reading