Please stop using the OGM name [Archive] - Page 2

DaveEL

30th May 2002, 13:49

Originally posted by Neo Neko

Basically as it stands I understand both sides. But my belief is to simply call it OGG. Where the problem arises is that if your OGGs are associated with winamp, winamp just dumps core and runs if the OGG contains anything more than a simple Vorbis header. And this is why some people want an alternate extension.

No its not, yes these decoders should be fixed to ignore the additional streams. However the problem is that i want to use winamp to play my audio only oggs and a different player to play the video/audio oggs. Currently none of the major OSes/Desktop Enviroments allow me to do this as eaisly as asking it to open a file and have it work out which player to run. Yes i can open the player and ask that to open the file but its more work. The solution of having .ogg associated with another app which then chooses what to open it in not only add more complexity but causes problems in other ways.

1) If i tell windows to open my ogg in a specific application and set the association to that then all oggs become associated with that player and everything breaks again so now i have to use a new application to set up my ogg file associations and as cant do it with the open with option in windows or the main file association dialog.
2) Every player which can associate with ogg files has to be updated to instead edit the stored association that this new application keeps instead.
3) One of these applications and the associated player/editor updates need to be coded for every platform.

Actually it is not winamp that freaks, but the decoder plug in. I guess you could say it is kind of broken. It was only ever meant to handle audio only OGGs and it works fine for that. But OGGs like AVI were not meant to be audio only. All these people wanting and using the alternate extension have a bit flawed perception of what OGG is.

How can you know what my perception of ogg is, i know and always have that oggs were supposed to hold more then just audio its just that it doesnt map well to the available software the alternate extension method does. Tthe alternate extension suffers from none of the above problems as its been designed to work with current software instead of against it. the extension is used in all current software to represent the what the file contains and .ogg breaks that convention

But the incompatible / broken decoders have not helped. Fixing these decoders will become paramount once Theora is announced. This will not be a 3rd party implementation like Tobias's is. Even though Tobias created his filters from then unimplemented Xiphophorus specs. This will be the real deal handed down from the company themselves. And the schedual is set to move fast. It will bring about the solidification of the OGG “multimedia” project. As in more than just audio. So multimedia OGGs are going to become official and a lot more common.

Well if its incompatible with the current filters then we have an even better reason not to use the .ogg for files created with the current implementation as its not compaible with "real" ogg. As its stands in fact IMO ogm is a different file format to ogg as ogg only defines where video data is stored in the file ogm on the other hand also defines where the necessary information is stored so that appropirate codecs can be loaded to render the video information. As this is an extension to the spec it makes ogm a subset of ogg and therefore ogg!=ogm.

The alternate extension thing is only an MP3-PRO like kludge. Once decoders are updated the alternate extensions issue should be mute. This could be accomplished in future Xiphophorus libraries or by coding a check to ignore extraneous or non-pertinent headers. Ignoring the unneeded header info should be done first though. As it will still be a bit before Theora will be officially announced and then a bit longer before it is ready. So the libraries might not be updated for some time.

Mp3 pro like? how about mp3 like .mp3 files use the same file format as mpeg1 audio/video files rename them to .mpg and try to open in whatever player and see or open graphedit and render an mp3 and look at the fact the Mpeg1 splitter is the first thing it renders through. Its exactly the same situation as ogg/ogm except everyone accepts it as its the only way to make the files work properly in the way we want to use them.

DaveEL

LotionBoy

30th May 2002, 20:43

Originally posted by Neo Neko
Where the problem arises is that if your OGGs are associated with winamp...

All these people wanting and using the alternate extension have a bit flawed perception of what OGG is.

The problem arises because windows is unable to differentiate between different content types with the same extention. Some people like using winamp or creative jukebox to play their music. Some people like to use WMP, PowerDivx, BS Player, etc. to play their movies. If you have two files with the .ogg extention, with one being an audio file and one being a video file, there is no way to get windows to open them in different programs. That's not the way windows works.

Let me try to explain something to you. People are going to embrace things that make their life easier. They don't give a crap about standards or purity or correctness or anything else that might matter to you. .ogg is not practical. .ogm is. Therefore, ogm is here to stay, at least until you guys rewrite the windows kernal to handle file associations a different way. So you can either deal with it, or not and pout, because people aren't going to stop using it.

Oh, and one more thing. Before you start insulting all of us who have been supportive of OGG and vorbis all along, by telling us that 'we don't understand ogg', maybe you should realize that we do understand ogg and we understand that IT DOESN'T WORK in a way that is useful for a vast majority of people, so rather than write it off as a loss, an alternative naming system was devised that makes it useful to everyone.

LotionBoy

Neo Neko

30th May 2002, 21:29

As I said I understand both sides. But there are many solutions which are better. Much better. And they do not go against the creators wishes. Remember I am one of you guys and not some Xiphophorus employee spying and pushing dogma on you. Just double clicking would be nice. But is it really that much more work to left click “open with” whatever you want? It is exactly the same number of clicks. Just a bit more mouse waggle. Is it to much to name your movies something(Video).ogg? Is it out of the question to separate the audio and video files in their own audio and video directory? The alternate extension works. But it is the laziest solution. And the other solutions do not involve that much more work.

Here is how I personally do things.
All OGG files are associated with winamp. Cause I have a tenancy to que up 600+ songs at a time. But when it comes to videos I watch most of em one at a time. So I either open my favorite media player and then the video I want to watch. Or I right click on the file and tell it to open with my media player.

Another more worth while solution would be to write a program that would spy the headers and launch the correct program. Thus bypassing one of the many difficiencies built into Windows. It has already been discussed quite a bit on #vorbis. And it is just waiting to be implemented.

Neo Neko

30th May 2002, 21:34

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

Huh? This this the decoder's fault?

In part yes.

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

So by 'fixing' the Ogg decoders, I'm fixing this ogg/ogm business. Does that mean I'm supposed to watch my oggwithvideo files in Winamp now?

No but you could.

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

Is Winamp supposed to start instantiating other programs now?

This sounds dubious to me. I'll be back later.

When has it ever? Why would it ever? Where do you come to this conclusion? How is it that this is always the conclusion people jump to? Who is Tyler Durden?

Neo Neko

30th May 2002, 21:59

Originally posted by LotionBoy

Oh, and one more thing. Before you start insulting all of us who have been supportive of OGG and vorbis all along, by telling us that 'we don't understand ogg', maybe you should realize that we do understand ogg and we understand that IT DOESN'T WORK in a way that is useful for a vast majority of people, so rather than write it off as a loss, an alternative naming system was devised that makes it useful to everyone.
LotionBoy

Not to sound insulting. But where the F*n' hell do you come off with this? I have been in support of OGG for years now. And I am in no way tied to Xiphophorus. I never said that you do not "understand" OGG. I said that peoples "perceptions" are skewed. Do you name an AVI due to it's contents? No. Everyone has their own opinion on the subject. But you know what. I did not come in here to flame people who have alternate or wrong opinions. It took someone else to start this.

OGG works. It is just that some people are just to lazy to use things the way they were meant to be used.

I don't want to be like Valkor or some of the other zealots who have argued on this point saying all Windows users and their OS are stupid. Cause that ain't true. They are just lazy. :) I say this as a Windows user myself. And besides some of my friends are using the OGM extension. But that does not make them any less friends.

I thought we all came here to discuss these things civily. Not to flame those with different oppinions. I say lets get back to proper discussion.

To me it comes down to respect for the creators of OGG and their wishes. Respect is important. And I do respect them. As I do many developers who visit this and other boards. Would you go against their wishes? Would you want someone to go against yours?

I have yet to see anyone to make a truly convincing argument for OGM. It allows you to open the file in your player of choice with only two clicks? I can do that with any *.ogg file under Windows.

