Media Roundtable Gets to the Core of Open Video
而上周的就职典礼 开放式视频会议 saw dozens of discussions on the ways open video could impact web culture, one central discussion wasn't on the program. 被称为媒体圆桌会议, this inner circle of power players met to address the obstacles facing open video, highlight the building blocks that it would use to grow, and field questions from key journalists.
在开幕词中, 埃里克·默勒, deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, explained how Wikipedia has been committed to open standards from the start, 这是3,000 videos were in open formats. Open video will take off this year, he predicted, as open standards are embraced.
即将推出的Firefox 3.5 release will support HTML 5 standards for open video, 克里斯·暴雪说, director of evangelism for Mozilla, and will be used by 300 million people. Mark Surman of the Mozilla Foundation explained that having online video governed by proprietary standards is dangerous to Web culture.
While most video sites currently need to use Flash, said Mike Hudack, CEO of 波动.tv, his company added support for Ogg Theora, the de facto open video standard. Yochai benkler Benckler, a professor at Harvard's Berkman Center, explained why video was far behind text on the web, 还有罗恩·耶库蒂尔, 卡尔图拉董事长兼首席执行官, talked up his company's open source video management platform.
The 开放式视频会议's media roundtable, 左起:Ron Yekutiel, 创作; Yochai benkler Benckler, Harvard's Berkman Center; Mark Surman, Mozilla Foundation; Mike Hudack, 波动.tv; Christopher Blizzard, Mozilla; 埃里克·默勒, Wikimedia Foundation.
With the introductory remarks over, the panel addressed the hard questions facing open video, such as why should publishers care about it when they're already doing well with Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight?
答案就在数字里, 说Yekutiel, who asserted that open video allows companies to save money by self-hosting. 应该指出的是, while 创作's platform is open-source, the company does offer a range of services that it charges for.) In-house solutions provide complete control, he said, and would easily work behind a firewall. Publishing companies would prefer the ease of the tools, 说Benckler, which would allow them to spend less time managing content and more time creating it.
The panelists addressed the problems facing open video adoption. The biggest hurdle, they agreed, was Microsoft. With Microsoft pushing its own online video format, Silverlight, no one thought there was any incentive for Microsoft to build open video support into the world's most-used browser, Internet Explorer. Since web developers wrote to the worst browser on the market, 暴雪说, it would be a challenge to get them to include open video content.
Blizzard also had fun at the Redmond giant's expense, joking that Microsoft had bought the Olympics and the presidential inauguration for Silverlight, but hadn't accomplished anything other than giving Adobe a business model.
为什么, 小组成员被问到, should viewers care about open video, especially those who are already happy with the quality and convenience of existing formats?
People won't switch just because the format is open, said Hudack. They'll only switch because it's better. 让开放视频起飞, it will have to offer advantages that people can't get with Flash or Silverlight.
The building blocks for open video are nearly in place. Expect to hear a lot more about the open format when Firefox 3.5 launches later this summer.
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