1 Introduction
Audio and video resources on the World Wide Web are currently treated as "foreign" objects, which can only be embedded using a plugin
that is capable of decoding and interacting with the media resource. Specific media servers are generally required to provide for
server-side features such as direct access to time offsets into a video without the need to retrieve the entire resource.
Support for such media fragment access varies between different media formats and inhibits standard means of dealing with such content on the Web.
This specification provides for a media-format independent, standard means of addressing media fragments on the Web using
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI).
In the context of this document, media fragments are regarded along several different dimensions such as temporal, spatial and tracks.
A temporal fragment can also be marked with a name and then addressed through a URI using that name, using the id dimension.
The specified addressing schemes apply mainly to audio and video resources - the spatial fragment addressing may also be used on images.
The aim of this specification is to enhance the Web infrastructure for supporting the addressing and retrieval of subparts of
time-based Web resources, as well as the automated processing of such subparts for reuse. Example uses are the sharing of such
fragment URIs with friends via email, the automated creation of such fragment URIs in a search engine interface, or the annotation of
media fragments with RDF. Such use case examples as well as other side conditions on this specification and a survey of existing media
fragment addressing approaches are provided in the requirements Use cases and requirements for Media Fragments document that accompanies this specification document.
3 URI fragment and URI query
To address a media fragment, one needs to find ways to convey the fragment information. This specification builds on URIs RFC 3986.
Every URI is defined as consisting of four parts, as follows:
<scheme name> : <hierarchical part> [ ? <query> ] [ # <fragment> ]
There are therefore two possibilities for representing the media fragment addressing in URIs: the URI query part or the
URI fragment part.
3.1 When to choose URI fragments? When to choose URI queries?
For media fragment addressing, both approaches - URI query and URI fragment - are useful.
The main difference between a URI query and a URI fragment is that a URI query produces a new resource, while a URI fragment provides a
secondary resource that has a relationship to the primary resource. URI fragments are resolved from the primary resource without another
retrieval action. This means that a user agent should be capable to resolve a URI fragment on a resource it has already received without
having to fetch more data from the server.
This specification imposes a further constraint, which is that the media
type of the retrieved fragment should be the same as the media type of the
primary resource.
Among other things, this means that a URI fragment that points to a single video frame out of a longer video results in
a one-frame video, not in a still image. To extract a still image, one would need to create a URI query scheme - something not envisaged
here, but easy to devise.
There are different types of media fragment addressing in this specification. As noted in the Use cases and requirements for Media Fragments document
(section "Fitness Conditions on Media Containers/Resources"): not all container formats and codecs are "fit" for supporting the different
types of fragment URIs. "Fitness" relates to the fact that a media fragment can be extracted from the primary resource without syntax element
modifications or transcoding of the bitstream.
Resources that are "fit" can therefore be addressed with a URI fragment. Resources that are "conditionally fit" can be addressed with a
URI fragment with an additional retrieval action that retrieves the modified syntax elements but leaves the codec data untouched. Resources
that are "unfit" require transcoding. Such transcoded media fragments cannot be addressed with URI fragments, but only with URI queries.
Therefore, when addressing a media fragment with the URI mechanism, the author has to know whether this media fragment can be produced
from the (primary) resource itself without any transcoding activities or whether it requires transcoding. In the latter case, the only
choice is to use a URI query and to use a server that supports transcoding and delivery of a (primary) derivative resource to satisfy the query.
3.2 Resolving URI fragments within the user agent
A user agent may itself resolve and control the presentation of media fragment URIs. The simplest case arises where the user agent has
already downloaded the entire resource and can perform the extraction from its locally cached copy. For some media types, it may also be
possible to perform the extraction over the network without any special protocol assistance. For temporal fragments this requires a user
agent to be able to seek on the media resource using existing protocol mechanisms.
An example of a URI fragment used to address a media fragment is http://www.example.org/video.ogv#t=60,100. In this case,
the user agent knows that the primary resource is http://www.example.org/video.ogv and that it is only expected to display
the portion of the primary resource that relates to the fragment #t=60,100, i.e. seconds 60-100. Thus, the relationship
between the primary resource and the media fragment is maintained.
In traditional URI fragment retrieval, a user agent requests the complete primary resource from the server and then applies the
fragmentation locally. In the media fragment case, this would result in a retrieval action on the complete media resource, on which the
user agent would then locally perform its fragment extraction - something generally unviable for such large resources.
Therefore, media resources are not always retrieved over HTTP using a single request. They may be retrieved as a sequence of byte range requests
on the original resource URI, or may be retrieved as a sequence of requests to different URIs each representing a small part of the
media. The reasons for such mechanisms include bandwidth conservation, where a client chooses to space requests out over time during
playback in order to maximize bandwidth available for other activities, and bandwidth adaptation, where a client selects among various
representations with varying bitrate depending on the current bandwidth availability.
A user agent that knows how to map media fragments to byte ranges will be able to satisfy a URI fragment request such as the above example
by itself. This is typically the case for user agents that know how to seek to media fragments over the network.