Neo Neko

30th May 2002, 22:13

Originally posted by DaveEL

Well if its incompatible with the current filters then we have an even better reason not to use the .ogg for files created with the current implementation as its not compaible with "real" ogg. As its stands in fact IMO ogm is a different file format to ogg as ogg only defines where video data is stored in the file ogm on the other hand also defines where the necessary information is stored so that appropirate codecs can be loaded to render the video information. As this is an extension to the spec it makes ogm a subset of ogg and therefore ogg!=ogm.

No no. OGG == OGM. OGM !> OGG. OGG !> OGM. if( OGM > OGG ){ cout << "Fantasy.\n"; } else { cout << "Reality\n"; };

It is not incompatable with current filters. It is incompatable with current decoders. But Theora will make all decoders capable. Tobias's work is directly derived from the XIPH specs. Possibly his subtitle filter is the only thing that is not compatable.

When BlackSun and I discussed this with Emmett the other day we made clear we wanted to keep things compatable and work togeather on this with Tobias's help. Emmett said that that would be thier preferd goal as well.

Originally posted by DaveEL

Mp3 pro like? how about mp3 like .mp3 files use the same file format as mpeg1 audio/video files rename them to .mpg and try to open in whatever player and see or open graphedit and render an mp3 and look at the fact the Mpeg1 splitter is the first thing it renders through. Its exactly the same situation as ogg/ogm except everyone accepts it as its the only way to make the files work properly in the way we want to use them.

DaveEL

That only works in directshow. Try opening a renamed MP3 track in a standard MPEG1 player and you will get a whole lot of nothing. MP3 is a subset tis true. But not the same thing.

Milkman Dan

30th May 2002, 23:49

Originally posted by Neo Neko

I said that peoples "perceptions" are skewed. Do you name an AVI due to it's contents? No. Everyone has their own opinion on the subject. But you know what. I did not come in here to flame people who have alternate or wrong opinions. It took someone else to start this.

People's perceptions of working software is not something you can call "skewed." Especially when they came here, read a guide, and downloaded some software. They're just following instructions.

The important realization is the people responsible for the infrastructure are the ones with the skewed perception of how Ogg is 'supposed' to work. Which is, in effect, calling them ignorant. And I don't think that goes over lightly. Heck, it might even account for some of the reticence you find.

As for naming AVIs for contents, I addressed this several times already. People don't associate avi with audio-only content. They expect video. It is not a valid analogy to the situation at hand.

However, when people see .ogg, they expect audio (or don't know what the extension is). And when they see .ogm, they think video and audio.

You seem to think this system is 'lazy.' Do you think all simple solutions are lazy? I mean, I'd understand if there were some obvious downside to this. But there isn't. It works just fine the way it is. The solution you're proposing isn't better. It's not even marginally better. Not even slightly better. It's really just annoying and worse.

I mean, you can't honestly say "Ogg isn't working like its supposed to when it's .ogm." It's the same damn format! Just because these Xiph guys didn't design Ogg acknowledging Windows as the dominant OS platform isn't my problem. It's Koepi's problem, and it's Tobias's problem. And looky there, they fixed it! Xiph may not think it elegant, but it gets the job done with a minimum of confusion, and a minimum of fuss. Simply, even.

I don't want to be like Valkor or some of the other zealots who have argued on this point saying all Windows users and their OS are stupid. Cause that ain't true. They are just lazy. :) I say this as a Windows user myself. And besides some of my friends are using the OGM extension. But that does not make them any less friends.

You sound like someone justifying their gay friends to their homophoic parents. I'm not taking it personally that you aren't seeing the point here. I hope you aren't taking it personally the words I write. I, of course, can't speak for anyone else.

I thought we all came here to discuss these things civily. Not to flame those with different oppinions. I say lets get back to proper discussion.

I dunno if you are addressing me here or not. But I'm gonna tell you straight up that if I think an idea is stupid, I'm gonna say it's stupid. And you may certainly contest that. But without honesty, this isn't going to get very far anyway.

To me it comes down to respect for the creators of OGG and their wishes. Respect is important. And I do respect them. As I do many developers who visit this and other boards. Would you go against their wishes? Would you want someone to go against yours?

It doesn't come down to their wishes at all. That's what the BSD says. They can yell and scream all they freakin' want to. They have no leverage to force the change.

As for respect, respect is earned, not defaulted. By making this into a big deal, they are losing my respect personally. By arguing that a HUGE portion of their userbase is stupid and lazy, well...that's not respect-earning either. They prolly don't care about that, and that's fine with me. I'm not building ogg support into my application in the first place.

I have yet to see anyone to make a truly convincing argument for OGM. It allows you to open the file in your player of choice with only two clicks? I can do that with any *.ogg file under Windows.

I have yet to see anyone make an argument for ogg only period. Every one I've read hasn't been logically solid, or logically based.

I think you haven't seen convincing arguments for ogm because ogm is already here! It's already implemented! This isn't a pro/con debate before the release of a product. This is Xiph makin' a fuss a full, what? 3 months after release? Where have they been all this time?

I think the common perception around here is that Xiph got left out of the decision loop because of their well-known aloofness (or is it 1337ness), and they're pissed about it and want to take back what they feel is totally theirs. Somehow...I guess. And you know what? tough s**t.

I mean, in the end, no one can stop them from doing this 'Theora' (is that a pun? "It'll work, but only in Theora."). The question is whether or not it'll be relevent, and whether or not it'll matter in the least bit.

They're crusin' for a fork, and it's not going to be a pretty one.

Milkman Dan

30th May 2002, 23:56

When has it ever? Why would it ever? Where do you come to this conclusion? How is it that this is always the conclusion people jump to? Who is Tyler Durden?

Uh...cause it's the logical one? How else is it supposed to work? Apparently, since everyone is arriving at this conclusion, they're thinking it's the logical conclusion as well. Makes a great sanity check.

unplugged

30th May 2002, 23:59

I totally agree with Neo Neko

Originally posted by Neo Neko
To me it comes down to respect for the creators of OGG and their wishes. Respect is important.

Especially because *they* have done the work, and we are just using the result...
So even if debate between OGG and OGM suffix seems of ridiculous importance, as MP3 is only known as MP3 format and not as MPEG-Layer-3 format, is not a good choice to morph OGG file identity to OGM to most of very-end users (not documented), especially NOT in this Ogg/Vorbis expansion moment,
and by secondary importance: not because of stupid OS(es) restritions (IMHO).

Right, we know that file extension is negligible, but as said most of potential users are very-end users, so I think we shouldn't want read/listen from these uninvolved people in the future such things as "OGM files", "I have an OGM movie...", "OGM trailer", "where to find OGM site...", "does Vdub support OGM?" .... "What diff. between OGG and OGM???".
This sound pretty ODD to OGG Xiph guys and to us OGG-project sustainers (me too :mad: ).

So this extension issue isn't negligible as seem,
because next time it goes to become more than only a simple .EXT.

Originally posted by Neo Neko
And I do respect them. As I do many developers who visit this and other boards. Would you go against their wishes? Would you want someone to go against yours?[/B]

I think that we shouldn't even ask to developers their wishes, it's well clear that making all the jobs with beloved OGG and Vorbis a then sticking to the last moment to .OGM is rather frustrating.

Originally posted by Neo Neko
I have yet to see anyone to make a truly convincing argument for OGM. It allows you to open the file in your player of choice with only two clicks? I can do that with any *.ogg file under Windows. [/B]

:D

DaveEL

31st May 2002, 00:00

Originally posted by Neo Neko

Do you name an AVI due to it's contents?

Yes my avis contain audio and video data and therefore i put it in an audio video interleave file.

