[Commons-l] We should permit Flash video playback

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 7/19/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Mozilla intends
> to support video playback in Firefox using the new <video> tag [1],
> but such support is not likely to arrive before late 2008 according to
> John.

I didn't want to comment on this last night before getting an update,
to make sure something hadn't changed since I last checked on this.

You make native Ogg support in firefox sound somewhat further off than
I think it is. If you'd like to use it today, you'll have to build a
copy of firefox with it:

http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2007/07/firefox-video-element-patch-version-2.html
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2007/07/building-video-element-enabled-firefox.html

(Chris is a Mozilla contractor who is working on the <video/> support)

So we have:

1) An existing player system which works on a substantial number of
systems without any additional software installation.

2) For systems that it doesn't work for, support can be added either
by installing Java (which is still required by many other sites), or
by adding a media plugin (like VLC) both of which aren't specific to
Wikimedia at all.
2b) Keep in mind that Flash doesn't ship built in to any desktop OS,
it also requires an install, it just happens to be installed fairly
widely.
2c) I could also make a point that Linux distros are already shipping
Theora so right now the only zero install web video solution is
Theora, but I agree that Linux desktops are utterly insignificant.

3) True native support support for Theora is already in the Opera
beta, and   in FF with a patch, and it will find its way into
mainstream versions of these browsers sometime in the next year
(especially with our support, no doubt). Nothing precludes MSFT
joining in as well.. Perhaps it's not likely, but it wasn't them
opposing Vorbis+Theora support in HTML5 (Apple was the only
opposition).

So if software installation is acceptable we're already got what we
need. If it's not acceptable, we're already not too far worse than if
we were flash based (sometimes the powers that be have installed
Flash, sometimes they have installed Java, sometimes both, sometimes
none). ... and once mainstream browsers ship with native support,
we'll have even better support for people who are unable or unwilling
to install anything.

I must admit that one of the responses I initially considered was just
to ignore the thread completely:

The addition of the transcoding infrastructure alone would be a
substantial project with substantial complexity... I've basically been
making our video work by myself with some help from Xiph folks (esp.
Maik Merten) and our Mark Ryan (for the pretty skin).  Although I've
tried to solicit help from other folks inside Wikimedia and our
communities, none has been forthcoming.

I suspect that if I had ignored the thread entirely nothing would have
happened because the interest in actually doing something about
Multimedia support is very small compared to the interest in talking
about it or meeting with Big Names about it.

In any case. I've blathered enough on commons list for this month.
I've 'shown you my code'. It's a kludgy solution at the moment but it
apparently works for hundreds of thousands of people. With no action
on our part it will magically become much better a yearish from now,
and it doesn't compromise freedom in the slightest... thats a lot more
than anyone can say about the hypothetical, trancoding, cross-site,
flash based, web 2.5 speculation which has been offered as an
alternative. :)