The tag introduced in html5 is being supported by Firefox to specification. HTML5 cannot put additional formats such as mov/wmv in the spec since they are licensed codecs. Once html5 becomes more widely adopted and available, you’ll see browser support and plugins for this just as there is now.

When is AAC-support coming to the linux-version? (out of the box-support for AAC on all three platforms is a must IMO)

Magnus

I dont think boycotting has ever worked well (when GIF was boycotted, everyone ignored the boycott and continued using it). We simply need formats which offer genuine benefits. This is one reason why FLAC took off so well. Everyone was screwing around with a proprietary lossless format, and nobody supported the others. FLAC slipped through the gaps and worked everywhere, so quickly dominated the lossless market. Its benefit was that it that it worked almost everywhere (except maybe iTunes, but Apple has led many of those users to live in their own little world world anyway, because either way, not many people use Apple lossless).

With Ogg, this wont work because:
1) everyone has already standardised around MP3.
2) Ogg and MP3 aren’t lossless, so people cannot convert between the formats cleanly
3) Mp3 support is mostly guarenteed everywhere. Ogg in some cases still isn’t supported.
4) Featurewise, ogg and mp3 are almost the same. Nobody cares to swap format when there is no noticeable difference to them.

Instead, we need to pursue innovative features, and plugins for ogg’s (or Ogg v2) which give them a genuine advantage over the other languages. Some features they could add are:

1) Multiple tracks. Similar to Midi’s, allow the vocal track to be split away from the instrumental recordings. This way artists could offer music for download, as a single file which allows users to turn it into a karaoke if they wish. The music player should rejoin them again, yet, artists are not required to provide multiple tracks per song.
2) Add lossless support to ogg… A hybrid lossless/lossy format would possibly makes things easier for developers, and end users.
3) One benefit of multiple tracks is that you could allow multi-language audio files. Movies allow multiple languages for the audio, so why shouldn’t audio be able to. If I was in a band which spoke 3 different languages, I’d love to be able to offer music (which is slightly larger), which had the songs in 3 different languages.
4) An ogg extension mechanism, so that new features could be added to the stream later. So, an application could define “TRACK1 is extension http://oggextensions.oggy.com/visualisation-hints, and its optional” in the ogg file. Ogg is just a container, similar to Jabber. So why not? If OpenGL and Songbird didn’t support extensions, think about where they would be today? This would also allow customised transformations to be applied to tracks too.

Features such as this in an open audio format I believe could give artists a significant reason to switch to ogg. Artists such as NiN/Trent Reznor are always trying to push the envelope, and features such as these would give them a good reason to do so.

To get ahead, we have to stop treating songs as simply songs, and allow them to do stuff like suggest to visualisations how to build up the effects well, or offer many languages.

At least in my opinion

i want visualisatins too. that small ones that flicker on the faceplate or media-bar.

yes i want them =B