[uf-new] hAudio Issue D4: 2008-01-10 rel-enclosure does not allow forlinks to streaming files

[Toby A Inkster]

Tantek wrote:
> Toby wrote:

> differentiating between download and streaming URLs
> > in the case where both are available.
>
> That distinction is already made via different MIME types on the  
> enclosure, reflected in the type attribute (on a or link tags). No  
> need to invent something new.

I've written an hAudio -> M3U converter (M3U is a common playlist  
format supported by several media players including Winamp, XMMS and  
iTunes) and do indeed use the 'type' attribute to differentiate  
between playable downloads (e.g. MP3s, OGGs, etc) and downloads which  
are not directly playable (e.g. BitTorrent files, ZIP files, etc).  
This distinction needs to be made in order to avoid placing non- 
playable files into the playlist.

However, the percentage of links that actually *include* a 'type'  
attribute is woefully small. Performing HTTP HEAD requests for each  
file would be too slow.

One solution of course might be for hAudio to strongly encourage the  
'type' attribute to be set on any rel=enclosure links. It would help  
if all the examples of the Wiki included the attribute, and a list of  
commonly used MIME types could be provided to help newcomers. (Some  
are not immediately obvious - e.g. application/ogg instead of audio/ 
ogg.)

-- 
Toby A Inkster
<mailto:mail at tobyinkster.co.uk>
<http://tobyinkster.co.uk>