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We don't need to tie this behavior to a new video extension or a specific video format. A more sensible approach would be to allow video sources in <img> and re

by eamsen 12y ago

We don't need to tie this behavior to a new video extension or a specific video format. A more sensible approach would be to allow video sources in <img> and restrict their profile to GIF-like behavior. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=895131 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=895131

themagician 12y ago
I think at some point, we do. People like this format. GIF, gyfcat, Vine, and now this. Instagram and WebM on 4chan also have things keyed to this behavior. But the thing that GIF has on all of them is that it works everywhere. It plays in a browser, in an email, on the desktop, in an MMS message, etc.. We need a full stop replacement for the GIF that uses a modern encoder.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > We need a full stop replacement for the GIF that uses a modern encoder. Keeping in mind that one of the big advantages of GIF is NO AUDIO. It's just deeply anti-social to play audio in some contexts, and a file format which enforces that is a very good thing.
  - nieve 12y ago
    I agree completely, though I'd add that it's also unpleasant. There's a reason some browser and browser extensions try to help track down which tabs are producing audio. Perhaps GIFV or equivalent should be defined as either requiring the browser not to play audio or as making audio optional, but required to default to off at start of play. The latter would require a minimal transport control, but I could live with a transparent mouseover-only volume button. There's no technical reason that a GIF successor must include or play audio. For that matter it would make a greasemonkey script or perhaps extension that forced sound off for regular mp4 much easier to write in this case.
jonny_eh 12y ago
The extension doesn't necessarily have to just say what the file is, but it can also say how it should be used. This is done with the .apk extension. apks are zip files, the but apk extension says it should be loaded as an application in Android. It also isn't only useful for computers. It helps people to know what they're getting into when they open a file. An mp4 with a gifv extension makes sense to me. It says "I'll be loaded without audio and will play in a loop".
- cheald 12y ago
  Extensions in HTTP mean jack-all. Content-types/MIME types are what actually tell you how the file should be treated. Imgur is serving text/html in their ".gifv" files. If you tried to load a gifv in a <video> tag it would crash and burn on you because...it's serving you an HTML document with a text/html MIME type. Imgur will happily serve you GIFs and JPEGs with incorrect extensions - for example, if you get this image with a .gif extension, it's going to serve you a JPEG, and it's going to be decoded by libjpeg. The extension doesn't provide any useful information to the client about what to do with the data. $ wget http://i.imgur.com/hDYj7E7.gif --2014-10-09 14:00:53-- http://i.imgur.com/hDYj7E7.gif Resolving i.imgur.com (i.imgur.com)... 23.235.47.193 Connecting to i.imgur.com (i.imgur.com)|23.235.47.193|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 158352 (155K) [image/jpeg] Saving to: ‘hDYj7E7.gif’ 2014-10-09 14:00:53 (865 KB/s) - ‘hDYj7E7.gif’ saved [158352/158352] $ identify hDYj7E7.gif hDYj7E7.gif JPEG 577x1024 577x1024+0+0 8-bit DirectClass 158KB 0.000u 0:00.030
  - jonny_eh 12y ago
    > Extensions mean jack-all …to browsers.
    - cheald 12y ago
      You're right. I edited my post to clarify with "in HTTP". Though I'll argue that it's not really relevant in this context of this particular subject, since ".gifv" only makes sense in a browser/HTTP context. Everywhere else it's just HTML.

by eamsen 12y ago

themagician 12y ago

I think at some point, we do. People like this format. GIF, gyfcat, Vine, and now this. Instagram and WebM on 4chan also have things keyed to this behavior. But the thing that GIF has on all of them is that it works everywhere. It plays in a browser, in an email, on the desktop, in an MMS message, etc.. We need a full stop replacement for the GIF that uses a modern encoder.

cbd1984 12y ago
> We need a full stop replacement for the GIF that uses a modern encoder. Keeping in mind that one of the big advantages of GIF is NO AUDIO. It's just deeply anti-social to play audio in some contexts, and a file format which enforces that is a very good thing.
- nieve 12y ago
  I agree completely, though I'd add that it's also unpleasant. There's a reason some browser and browser extensions try to help track down which tabs are producing audio. Perhaps GIFV or equivalent should be defined as either requiring the browser not to play audio or as making audio optional, but required to default to off at start of play. The latter would require a minimal transport control, but I could live with a transparent mouseover-only volume button. There's no technical reason that a GIF successor must include or play audio. For that matter it would make a greasemonkey script or perhaps extension that forced sound off for regular mp4 much easier to write in this case.

jonny_eh 12y ago

The extension doesn't necessarily have to just say what the file is, but it can also say how it should be used. This is done with the .apk extension. apks are zip files, the but apk extension says it should be loaded as an application in Android. It also isn't only useful for computers. It helps people to know what they're getting into when they open a file. An mp4 with a gifv extension makes sense to me. It says "I'll be loaded without audio and will play in a loop".

cheald 12y ago
Extensions in HTTP mean jack-all. Content-types/MIME types are what actually tell you how the file should be treated. Imgur is serving text/html in their ".gifv" files. If you tried to load a gifv in a <video> tag it would crash and burn on you because...it's serving you an HTML document with a text/html MIME type. Imgur will happily serve you GIFs and JPEGs with incorrect extensions - for example, if you get this image with a .gif extension, it's going to serve you a JPEG, and it's going to be decoded by libjpeg. The extension doesn't provide any useful information to the client about what to do with the data. $ wget http://i.imgur.com/hDYj7E7.gif --2014-10-09 14:00:53-- http://i.imgur.com/hDYj7E7.gif Resolving i.imgur.com (i.imgur.com)... 23.235.47.193 Connecting to i.imgur.com (i.imgur.com)|23.235.47.193|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 158352 (155K) [image/jpeg] Saving to: ‘hDYj7E7.gif’ 2014-10-09 14:00:53 (865 KB/s) - ‘hDYj7E7.gif’ saved [158352/158352] $ identify hDYj7E7.gif hDYj7E7.gif JPEG 577x1024 577x1024+0+0 8-bit DirectClass 158KB 0.000u 0:00.030
- jonny_eh 12y ago
  > Extensions mean jack-all …to browsers.
  - cheald 12y ago
    You're right. I edited my post to clarify with "in HTTP". Though I'll argue that it's not really relevant in this context of this particular subject, since ".gifv" only makes sense in a browser/HTTP context. Everywhere else it's just HTML.