Interoperability of decoders is remarkably unuseful for content
producers building an integrated user experience. Not being able to
rely on additional player functionality beyond linear playback and
predictable user experience (can the user scrub? how much space is
required in a layout for controls? can I arbitrate between
different user experiences detecting the playback environment? Can
I do even basic interactivity like clickable endframes and all the
less obvious stuff you need to make that really useful etc.) makes
the promise of 'reliably generic decode' limited.
This I completely agree with, and have pointed out many times on
this list. "Standards" are especially useful in production, or in a
closed environment where you can dictate player, server, and
encoders, but like to have some choice in the matter - on the Web
even with an open standard media format, there are far too many other
variables for that format standard to be a significant factor. Take
MP3 for example - it's highly standardized, yet embedding it into a
Web page still requires either a) coding for specific players, or b)
using lowest common denominator interfaces (simple EMBED tags, for
iinstance) and hoping for the best. Or take SMIL... or MP4... or
VRML... and so on. All are perfect examples of why having "standard"
media formats is hardly the panacea some would expect.
But, then, every time I make this argument I'm accused of being an
apologist for Apple, or Microsoft, or whichever player vendor it
comes up in context of.
Standards are great - in the production pipeline, or on the backend,
but on the client side I don't have any real hope of seeing anything
but vendor-specific playback requirements for many years to come.
This is why, for me, when talking about AVC on the Web, the only real
choice is Quicktime. But it is great to have a broad choice of
encoders on the backend to choose from.
This is also why I was so negative about Microsoft abandoning the WM
Player for OSX and promoting a third-party component playing within
Quicktime for WM support - my concerns in that realm are completely
validated by the less than great experience many streaming operators,
and users, are having with that combination. How likely is it that
anything but the most basic playback will work across Windows Media
and QT+Flip4Mac? Similarly, how likely is it that anything but the
most simple AVC playback will work across Quicktime Player, CoreAVC
+WMPlayer, or any other AVC-compatible player? And this has nothing
to do with AVC not being a proper standard, as these standards do not
define how plugins are scripted from host application, for instance.
Of course, this is exactly the opposite of what Harry was getting at...