OGG works. It is just that some people are just to lazy to use things the way they were meant to be used.

No i just dont want to do additional work when i dont have to.

To me it comes down to respect for the creators of OGG and their wishes. Respect is important. And I do respect them. As I do many developers who visit this and other boards. Would you go against their wishes? Would you want someone to go against yours?

do we need to keep to 3 characters extentions? prehaps if we used .oggMedia instead of .ogm it would be considered better by those people who feel they are not being fairly credited by using the ogm extension as it clearly contains the word ogg so show this is an ogg file however still allows us to use it eaisly with the filename to application mapping supported by all current software.

I have yet to see anyone to make a truly convincing argument for OGM. It allows you to open the file in your player of choice with only two clicks? I can do that with any *.ogg file under Windows.

No with pre win2k versions it takes 4 clicks

rightclick = click 1
Openwith = click 2
Chose program = click 3
Click ok = click 4

and even on win2k+ it takes longer then double click plus with the .ogm extension i can do start|run|type file name and press enter and it works something that i cannot do with .ogg extension

Try opening a renamed MP3 track in a standard MPEG1 player and you will get a whole lot of nothing. MP3 is a subset tis true. But not the same thing.

A subset in that it contains no video data you mean. This is the same problem winamp has with oggs it only supports the subset of oggs with only vorbis streams.

DaveEL

Vosper

31st May 2002, 00:15

I think that those against .ogm are forgetting the end users. I'm not talking about the people in this forum, who all have a degree of computer skill (some a great deal). But your really really average home user, who still has the extensions hidden, who doesn't care why or how his computer does something, just that it does. To gain acceptance as a truly mass media format, you don't want your users to have to learn a right click -> open with method. This still requires at some point that they associate their software with the .ogg extension. You don't want them dealing with file extensions, or associations. They want to double click on their movie, and it opens in the right player and off they go. .ogm accomplishes this.

And it seems a tad arrogant to expect the people supporting the format with their applications to bend over backwards to support an 'ideal' solution, disregarding a practical one *that already works fine*.

Just my 2 cents.

Craig

PS Why keep this 'Theora' solution secret? The issue is at hand now.

LotionBoy

31st May 2002, 01:27

Originally posted by Neo Neko

Not to sound insulting. But where the F*n' hell do you come off with this? I have been in support of OGG for years now. And I am in no way tied to Xiphophorus. I never said that you do not "understand" OGG. I said that peoples "perceptions" are skewed. Do you name an AVI due to it's contents? No. Everyone has their own opinion on the subject. But you know what. I did not come in here to flame people who have alternate or wrong opinions. It took someone else to start this.

I'm sorry if my tone came off as a little harsh. (oh, and telling someone that using ogm is caused by a lack of perception, is basically telling them that they don't 'understand' the real way that ogg is supposed to work. which is kinda insulting, especially when you consider the number of people on this board who use the extention. MilkManDan said the same thing above. You called us a bunch of idiots, whether it was intentional or not, and that doesn't sit real well.)

I add extentions to a file based on two things: the contents of the file and what program I want to open them. I have seperate extentions for school paper, personal writing, song lyrics, etc., even though they are all Wordperfect files. I have .cpp and .cc files on my computer that are virtually identical, but sometimes I want to open them with Visual C++ and sometimes Notepad will do. Could I just write click and open with->. Of course. Is it easier my way? yeah. is it a little wasteful? yeah, but I got 140GB to play with and don't care if I have dupes of a couple files. Let's extend this a little. Do most people want to have stuff be as easy as possible? Yes. Is having to right-click on a file the easiest way to open it? No.

OGG works. It is just that some people are just to lazy to use things the way they were meant to be used.

The way it was meant to be used? According to [insert your favorite deity here]? There's an old saying about battleplans and enemies and how you can always have the best plan, but that doesn't mean anything once the battle starts. Same situation here. Something that looks good is a spec ain't so good in reality. People adapt it to there needs. And now the developers are throwing a tantrum because things aren't going their way. In the end, who is right? The small group of developers or the thousands of people who use this format every day. Users drive products, not the other way.

To me it comes down to respect for the creators of OGG and their wishes. Respect is important. And I do respect them. As I do many developers who visit this and other boards. Would you go against their wishes? Would you want someone to go against yours?

I don't care about the wishes of the developer. I care about my computer and ease of use. Developers who don't care about the wishes of the public end up without a public because something new and better overtakes them. I do respect the developers, though, because they're invested a lot of time and effort into doing something really amazing. I don't respect them because now they're getting angry that the public likes their product and is using it the "wrong" way. The public's way is the right way, and that's just the way it is.

I have yet to see anyone to make a truly convincing argument for OGM. It allows you to open the file in your player of choice with only two clicks? I can do that with any *.ogg file under Windows.

Here's the argument. People want it. People want movies and music to have different extentions. People want to be able to give a file to their clueless friend and have them able to double-click on it and it works. People want ogm. And that's all that matters.

Respect is a two-way street. We respect the developers for what they do and they respect the wishes of the public. It definetely gets out of hand sometimes, with people constanting demanding things (see B-Frames in Xvid for an example) and forgetting about the fact that these are real people who are doing this for fun and who don't owe us anything. But for the most part, people are cool. The developers need to be cool too. They (and you) need to realize that people want different extentions for Audio and A/V files. Mostly due to Windows (and while there may be a large number of Linux users kicking around this forum, in the real world, pretty much everyone is on Windoze). And that's just the way it is.

LotionBoy

LotionBoy

31st May 2002, 01:28

Originally posted by Vosper

And it seems a tad arrogant to expect the people supporting the format with their applications to bend over backwards to support an 'ideal' solution, disregarding a practical one *that already works fine*.

exactly. Said it better than I did and in less space. :-)

LotionBoy

Neo Neko

31st May 2002, 03:54

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

As for naming AVIs for contents, I addressed this several times already. People don't associate avi with audio-only content. They expect video. It is not a valid analogy to the situation at hand.

However, when people see .ogg, they expect audio (or don't know what the extension is). And when they see .ogm, they think video and audio.

It is a very relevant analogy. AVI can indeed contain only audio. It is not used much that way. But it is used that way. OGG was always meant to have video. It was always in the cards. OGG and AVI though different are very analogus.

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

You seem to think this system is 'lazy.' Do you think all simple solutions are lazy? I mean, I'd understand if there were some obvious downside to this. But there isn't. It works just fine the way it is. The solution you're proposing isn't better. It's not even marginally better. Not even slightly better. It's really just annoying and worse.

No all simple solutions are not lazy. They are lazy when there are just as simple proper solutions. Dj SnM on the #vorbis channel on irc.openprojects.net has a fiendishly simple set of perl scripts set up for MP3 and Vorbis streaming. It is pure and utter genius. And each of the three scripts is less than 3k in size! Not lazy at all.

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

I mean, you can't honestly say "Ogg isn't working like its supposed to when it's .ogm." It's the same damn format! Just because these Xiph guys didn't design Ogg acknowledging Windows as the dominant OS platform isn't my problem. It's Koepi's problem, and it's Tobias's problem. And looky there, they fixed it! Xiph may not think it elegant, but it gets the job done with a minimum of confusion, and a minimum of fuss. Simply, even.

OGG works as it is supposed to. It the users that are broken. :) hehe You can use WMP as your media player and some do. Where then is the need for OGM? Many of us prefer something else. I myself use winamp. But I have not found a compelling reason to use an alternate extension. I love Keopis work and wish him to keep it up! But I don't think oggmux should use the OGM extension by default. You can give the option to do that, but it should not be the default.

