[webkit-help] Supporting other video formats with HTML5 tag?

[Eric Carlson]

On Feb 11, 2010, at 7:59 AM, Andre-John Mas wrote:

> 
> Currently the HTML5 video tag in Webkit only supports MPEG4/H.264, though for a project I have I would be interested in this supporting more. Is there any way a plug-in can be delegated to for playback? Ideally I would like to see VLC handling the content, so that I could specify any URL and video format that it supports.
> 
  The format(s) supported by the media element in WebKit are determined by the media engine(s) used by a port. For example, Apple's ports use QuickTime as the media engine, the GTK port uses GStreamer, etc. It is possible for a port to support more than one media engine, but it has to be done at compile time - it isn't possible to plug in a completely new media engine at runtime. 

  It is possible to add new formats to some media engines at runtime, for example QuickTime and GStreamer both have public APIs to extend their capabilities with plug-ins.

  As far as I know, none of the WebKit ports that support MPEG-4 only support H.264: Apple's ports support any linear audio and video format supported by QuickTime, Chrome supports Ogg, MPEG-4, and some QuickTime movies.

  We might be able to help if you explained more about what you want to accomplish - what platform(s) and formats do you need to support?

eric