Why is Fedora a multimedia disaster? - Here is why.

[David Timms]

Michael Wiktowy wrote:
> On 4/17/07, Valent Turkovic <valent.turkovic at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ok, I know that already. And if I was a "newbie" i probably wouldn't
>> even know how to find this mailing list.
>>
>> My point is how would you answer to this question to your
>> wife/girlfriend or brother/sister or even mother/father? That is the
>> base or my question! And there is no answer that is good enough
>> because there should be a CLEAR distinction in extension for ogg video
>> and audio files IMHO.
> 
> The age of the separate audio and video media player is largely
> passed. So they just double-click on it and don't worry about
> extensions.
eg: mpg avi asf etc.

> As Rahul mentioned, newbs don't care about extensions. In fact, if
> they have been running Windows, they have been conditioned to not know
> that extensions even *exist* since Windows hides them by default (one
> of my big pet peeves) and finding the dialog to enable them is not
> newbie friendly.
While a newcomer might not do this, the nautilus window on my machines 
is always set to list mode. In this case an ogg file shows the type as:
   Ogg multimedia.  {i think detected by extension only}
But if you actually click on the file, the type might change to:
   Ogg Theora video  {I think detected using file}

> I know where you are coming from but I don't think that this will be
> traumatizing for newbs and may be somewhat simplifying since they just
> have to know that it is media ... not audio media or video media and
> have to find the right player.
For me, the clear answer is that the filename that the author of the 
content chooses to use should not be for example:
download1.ogg
filename.ogg
track 01.ogg
but something actually descriptive of the content like:
joe_bloggs.live_at_the_internet.cd.01.how_the_cookie_crumbles.ogg
joe_bloggs.live_at_the_internet.clip.how_the_cookie_crumbles.ogg
or some such.

Sure _ and . could be a little confusing but try putting other 
characters in a web browser URL ;)  What I am saying is web sites / 
authors should ensure that the name of the file represents the content. 
Web site content generator software should not be generating download 
link names like: 54khldjfumhpeojng.dat {which is the sort of thing that 
some sites do}.

DaveT.