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

You sound like someone justifying their gay friends to their homophoic parents. I'm not taking it personally that you aren't seeing the point here. I hope you aren't taking it personally the words I write. I, of course, can't speak for anyone else.

I see the point. But it is not a good point.

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

I dunno if you are addressing me here or not. But I'm gonna tell you straight up that if I think an idea is stupid, I'm gonna say it's stupid. And you may certainly contest that. But without honesty, this isn't going to get very far anyway.

Honesty and tact are not mutually exclusive ideas.

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

It doesn't come down to their wishes at all. That's what the BSD says. They can yell and scream all they freakin' want to. They have no leverage to force the change.

As for respect, respect is earned, not defaulted. By making this into a big deal, they are losing my respect personally. By arguing that a HUGE portion of their userbase is stupid and lazy, well...that's not respect-earning either. They prolly don't care about that, and that's fine with me. I'm not building ogg support into my application in the first place.

That is a very disrespectfull and counter productive position. I think that Xiph has definatly earned some respect. Keep in mind that Xiph has not yet made an official statement on this. Emmett has it in the works though as we speek. It will be filled with tact and honesty. What you hear form people on IRC or in forums like this is no different from what you are syaing. It does not represent the whole.

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

I have yet to see anyone make an argument for ogg only period. Every one I've read hasn't been logically solid, or logically based.

I think you haven't seen convincing arguments for ogm because ogm is already here! It's already implemented! This isn't a pro/con debate before the release of a product. This is Xiph makin' a fuss a full, what? 3 months after release? Where have they been all this time?

I am me but who is myself? Are we not the same? Or are we different. OGG and OGM are the same thing. People are treating it like they are different. So what you say could be just as valid if it were to go like this.

Not an original post by Milkman Dan

I have yet to see anyone make an argument for ogm only period. Every one I've read hasn't been logically solid, or logically based.

I think you haven't seen convincing arguments for ogg because ogg is already here! It's already implemented! This isn't a pro/con debate before the release of a product. This is misunderstanding users makin' a fuss a full, what? 3 months after release? Where have they been all this time?

Not exactly what you said but very valid the other way round

Not an original post by Milkman Dan

I think the common perception around here is that Xiph got left out of the decision loop because of their well-known aloofness (or is it 1337ness), and they're pissed about it and want to take back what they feel is totally theirs. Somehow...I guess. And you know what? tough s**t.

WTF? Aloof? I talk and have meaningfull discussions with them almost every day. It is all about going to the right outlet. If you e-mail them don't expect an immediate response. But if you hit IRC you can. On IRC I have had many opportunities to speak personally with Emmett and Monty both. Not to mention a myriad of other lesser known employees.

Not an original post by Milkman Dan

I mean, in the end, no one can stop them from doing this 'Theora' (is that a pun? "It'll work, but only in Theora."). The question is whether or not it'll be relevent, and whether or not it'll matter in the least bit.

They're crusin' for a fork, and it's not going to be a pretty one.

They are not crusing for a fork. I think this issue is being overplayed. It is nowhere near being anything to fork over. Hehehe. Fork Over.

Neo Neko

31st May 2002, 03:55

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

Uh...cause it's the logical one? How else is it supposed to work? Apparently, since everyone is arriving at this conclusion, they're thinking it's the logical conclusion as well. Makes a great sanity check.

Everyone? no not everyone. You are leaving important people out of your surveys.

Neo Neko

31st May 2002, 04:03

Originally posted by DaveEL

No with pre win2k versions it takes 4 clicks

rightclick = click 1
Openwith = click 2
Chose program = click 3
Click ok = click 4

and even on win2k+ it takes longer then double click plus with the .ogm extension i can do start|run|type file name and press enter and it works something that i cannot do with .ogg extension

A subset in that it contains no video data you mean. This is the same problem winamp has with oggs it only supports the subset of oggs with only vorbis streams.
DaveEL

It only takes more clicks the first time. And that goes from Win 95 and up. Not 2000. Once you have done it you can right click the file. Move the mouse over open with. The menu automatically opens. Click the proggie of choice. 2 clicks.

The whole argument I have seen thus far was using the OGM extension for the ease of hapless newbs. If you are knowledgable enough to start|run|type file name|press enter then what do you need the alternate extension for. You have already proven yourself hundreds of times smarter than the average user.

Koepi

31st May 2002, 04:04

I hate to repeat myself in this _unlogical_ _emotional_ discussion, BUT:

I supported (and still do ;) ) OGG (vorbis) from it's -way_ before Beta1 days.

I've plenty of respect for monty.

Bur i still think winamp isn't the app of choise for a movie.

You seem to forget about this _important_ issue, since this belongs into every standard windwows installation.

Neo Neko

31st May 2002, 04:09

Originally posted by Vosper
I think that those against .ogm are forgetting the end users. I'm not talking about the people in this forum, who all have a degree of computer skill (some a great deal). But your really really average home user, who still has the extensions hidden, who doesn't care why or how his computer does something, just that it does. To gain acceptance as a truly mass media format, you don't want your users to have to learn a right click -> open with method. This still requires at some point that they associate their software with the .ogg extension. You don't want them dealing with file extensions, or associations. They want to double click on their movie, and it opens in the right player and off they go. .ogm accomplishes this.

And it seems a tad arrogant to expect the people supporting the format with their applications to bend over backwards to support an 'ideal' solution, disregarding a practical one *that already works fine*.

Just my 2 cents.

Craig

PS Why keep this 'Theora' solution secret? The issue is at hand now.

You are correct that everyone here is much more knowledgable than the average user. Which is why this phenomina baffles and perplexes me so. Users have to learn. Period. If we start dumbing everything down to the level of the lowest common denominator the over all quality of software could follow as well. Why have we taken a stance on something like this when more than half the tools we use are far beyond the grasp of the very same users? It baffles me. I'm sorry.

Neo Neko

31st May 2002, 04:20

Originally posted by Koepi
I hate to repeat myself in this _unlogical_ _emotional_ discussion, BUT:

I supported (and still do ;) ) OGG (vorbis) from it's -way_ before Beta1 days.

I've plenty of respect for monty.

Bur i still think winamp isn't the app of choise for a movie.

You seem to forget about this _important_ issue, since this belongs into every standard windwows installation.

Then lets just associate our files with WMP and be done with it. I really apreciate all your work Keopi. And you are right it has gotten way to emotional and out of hand.

The argument for both are equaly valid/invalid. Logical/illogical. Again Microsoft creates a rift. I wish I were a better programmer. I would write a proper program to launch these files and solve this issue the right way once and for all. I know enough PERL. So I will start with that. But I encourage all you coders to write a simple launching program to handle this and bring both sides together. Better yet. Instead of a specialised launcher we could create a fully configurable launcher. One that could be used for whatever and not just OGG. I would like a launcher that could open my PNG files with alpha transparency ancillary chunks in a program able to handle them. And let me tell you they are a bit rare ATM.

Emp3r0r

31st May 2002, 05:08

Neo Neko, you baffle me. I can't understand how all of this has come about. I'm using OGM because it works and it is the best thing I have found yet. I don't care about anything else but that. I'm a user, and If I'm dumb or lazy for using OGM, SO BE IT.

And if we lived in a world where opinions could be right or wrong then:

Lotion Boy: RIGHT
Koepi: RIGHT
DaveEL: RIGHT
Milkman Dan: RIGHT
int 21h: RIGHT
inoteb: RIGHT
ChristianHJW: RIGHT concerning Tobias

Neo Neko: WRONG
unplugged: WRONG

Matter: Like most of you I found it hard to believe this was an issue as well, especially this late in the game. On the other hand, Neo Neko had some valid points in IRC regarding Xiph's point of view.

