On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 12:29 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you, Fabrice. Is any followup to the earlier RfC planned,
regarding converting mp4-to-ogg on upload?
As Gilles mentioned, based on the RfC results we don't currently have a server-side solution on the table.
I plan to do some research on client-side conversion combined with upload once I've gotten a little farther on the JavaScript Ogg player (which is now working pretty well on Safari 6.1/7 and IE 10/11, and I'm experimenting with Flash-based support for older browsers).
Going client-side means we can use the existing MP4 decoding built into the operating system or browser, combined with shipping a software Ogg or WebM encoder. In my preliminary research there's going to be some ugly tradeoffs, though...
Possibilities are basically:
1) in-browser JavaScript and/or Flash: no installation required, but likely slow. Probably would only work on desktop (assuming my prelim research is correct and it's doable at all!)
2) OS & browser-specifc extension or plugin (similar to Firefogg): requires one-time installation. Not possible for mobile, and historically it's not been easy to get people to install Firefogg. I don't really want to go down this road as there's a potential combinatorial explosion of things to support.
3) OS-specific native helper app: requires one-time installation. Desktop is doable; should be workable but slow on mobile. Requiring installation may be a stopping point for many users.
Of course performance is a big question both on mobile and for a potential JS/Flash in-browser encoder... hence it remains experimental research on my time for now. :)