Posted by Jukka Aho on 09/23/06 02:02

Spex wrote:

>> If you want me to view videos on your website, you'll use a format
>> that doesn't drive me away or force me to buy additional software.
>> (You're free, of course, to make a licensing deal with Apple that
>> allows you to offer QT Pro as a free download for the users of your
>> web site. That would at least be a somewhat reasonable proposition.
>> I'd probably still not download it, though.)

> Your internet experience is absolutely no concern of mine.

Why publish anything with that attitude, then? View the video clips
straight from your local hard drive if you're only concerned about
yourself.

> If I made the creative decision to embed video

That's merely a technical decision. Embedding is not bad in itself, but
since it is usually relatively easy to offer a link that opens the same
content in a stand-alone player as an alternative, why not do that?

> trying to view it in a way it was never intended

Most design blunders on web pages stem from the misguided belief that
there should only be a single, strictly-controlled, "intended" way of
viewing the content. The better web designer you become, the less you
believe in that.

>> Whether you like it or not, web pages (and, therefore, web video) is
>> viewed in multitude of environments and settings - not just on
>> desktop PCs, but also on portable devices, on "tv-out" based
>> systems, etc. Sometimes there's just a single person watching,
>> sometimes a group of people.

> Its pretty clear that websites that want the user to be able to
> download content make it very easy. There are loads of shareware and
> freeware utilities that can convert one format to another for
> whatever purpose. Those websites that want to retain some level of
> control will stream it or use some proprietary plugin technology
> but ultimately if the user really wants the content and break
> copyright several applications are available to make screen grabs
> and make audio recordings of any type of content on any web page.

We're on the same page here, but I don't see how that relates to what I
wrote above. OK, there's a tangential relation: the desire to "protect"
content can lead to bad web design and futile obfuscation attempts,
making the web site inaccessible or cumbersome to use for many of the
users and viewing environments - but since you yourself seem to agree
that this technical trickery doesn't really work for its intended
purpose, you probably also agree with me in that such trickery is,
ultimately, just a waste of time and money. As I see it, the primary
raison d'être of these techniques is to give warm fuzzies to whoever
runs the service and wants "protection", and that person (while perhaps
psychologically reassured by the use of "protection") might not
necessarily be the most knowledgeable about technology - or its defects.

> Do you seriously think websites are designed to be viewed in group
> situation?

Websites, when properly designed, are viewable in multitude of ways and
situations. Usually, it takes extra steps to _prevent_ something from
happening, so in my opinion, your question is set up in a funny way.

"Hey, guys, come over, you got to see this website!" does not sound too
implausible to me. I've also experienced watching web site content with
the whole family on a big tv screen (including video clips or streams),
and can't really see nothing wrong with that.

> If they were they would be designed differently than they are now.

Now we're talking. As of now, many websites with video content are
designed in an unnecessarily convoluted, narrow-minded and inflexible
way. The "vision" is a bit lacking, if I may say so. For example, as
network-enabled digital media centers, HTPCs, game consoles, handheld
devices, etc. are becoming more popular, I'd expect to see a more
standard format for browsing catalogs of video streams, and starting
their playback, instead of keeping everything so tightly tied only to
the old-fashioned "web page" concept. (I mean, something better-suited
for tv sets and browsing the content in full-screen mode with a remote.
Perhaps an XML format, akin to RSS, but repurposed for web sites with
video content. That sort of thing.)

> That is just a plain ludicrous proposition. I don't know any
> webmaster who has actively gone out of their way to make things
> difficult for the visually impaired

Perhaps you subscribe to a different World Wide Web than I do. I see
grave examples of bad web design - with no respect to accessibility
guidelines whatsoever - every day. Locked-down font sizes, total absence
or misuse of semantic markup, etc.

> I've witnessed many times the "We want our website to
> look like our brochures" syndrome.

Yes, that's one of the primary reasons. Or, to put it in a more generic
way, the designer chooses to only care about visual design of the site,
ignoring the logical and semantical structure of the pages. Sometimes
it's just because of ignorance, sometimes by choice.

> It's down to the operating system to provide accessibility for
> handicapped and visually impaired people.

No, it's not. See

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_accessibility>
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/>
<http://www.useit.com/>

....and as far as legislation goes, for instance:

<http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-acc
essibility/uk-website-legal-requirements.shtml>

<http://www.out-law.com/page-7285>

--
znark

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