Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis support for the HTML5 <video> element has
landed in Firefox Minefield nightlies (3.1a2-pre). This is *big news*
because it means a standard way of displaying video in web browsers
will be available to all without being stuck with Flash. And Theora is
the only accepted format on Wikimedia Commons.
See:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-July/045036.html
http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=492
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2008/07/theora-video-backend-for-firefox-lande…
What we need is people to test this. So please download a copy of
Minefield, test it thoroughly on Wikimedia Commons video, beat on it,
thrash it, report bugs. There's plenty.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Video
You need to load the video, click "More …" and it'll give you the
option. Wikimedia would very much like to make it a first option
rather than a last one, but first it needs to be better (more
functional and stable) than loading Cortado with Java.
Apple and Nokia tried some truly disgusting FUD around the topic and
successfully got the words "Vorbis" and "Theora" taken out of the
HTML5 spec, but Firefox adoption means 20% of Web users in short
order. So we can leave them to play catchup per business needs. "You
got a Nokia? No wonder you can't watch that Wikipedia video, Nokias
suck."
- d.