[X3D-Public] X3D Scene Authoring Hints: movie formats

[Don Brutzman]

I've add a few points under the X3D Scene Authoring Hints about
movie formats and textures.  Excerpts follow, comments welcome.

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/X3dSceneAuthoringHints.html#Images

_Images and Movies_

[...]
    Choice of movie file formats:
        X3D browser support for the MPEG1 movie file format format is required by the MovieTexture node definition in the X3D Specification.
        X3D browsers may offer to support multiple video formats. Since the X3D url field is an ordered list, authors can provide and link more than one format if they wish. X3D browsers will honor the first successfully playable link that they find.
        However consistent support for other formats beyond MPEG1 is not guaranteed since most popular movie formats are highly encumbered by patents and licensing fees. Having authors or content providers account and pay for content is antithetical to the free growth of open standards and the World Wide Web.
        If a royalty-free (RF) video format becomes sufficiently popular and has multiple efficient open-source and commercial codec software implementations available, then the X3D Graphics standard will likely adopt its usage as a required format. Until then, support for any video format other than MPEG1 remains optional.
        Of related interest: the existence of the open X3D Graphics standard prevents a similar sad state of affairs from allowing patent-holding companies from "locking up" 3D graphics on the web. Members of the Web3D Consortium deserve credit for maintaining this important achievement. Feel free to join or contribute so that such efforts can continue.

p.s. wondering if we should create a list of what image formats and
what movie formats are supported by each browser.  This would probably
be a good addition to the wiki page _Player support for X3D components_.
http://www.web3d.org/x3d/wiki/index.php/Player_support_for_X3D_components

Anyone want to assemble an initial list of browser support of
image formats and movie formats?  Hope so, that would be helpful.
I can do the wiki editing to assist in recording these, if needed.

all the best, Don
-- 
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br       brutzman at nps.edu
Watkins 270,  MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA   +1.831.656.2149
X3D graphics, virtual worlds, navy robotics http://faculty.nps.edu/brutzman