Can someone please clarify the issues and state the facts into one meaningful post, because I too find it hard to believe this is an issue at all. It is just so lame. But then again, we are all just dumb, lazy, ignorant users who don't like to click alot.

PS: special thanks to tobias, etc. for OGM

RadicalEd

31st May 2002, 06:55

This whole thing is starting to give me a headache. Look, you want an analogy for the current situation?
I'm aware that ogg is much more than a simple audio container. But right now, most people use it synonymously with vorbis. When you want to listen to music, you open an mp2 in whatever, when you want to watch a video, you open an m2v in whatever, when you want to watch an SVCD, you watch an mp2 and an m2v muxed inside of an mpg. People are used to this sort of functionality. That said, it is a sensible one. The whole ogg/vorbis/tarkin relationship is kinda weird at that. Hell, it would make more sense if vorbis files were named .vrb or something weird like that. At least then you would mantain the simple mpg/mp2/m2v relationship that users are accustomed to.

I can also see how Xiph is getting pissed with people asking about ogm this and ogm that when all ogm is is something that a bunch of outside developers threw together to somewhat maintain the aforementioned relationship (this time as ogm/ogg/avi, a twisted dirivitive, but effective for the time being).

I'm not taking any sides, in fact I no longer even use ogm/ogg now that realvideo 9 is out, I'm just trying to point out some simple facts as seen by the user base and the developer base.
People, when happy with their current system of behavior, aren't normally willing to change. If Xiph wants to break the barrier between audio files, video files, and audio/video muxed files, let them do it, but not a whole lot of people will be happy about it (as you can see..). People will use what they are used to using (say that 5 times), especially if it is simpler. Trying to merge vorbis, tarkin, and everything else into one single format is begging for trouble and unneeded complexity. The mpg/mp2/m2v system isnt broken, why try to fix it?
Until Xiph comes up with a solution that will make a universal format more efficient than segregated formats, (and it sounds like Theora is based on this ideal) this argument is going to be cyclical. I agree that it isnt quite pointless (yet) and it is important that such issues be debated, but it seems as though the users are gonna do what the users are used to doing until there is a better way to do it. And right now, nobody is suggesting that.

Note: my formal apologies in advance, its 1:52AM, I'm tired as hell, and who knows what I just wrote e.e
In addition, nobody take that as a bash; my approach wasn't favoring or degrading either party in this crazy runaround. Merely sitting by and watching the whole thing unfold...

[btw.. amazing, 75 replies and 1400 some views in 2 days. This has to be some sort of record for the forum]

robUx4

31st May 2002, 09:52

Originally posted by Neo Neko
You are correct that everyone here is much more knowledgable than the average user. Which is why this phenomina baffles and perplexes me so. Users have to learn. Period.

They learned how to rename a file years ago...

Vosper

31st May 2002, 12:57

Originally posted by Neo Neko

If we start dumbing everything down to the level of the lowest common denominator the over all quality of software could follow as well. Why have we taken a stance on something like this when more than half the tools we use are far beyond the grasp of the very same users? It baffles me. I'm sorry.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we're talking soley about playback here. You're right that the tools here are beyond the reach of most computer users, who will never rip and encode a DVD in their lives, and will probably never want to. That kind of thing will always be left up to the professionals and enthusiasts. It's also not the issue.

I see NO reason why the quality of the Ogg format should suffer because it's easy to play back. To put it within the reach of 'dumb' (i mean it not insultingly) users is not to ipso facto reduce its quality. The opposite, in fact, is true. By being within reach of every user, and *not* requiring right clicks, or other issues, that shows the true quality of the format. The greatest works of science are those that are accessible not only to the educated, but to Joe Smith on the street too (look at The Wealth of Nations, A Brief History of Time). The same is true of any technology (microwave ovens, remote controls). People *shouldn't* have to know how things work in order to make them work. It ought to be intuitive.

Ogg and it's derivatives are great technologies. They'll probably always be complicated to encode, but that's ok because users like those here will take the time to learn. Just like painting or sculpting, there is an art to using technologies like Ogg. Why are the greatest artworks so well known? Because you don't have to know anything about Art theory itself to appreciate them. That's the way Ogg should work too.

Sorry to pontificate :)

Originally posted by Neo Neko

Users have to learn. Period.

Why? Who's got the better ability to adapt, the few smart people writing the system, or the (potentially) millions of 'dumb' ones using it?

Craig

Emmettfish

31st May 2002, 13:09

Ogg is a container format. You can put all kinds of things into an ogg file, and that's wonderful. Ogg was designed from the ground up to be a container format for multimedia. While the most commonly-used codec that's been used inside ogg to date has been Vorbis, there is plenty of room inside the format for nearly anything you'd like.

So, to be syntactically correct, everything that's inside an ogg stream should be labeled with the .ogg extension.

But you don't have to. What you do on your own desktop is your own damned business, and if you think Xiph.org or anyone else in the world has the right to tell you how to use your own computer, you should probably think again.

Personally, this entire argument is overshadowed by something that's very important. You're talking about ogg files, even when you're calling them ogm files on your own. The fact that some people are calling them ogm as opposed to ogg is completely overshadowed by the fact that people are actually using our format. That's more important than a naming convention any day of the week.

I beg you to consider the following. We're not an organization devoted to ease-of-use or intuitive interfaces. We're an organization devoted to creating, producing and maintaining quality open multimedia. The fact that you guys are using oggs in the first place shows me that we're doing pretty well.

A lot of people have been throwing quite a lot of bullshit around how we view the .ogm extension, and I think it's uncalled for. We're being accused of playing the high-and-mighty *nix user, and it's just not the case. We're supporting the use of a naming convention that is syntactically correct, not slamming what people choose to do with their computers. There is a difference.

At the end of the day, what am I going to do? Am I supposed to fly around the world and give everyone who uses the .ogm extension a spanking? It would be hypocritical, at best. Our entire organization is devoted to giving people a choice, an alternative to the way the rest of the world thinks things should be done. I see a lot of the same spirit in the folks that prefer to use the .ogm extension.

We will not support the use of the .ogm extension for ogg files. We'd like to keep our naming convention straight, emphasize the format, and be syntactically correct. We're completely within our rights to make that decision for ourselves. We're NOT allowed to make that decision for *you.*

Of course, we would be very happy if you would just call them ogg files. We would love to see it made even more clear that ogg is a container, not just an audio format. But like I said, this is your call. If you want/need to rename your .ogg files to .ogm so that they'll run better on your computer of choice, I can not and will not attempt to stop you.

I do not welcome the opportunity to fight about this with people that are supporters of our work. From what I can see, you guys aren't counting on us to whine, bitch and complain about file extensions, you're counting on us to keep kicking ass at open multimedia. That's what we intend to do.

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

Vosper

31st May 2002, 14:32

It's nice to see an official response, the arguing was worth it if just to get that I reckon :)

Credit to you Emmett for a well written and reasoned reply.

My final thought (unless this thread gets even livelier!): After reading the Xiph statement, the way in which Ogg media files end up being handled on the majority of desktops will likely depend on the first most widely distributed implementation. There is a degree of inertia to .ogm. It will be interesting to see what the future holds, either way lets hope we can work to make sure it's inclusive rather then divisive.

Craig

DaveEL

31st May 2002, 14:54

I beg you to consider the following. We're not an organization devoted to ease-of-use or intuitive interfaces. We're an organization devoted to creating, producing and maintaining quality open multimedia. The fact that you guys are using oggs in the first place shows me that we're doing pretty well.

And thats the point we are greatful for the format however you say your not devoted to ease of use and so we fixed the ease of use problems with has by using an alternative extension. Again i ask does anyone have objections to using the .oggmedia extension after all that what ogm file stand for anyway and noone has presented an argument for .ogm which needs anything other then an extension different to .ogg.

