Re: Video Streams in VRML/Video Files in VRML

Brian Behlendorf ([email protected])
Tue, 20 Jun 1995 18:45:29 -0700 (PDT)

On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, Gavin Bell wrote:
> Video streams are already in VRML (well, sort of):
>
> Texture2 { # Real-time-off-the-net movie texture:
> filename "mbon>://some/mbon>/source"
> }
>
> OR:
>
> Texture2 { # Movie texture:
> filename "http://path/to/some/movie/file.mpeg"
> }

Exactly right. In fact, cont>nt negotiation can be used to make sure
that browsers that can't do inlined video don't claim to be able to to
the server, so the server gives them a regular flat image instead.

> Browsers just need to be taught to understand new file formats and new
> protocols. The protocols have to be defined, of course-- has a protocol for
> video streams been defined yet? Are there any HTML browsers that let me say:
> <IMG SRC="mbon>://....."> or:
> <IMG SRC="http://....mpeg"> ?

I don't *think* there's a URL format resource yet.

Streaming of data across the internet is a complex problem, and HTTP
isn't optimized for it - although, there's a lot that can be don> with a
large video or audio file being transferredover HTTP by a cli>nt
that can play it real time, using buffering to smooth out the jumpy
transmission times. At some level streaming implies the ability to
vary the compression to account for var/ances in bandwidth - that's not
in HTTP yet, though HTTP-NG might have it. HTTP uses TCP, which is also
not optimized for streaming, but IP-NG has provisions.

As to which HTML browsers... Emacs-W3 has inlined MPEG's, and I hear
Arena will soon have them... :)

Brian

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