Ogg Vorbis, Speex, and FLAC supported in the audio element?

[wattsferry]

Hi all,

I see that Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis will be the default supported format for the video element. For the audio element the spec says that WAV will be the supported format, which is great, but seems somewhat counterintuitive to me given the already defined support for Ogg.

I confused on how this will work, but based on the Ogg Vorbis libraries already living in the codebase to support the video element, will the audio element also provide playback for Ogg Vorbis files? I hope this is the case.

Also, does anyone know if any further discussion of supporting Speex has occurred? I see from the post on the listserv [1] that this has been discussed. It seems that adding Speex support should be straightforward too -- actually I'd hope adding any of the xiph.org projects could be possible. Wrapping a FLAC file in Ogg, for instance, would be a great complement (or alternative) to providing WAV given the smaller file size.

[1] http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2007-May/011515.html

Thanks for any answers you might have,
Clay

[zcorpan]

I confused on how this will work, but based on the Ogg Vorbis libraries already living in the codebase to support the video element, will the audio element also provide playback for Ogg Vorbis files? I hope this is the case.

It depends on the UA. It is not required by the spec currently.

[wattsferry]

It depends on the UA. It is not required by the spec currently.

Okay thanks for clarifying. After re-reading the spec I see that Theora and Vorbis are merely suggested for video, not required. And that as of now there is no required default format for video.

Since WAV PCM will be required for audio, I hope that Vorbis, Speex, FLAC and the like could become suggested formats for audio, especially since the libraries may very well exist in the user agent because of the video support.

With respect to audio and video, I imagine this could be (or is) a political minefield within the WG. What level of importance is the WG placing on support for non-proprietary formats like Ogg or FLAC versus more proprietary ones like WAV? Rephrased, is there a philosophical tendency toward non-proprietary formats?

Thanks,
Clay

[zcorpan]

Okay thanks for clarifying. After re-reading the spec I see that Theora and Vorbis are merely suggested for video, not required. And that as of now there is no required default format for video.

They are required, unless you have a really good reason not to support them (see RFC 2119).

Since WAV PCM will be required for audio, I hope that Vorbis, Speex, FLAC and the like could become suggested formats for audio, especially since the libraries may very well exist in the user agent because of the video support.

WAV is a SHOULD requirement just like the video formats.

With respect to audio and video, I imagine this could be (or is) a political minefield within the WG. What level of importance is the WG placing on support for non-proprietary formats like Ogg or FLAC versus more proprietary ones like WAV? Rephrased, is there a philosophical tendency toward non-proprietary formats?

There has been lots of discussion about this in the WHATWG mailing list when video and audio were proposed and added...

http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatw ... 09702.html
http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatw ... 10386.html

[wattsferry]

Thanks for sending these links, it's an interesting insight into the process.

I'm familiar with 2119. For the HTML5 spec, I should note that today I have been looking at the W3C version because I can't access it from the whatwg.org site. I thought that what I had read in recent days in the whatwg.org spec said that Ogg Vorbis and Theora was required, but the W3C version seems to indicate that it isn't. Is their version different than the whatwg version?

They are required, unless you have a really good reason not to support them (see RFC 2119).

At current, on the W3C version of the spec under video codec [1] says Theora and Vorbis are SHOULDs.

WAV is a SHOULD requirement just like the video formats.

At current, on the W3C version of the spec under audio codec [2] says WAV is a MUST.

[1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#video0
[2] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#audio0

Hopefully this can get clarified in favor of Theora and Vorbis being required.

Thanks, and I'll leave you alone now!
Clay

[zcorpan]

Is their version different than the whatwg version?

No, the WHATWG and the W3C versions are identical from the ToC down.

At current, on the W3C version of the spec under audio codec [2] says WAV is a MUST.

Oops, you're right. My bad.