Of course, we would be very happy if you would just call them ogg files. We would love to see it made even more clear that ogg is a container, not just an audio format. But like I said, this is your call. If you want/need to rename your .ogg files to .ogm so that they'll run better on your computer of choice, I can not and will not attempt to stop you.

The ogg extension it a great multimedia format however the .ogg extension isnt if you really want ogg to become popular you need to address the usability issues that it causes for the vast majority of you potential users those who dont know how opening these files works they just know it does and they want each type of ogg opened in an appropirate application depending on its media type which you cant do with .ogg (ok the launcher application would do this but has several problems of its own).

Then lets just associate our files with WMP and be done with it. I really apreciate all your work Keopi. And you are right it has gotten way to emotional and out of hand.

which version of WMP? 6 where i cant do audio very well as it for example has no way to set up playlists or 7/8 where it crashes all the time refuses to play back some of my media takes up far to much space to leave it visible all the time so i have quick access to change track etc (audio plays but no video). WMP 7/8 has a terrible interface IMO and i will never use it again and like i said opening my audio oggs in WMP 6 is not an option it just isnt designed for using audio in the way say winamp is.

The argument for both are equaly valid/invalid. Logical/illogical. Again Microsoft creates a rift. I wish I were a better programmer. I would write a proper program to launch these files and solve this issue the right way once and for all. I know enough PERL. So I will start with that. But I encourage all you coders to write a simple launching program to handle this and bring both sides together.

So you encourage lots of different implementations of this thats even better now its impossible to update the players to associate themselves as no standard place to put this information resides in order for this plan to even work at a basic level it needs to really be added to the ogg standard somewhere so everyone will have a standard way of doing these thing but even then it breaks all existing applications and the way of doing thing which already exists.

Better yet. Instead of a specialised launcher we could create a fully configurable launcher. One that could be used for whatever and not just OGG. I would like a launcher that could open my PNG files with alpha transparency ancillary chunks in a program able to handle them. And let me tell you they are a bit rare ATM.

Sounds like you just want full alpha transparency support in whatever you normal editor for pngs is. Why should you want an extra program to do this as obviously the best program for the job is the one which you open non alpha pngs in anyway or you would associate all your pngs to the one which did do alpha transparency

It is a very relevant analogy. AVI can indeed contain only audio. It is not used much that way. But it is used that way. OGG was always meant to have video. It was always in the cards. OGG and AVI though different are very analogus.

But Avi was never meant to hold just audio (it breaks the spec in fact) windows using .wav to do audio only.

OGG works as it is supposed to. It the users that are broken. hehe You can use WMP as your media player and some do. Where then is the need for OGM? Many of us prefer something else. I myself use winamp. But I have not found a compelling reason to use an alternate extension.

Yes but we have the original versions uses the .ogg extension and it caused a problems so we changed to .ogm we tried with .ogg and we know it doesnt work well.

It only takes more clicks the first time. And that goes from Win 95 and up. Not 2000. Once you have done it you can right click the file. Move the mouse over open with. The menu automatically opens. Click the proggie of choice. 2 clicks.

what version of windows 95/98 do you have id love to find a copy that had open with in a sub menu i was very pleased when it first appeared in win2k. Only win2k/winxp/win.net do this (and possibly winme havnt tried that) but i know it doesnt work on any of the versions of win9x at all.

The whole argument I have seen thus far was using the OGM extension for the ease of hapless newbs. If you are knowledgable enough to start|run|type file name|press enter then what do you need the alternate extension for. You have already proven yourself hundreds of times smarter than the average user.

However users may use any other program to open oggs and ShellExecute/CreateProcess etc will do exactyly the same as using start|run.

ingoralfblum

31st May 2002, 16:18

But Avi was never meant to hold just audio (it breaks the spec in fact) windows using .wav to do audio only.

You don't want to point us to the part of the specification, that forbids usage of AVI files in this way, do you?

Kind regards,

Ingo

buba king

31st May 2002, 16:48

this argument is pretty dumb IMO :)

but a simple fix would be:
.ogga > audio Only
.oggx > video + audio
I already name my files this way..

who the hell uses DOS anyways? (DOS is AFAIK the only os that does not support >3 byte extensions...)

Neo Neko

31st May 2002, 17:01

Originally posted by DaveEL

which version of WMP? 6 where i cant do audio very well as it for example has no way to set up playlists or 7/8 where it crashes all the time refuses to play back some of my media takes up far to much space to leave it visible all the time so i have quick access to change track etc (audio plays but no video). WMP 7/8 has a terrible interface IMO and i will never use it again and like i said opening my audio oggs in WMP 6 is not an option it just isnt designed for using audio in the way say winamp is.

Damn your trying to push my buttons. The other day was bad for me and I got a bit hot. But it is going to take more than this to get my ire up today. Why do you play so ignorant? It was mearly a sugested solution. I myself said in this very thread I prefer Winamp for audio.

Originally posted by DaveEL

So you encourage lots of different implementations of this thats even better now its impossible to update the players to associate themselves as no standard place to put this information resides in order for this plan to even work at a basic level it needs to really be added to the ogg standard somewhere so everyone will have a standard way of doing these thing but even then it breaks all existing applications and the way of doing thing which already exists.

Breaking incomplete aplications is not a hard thing to do. And it is not a bad thing to do. This is not about bringing about forked incompatable implimentations. This is about progress of the format and related software.

Originally posted by DaveEL

Sounds like you just want full alpha transparency support in whatever you normal editor for pngs is. Why should you want an extra program to do this as obviously the best program for the job is the one which you open non alpha pngs in anyway or you would associate all your pngs to the one which did do alpha transparency

You are damn straight I want an all in one editor. Fact remains nothing to this point sufices.

Originally posted by DaveEL

But Avi was never meant to hold just audio (it breaks the spec in fact) windows using .wav to do audio only.

Calling OGGs OGM breaks the spec but that works as well. Point?

Originally posted by DaveEL

Yes but we have the original versions uses the .ogg extension and it caused a problems so we changed to .ogm we tried with .ogg and we know it doesnt work well.

Plain OGG works hella good for me. Never had a reason to change the extension. That would only frell things up and confuse the situation.

Originally posted by DaveEL

what version of windows 95/98 do you have id love to find a copy that had open with in a sub menu i was very pleased when it first appeared in win2k. Only win2k/winxp/win.net do this (and possibly winme havnt tried that) but i know it doesnt work on any of the versions of win9x at all.

It does indeed work. Maybey it was the old powertools setup. But I know it can, has, and will continue to be done. Did you ever download them or tweakui? Must have tools.

Originally posted by DaveEL

However users may use any other program to open oggs and ShellExecute/CreateProcess etc will do exactyly the same as using start|run.

Well this kind of negates the ease of use argument. But anyway.

DaveEL

31st May 2002, 17:29

Breaking incomplete aplications is not a hard thing to do. And it is not a bad thing to do. This is not about bringing about forked incompatable implimentations. This is about progress of the format and related software.

If winamp etc supported oggs with any stream type using this extra launcher application would still break them as the association code works by using the extentions and the standard locations to store the information this would have to be changed in all applications that support oggs.

Plain OGG works hella good for me. Never had a reason to change the extension. That would only frell things up and confuse the situation.

but it obviously doesnt work well for the majority of people here. Just because it works for you and the way you work with your computer doesnt mean it works for everyone else and the way they chose to work. However using a different extention would still work fine the way you work and two different extentions can be associated with the same file type and so the same set of applications.

It does indeed work. Maybey it was the old powertools setup. But I know it can, has, and will continue to be done. Did you ever download them or tweakui? Must have tools.

Ive used powertoys on all my oses since 95 but i never saw anything like this you can simulate something similar with sendto but its not dynamic and doesnt update to new applications automatically. and event the win2k way of doing it still doesnt solve all the problems anyway

Well this kind of negates the ease of use argument. But anyway.

No it doesnt ease of use depends on a users view and if a user wants to use something other then explorer to launch files they should be able to and the standard way to do that is with the ShellExecute call made by whatever program they happen to like to use instead of explorer.

this argument is pretty dumb IMO

but a simple fix would be:
.ogga > audio Only
.oggx > video + audio
I already name my files this way..

who the hell uses DOS anyways? (DOS is AFAIK the only os that does not support >3 byte extensions...)

Exactly this works fine and IIRC win2k at least (never tried in other OSes) is cleaver enough to realise that .oggsomethingelse should be used as .ogg if .oggsomethingelse is not defined to use a specific application
just using .ogga and .oggx isnt enogh however as ogg can contain IIRC other types such as text etc (well in fact ogg could contain anything i believe) no point in trying to solve this problem now and not doing a fairly complete job but using .ogg for general unknown contence and .ogg-mediatype for files where the type is know would work well IMO especially as the .ogg association would then be used for unassociated mediatypes so they would at least be recognised by something even if it didnt understand the entire stream.

DaveEL

RadicalEd

31st May 2002, 17:36

Hmm.. I have to admit, we as users are also forgetting the line between vorbis and ogg. If you look at it properly, ogg is like avi- a container. The fact that people throw vorbis in has nothing to do with ogg's real purpose as a multimedia format container. Therefore, having only vorbis inside an ogg is in a way like having only a wav inside of an avi. Vorbis, then, is what needs a new format it seems..
To correct my previous analogy.. ogg is similar to mpg moreso, it is vorbis that is like mp2. Unfortunately, there is no vorbis format, so we've all had a hard time seeing that.
I still think it kind of unreasonable to hold audio and a/v in the same, indistinguishable format. But wait, what about Real? Real audio and video together or separate both use the .rm extension these days. Thats okay though, you know why? When you open a real audio clip, it plays in realone. When you open a realvideo clip, it plays in realone. RealOne is the only player you can use to play these clips. In the ogg case, there is no universal player, and that is why there is a problem. I suppose I'm starting to come over to the ogg side, but I have to admit until they come up with a viable solution to the problem stated in the Real analogy and/or figure out a different vorbis-only format, they shouldnt really have complaints about ogm.

QuoVadis

31st May 2002, 21:17

Well, this seems to be the actual killer-thread.

I really don't care much about extensions as long all applications work together flawlessly. Someone came up with the idea to write an app to start the appropriate player and that's what I did. I hacked it together out of the ogg-parser of NBS Catalogue, added some registry stuff and a tiny GUI. It seems to work well (at least it deserves my needs ;-). Start it without a parameter and a tiny configuration dialog appears, where you can select your audio and video player. Next thing you have to do is assigning the ogg/ogm extensions to OGG Selector. It was just a quick hack in VB, so you may need some VB runtime files.

Download it @: www.cip.uni-trier.de/may/Files/OggSelector.zip

Doom9

31st May 2002, 21:49

@emmet: thanks for taking the time to reply here.

I have two comments for you: first of all I think it wouldn't be too bad if you discussed this stance on things internally because what vakor offered in #ha when I was there discussing the issue is beyond acceptable.. and even though he's not an official speaker he's a developer (or am I mistaken.. I'm not that deep into the xiph structure) so his word has some weight. Basically he considers everyone not agreeing with him a clueless moron. I have to take this as as a collective insult from the development team to pretty much the collective userbase of tobias' implementation.. and what makes it even worse is that it hurts the people who have been on the frontline of trying to bring ogg as container and vorbis as audio format to a larger audience.

second: even since I first learned about ogg... for me until I heard about tobias' implementation... and many people still think that the audio codec is called ogg, rather than vorbis. The fact that the popular windows based vorbis encoders name the output .ogg only makes this worse. Since the majority of xiph people are coming from a linux or unix background you may not have grasped the significance of file extensions on the windows platform.. but it's pretty huge. Until Tobias came along with his implementation .ogg meant a vorbis encoded audio file. Apparently on linux things work nicely with the magic thing.. but on windows we do have the association problem. Before Tobias' software we had .ogg associated with winamp files (assuming that you use vorbis audio files... I personally only use mp3 for audio)... now you name a file created with oggmux xyz.ogg and winamp crashes. So you associate .ogg with wmp or your favorite media player instead.. of course that works but then if you have a vorbis audio wmp will open it and you may just prefer winamp. Having one program open the file and launch another if it can't handle it isn't such a nice solution imho.. neither is having another app that is used as a laucher. And furthermore.. for a long time the extension .ogg signified a vorbis encoded audio file.. that is the most important point in my eyes. For me personally .ogg still signifies .ogg audio.. and the fact that both audio encoders I use to make vorbis encoded files doensn't make this any better.
You may recall that Vite's (a divx release group) releases using Tobias' filters and vorbis audio were named .avi so that the appropriate program would open them by default. My first guide on the subject also suggested to abuse the .avi extension. But the desire to distinguish between AVI and other things lead to another extension. Now I do understand your arguments and some of Neo's point. The extension -> program lauch paradign may not be the ideal solution and using another name for the same thing is undesireable.. but we have a basic conflict here as outlined above. Maybe experienced users will accept to launch files via right click - open with commands so that winamp is taken for .ogg audio only files and wmp for .ogg a/v files... but make no mistake that this (despite being easy) procedure will confuse the hell out of less experienced people. And while you may not like these class of users... it's the huge majority of people using a computer and you always have to put them into the equation. And even as an experienced user (btw.. I have both linux and unix experience.. even had a job developing on solaris for 3 months) I like to know what a file contains without having to open it... and that's where a different extension comes in handy.

So.. what to do? In my eyes it's clear that there is a) a large need to educate people about the difference between ogg and vorbis.. I've been trying that in my ogm guides... apparently I didn't do a good job but I don't know how to do it better :/
b) give people an easy way to know what a file contains and to associate it to the appropriate application. As double dot extensions (like .video.ogg and .audio.ogg) are out of the question for windows along with (.ogga and .oggv) since they break the syntax.. what can we do? I'm currently taking a course in human computer interaction and we have to do a website project.. and one crucial thing we learned is: the end user is always right. Here the end user is the guy wanting to associate his ogg containers in an easy way to play it with his favorite player, have winamp to play .ogg files containing only audio in winamp and some also want to know that the file contains by simply looking at the filename (or rather: the extension.. in fact I assume that a larger part of the members of this board also fall into this class as we have more experienced users here than on most other boards). How can that be achieved? Hack winamp to launch wmp if the ogg contains video as well? Have winamp only play the audio part of such files? Create a launcher that prompts you for a program to launch?
All these solutions are less than ideal imho but I'm open to more suggestions. Just keep the key point in mind: the end user is always right and the end user likes it as simple as possible. He/She does not care about being syntactically correct.

chemmajik

31st May 2002, 22:27

Originally posted by DaveEL

No with pre win2k versions it takes 4 clicks
rightclick = click 1
Openwith = click 2
Chose program = click 3
Click ok = click 4

You forgot a step

rightclick = click 1
Openwith = click 2
> Scroll thru list sometimes 6 clicks or more long
> or 6 or more mouse wheel turns added
Chose program = click 9
Click ok = click 10

:)

QuoVadis

31st May 2002, 22:27

One thing I forgot about OGGSelector - How it actually works: It scans the header of the given OGG/OGM and determines the number of video streams. If it's > 0 then the file is passed to the video player elsewhere to the audio player, nothing more nothing less. Don't consider this to be a solution to the problem discussed in this thread but rather a tiny hotfix ;-). For those people who are interested, the source is @: www.cip.uni-trier.de/may/Files/OggSelector_src.zip

@Doom9: I know that a launcher is not the best way to solve this issue, but it wasn't much work and I was simply interested in the question if it works or not. On the other hand I see no other way to achieve the desired effect as long as the end user likes to open one and the same file format with different applications depending on it's content with a single doubleclick. A launcher app could choose different players depending on the a/v codec, resolution, # of a/v streams, etc instead of the file extension. I must admit that I don't know the reason why anybody should desire that (at least I never needed it), but it just came to my mind. Btw, if your newsticker lacks of fresh new software, you could add NBS Catalogue (just a little bit advertising ;-).

Emmettfish

31st May 2002, 23:39

Quoth Doom9:

"I have two comments for you: first of all I think it wouldn't be too bad if you discussed this stance on things internally because what vakor offered in #ha when I was there discussing the issue is beyond acceptable.. and even though he's not an official speaker he's a developer (or am I mistaken.. I'm not that deep into the xiph structure) so his word has some weight. Basically he considers everyone not agreeing with him a clueless moron."

Michael Smith is an extremely valuable developer to the Xiph.org Foundation. While he is not officially part of our staff, he has put in countless hours of work for free, for everyone's benefit. While he may not have chosen his words carefully, it's not the first time that someone who is an Open Source enthusiast has lashed out at something he or she feels is ridiculous. Were it not for extremists and the stubborn nature of talented people, we would not be where we are today.

I have to say that blanket statements like 'Basically he considers everyone not agreeing with him a clueless moron' are probably an indicator of the other side of this issue. While he might not be giving your point-of-view a fair shake, it seems as though you're not willing to take the high road and give him one, either.

Not only do I not have an interest in policing the words and statements of the people who work on Ogg-related projects, I am also in no position to be able to afford that kind of luxury. They work for free, their words and thoughts are their own. What do you want me to do, write out a detention slip? Ground him? No television for a week? I'm not his father, I'm not his employer.

"I have to take this as as a collective insult from the development team to pretty much the collective userbase of tobias' implementation.. and what makes it even worse is that it hurts the people who have been on the frontline of trying to bring ogg as container and vorbis as audio format to a larger audience."

The biggest mistake you're making is in the assumption that Michael speaks for the Xiph.org Foundation. He doesn't. People on this thread assumed that he did, and rather than make sure they were getting the facts right, they accused the Foundation of nearly everything imaginable short of the assassination of JFK. We're aloof, I hear. Arrogant. In desperate fear of 'losing control.' Balderdash.

We're talking about one guy who was being a dork on a non-Xiph IRC channel, and no one really gives a damn about getting the facts right. They're only interested in investing enough time to log on to Doom9 and bitch.

The people that use and love ogg are extremely important to me, and I don't want to do anything that's going to drive them away from their support of the format. If that means I have to log on to Doom9 and get the real word out, I'll do it. If that means I have to take a call in the middle of the night because someone's mad at us, I'll do it. If that means I have to take the time to write someone a letter, I'll do it. I'm here, folks. At least give me a fair shot at addressing your concerns before you go ballistic.

My E-mail address is emmett@xiph.org, and my cell number is 215-820-9583. If you can't afford to call me, drop me an E-mail with your number, and I'll call you. Right now, everyone reading this is an E-mail away from getting the straight dope.

"even since I first learned about ogg... for me until I heard about tobias' implementation... and many people still think that the audio codec is called ogg, rather than vorbis. The fact that the popular windows based vorbis encoders name the output .ogg only makes this worse. Since the majority of xiph people are coming from a linux or unix background you may not have grasped the significance of file extensions on the windows platform.. but it's pretty huge."

I get ya, hear you loud and clear, coming in clear as crystal. See below.

"How can that be achieved? Hack winamp to launch wmp if the ogg contains video as well? Have winamp only play the audio part of such files? Create a launcher that prompts you for a program to launch?"

As of this morning, we've started preliminary work on a launcher called 'Prak.' I don't know when release date will be, but I hope it solves the problems for our Windows fans. After all, if we're going to be 'arrogant' enough to enforce a naming convention in our own releases, we need to back up that devotion-to-syntax with a tool that help people meet the end result of having the right app come up when you double-click that .ogg file on your desktop. See, we're not as ham-fisted as some may think.

To ignore Windows users would be the worst thing we could do on the road to acceptance. We're not so myopic as to scream 'run a real OS,' since not only do many people not have a choice in the matter, they also have no desire to change their operating system of choice just to play some file in 'that goofy free format.'

The end-user isn't always right, but when we've gone so long with nothing but Vorbis in the ogg stream, we have to make a good-faith effort to work around the end-users presuppositions. Prak might not be the best solution in the pipe, but it's a lot easier for us to write a quick tool than it is for everyone else to try to get Microsoft to fix what's wrong with Windows.

We're here, we're working hard, and it's still not costing you a dime. Thanks to everyone willing to give us a fair shot.

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

Milkman Dan

1st June 2002, 00:50

Sir:

A few points.

Regardless of whether or not someone is in your payroll, if they are associated with your organization they can have the effect of speaking for it. They may or may not represent some large faction of the development group in their voiced opinion.

While I don't believe anyone here has said that you need to police your members or pseudo-members, you can't blithely dismiss their impact on the IMAGE of your organization. Do you wonder why I said you're aloof? I didn't pull that out of my ass. It comes from experience.

The fact that others have the same notions about your organization shows that to some extent, this is cross talk, and to another extent, this is the real deal. Just as straight as the dope you offered above. You can't deny it. And as you pointed out, you can't and won't contain it.

Which leaves us at:

Don't get defensive when we react the way we do. What you call "Not choosing words carefully," I call an acetic attitude. And I may apply that attitude as far as my knowledge sees fit. I now know for a fact, for instance, that you are considerably more level-headed. I mentally add that in now when I think about how wide-ranging some people's "misschosen" words might be.

Honestly though, I wish you wouldn't excuse his actions just because he codes for free. But whatever, I'm not going to personally hold it against you. You have your reasons.

Anyway, here's a request for some straight dope.

Why, exactly, is having ogm a big deal? Why is it worth putting people on a coding project to make a launcher (that I personally won't use) to address this? As a end-user with some experience, I truely do not understand why this is a fuss.

The existing solution works great. Explain to me why it's broken.

Doom9

1st June 2002, 00:53

@quo: well.. seems like the xiph people want the launcher.. so go ahead ;)

ChristianHJW

1st June 2002, 01:33

well, we had the CEO of Xiph.org and Doom9 giving some last replies, we had numerous very good posts ( and some very motivated posts also ), we had different solutions to avoid another extension being discussed and even presented ( thanx QuoVadis ) and in the end it seems the same arguments were going around all the time, so i think the whole thread has served its purpose.

Thread closed.

Edit : Doom9, Matter and myself had another private conversation with Emmett on IRC about the issue. We think we can come up with a solution for the problem in the end. We keep you updated.

Edit2 : Emmett is indeed considering to talk to the Ogg development team about making the .ogm extension an official part of the Ogg specs !!! I guess i dont need to point out to you what big honour this is for Doom9's community and the people suporting the Ogg format here, if this would really ever happen !!
To convince his developers about the necessity of doing so he is asking us all to drop him a short mail ( mailto:emmett@xiph.org ) pointing out that and why the .ogm extension is important for windows users ( of course, any other extension would have done also, but we do have .ogm now ). To make it easier for him to sort the mail please use all the same header line for the emails :

Why the .ogm extension is so important for us windows users !

I am counting on you all that his mailbox is gone bust until end of next week !! ;)