For example, a user agent that deals with a media file that includes an index of its seekable structures can resolve the media fragment
addresses to byte ranges from the index. This is the case e.g. with seekable QuickTime files. Another example is a user agent that
knows how to seek on a media file through a sequence of byte range requests and eventually receives the correct media fragment. This is
the case e.g. with Ogg files in Firefox versions above 3.5.
Similarly, a user agent that knows how to map media fragments to a sequence of URIs can satisfy a URI fragment request by itself. This
is typically the case for user agents that perform adaptive streaming. For example, a user agent that deals with a media resource that
contains a sequence of URIs, each a media file of a few seconds duration, can resolve the media fragment addresses to a subsequence of
those URIs. This is the case with QuickTime adaptive bitrate streaming or IIS Smooth Streaming.
If such a user agent natively supports the media fragment syntax as specified in this document, it is deemed conformant to this
specification for fragments and for the particular dimension.
For user agents that natively support the media fragment syntax, but have to use their own seeking approach, a complementary specification
provides an optimisation that can make the byte offset seeking more efficient. It requires a conformant server with which the user agent
will follow a protocol defined in the separate Media Fragments 1.0 URI (advanced) document where the user agent asks the server to do the byte
range mapping for the media fragment address itself and send back the appropriate byte ranges. This approach can not be done through the URI,
but has to be done through adding protocol headers. User agents that interact with a conformant server to follow this protocol will receive
the appropriate byte ranges directly and will not need to do costly seeking over the network.
3.3 Resolving URI queries
The described URI fragment addressing methods only work for byte-identical segments of a media resource, since we assume a simple mapping
between the media fragment and bytes that each infrastructure element can deal with. Where it is impossible to maintain byte-identity
and some sort of transcoding of the resource is necessary, the user agent is not able to resolve the fragmentation by itself and a
server interaction is required. In this case, URI queries have to be used since they result in a server interaction and can deliver a
transcoded resource.
Another use for URI queries is when a user agent actually wants to receive a completely new resource instead of just a byte range from
an existing (primary) resource. This is, for example, the case for playlists of media fragment resources. Even if a media fragment
could be resolved through a URI fragment, the URI query may be more desirable since it does not carry with itself the burden
of the original primary resource - its file headers may be smaller, its duration may be smaller, and it does not automatically allow
access to the remainder of the original primary resource.
When URI queries are used, the retrieval action has to additionally make sure to create a fully valid new resource. For example, for the
Ogg format, this implies a reconstruction of Ogg headers to accurately describe the new resource (e.g. a non-zero start-time or different
encoding parameters). Such a resource will be cached in Web proxies as a different resource to the original primary resource.
An example URI query that includes a media fragment specification is http://www.example.org/video.ogv?t=60,100. This results
in a video of duration 40s (assuming the original video was more than 100s long).
Note that this resource has no per-se relationship to the original primary resource. As a user agent uses such a URI with e.g. a HTML5
video element, the browser has no knowledge about the original resource and can only display this video as a 40s long video starting at 0s.
The context of the original resource is lost.
A user agent may want to display the original start time of the resource as the start time of the video in order to be consistent with the
information in the URI. It is possible to achieve this in one of two ways: either the video file itself has some knowledge that it is an
extract from a different file and starts at an offset - or the user agent is told through the retrieval action which original primary
resource the retrieved resource relates to and can find out information about it through another retrieval action.
An example for a media resource that has knowledge about itself of the required kind are Ogg files. Ogg files that have a skeleton
track and were created correctly from the primary resource will know that their start time is not 0s but 60s in the above example.
The browser can simply parse this information out of the received bitstream and may display a timeline that starts at 60s and ends at 100s
in the video controls if it so desires.
Another option is that the browser parses the URI and knows about how media resources have a fragment specification that follows a standard.
Then the browser can interpret the query parameters and extract the correct start and end times and also the original primary resource.
It can then also display a timeline that starts at 60s and ends at 100s in the video controls. Further it can allow a right-click menu to
click through to the original resource if required.
A use case where the video controls may neither start at 0s nor at 60s is a mashed-up video created through a list of media fragment URIs.
In such a playlist, the user agent may prefer to display a single continuous timeline across all the media fragments rather than a
collection of individual timelines for each fragment. Thus, the 60s to 100s fragment may e.g. be mapped to an interval at 3min20 to 4min.
No new protocol headers are required to execute a URI query for media fragment retrieval. Some optional protocol headers that improve the
information exchange will be recommended later in this document.
3.4 Combining URI fragments and URI queries
A combination of a URI query for a media fragment with a URI fragment yields a URI fragment resolution on top of the newly created resource.
Since a URI with a query part creates a new resource, we have to do the fragment offset on the new resource. This is simply a conformant
behaviour to the URI standard RFC 3986.
For example, http://www.example.org/video.ogv?t=60,100#t=20 will lead to the 20s fragment offset being applied to the new
resource starting at 60 going to 100. Thus, the reply to this is a 40s long resource whose playback will start at an offset of 20s.
4 Media Fragments Syntax
This section describes the syntax representation of a media fragment (MF) identifier and how this should be interpreted.
The guiding principles for the definition of the media fragments syntax are:
- a. The MF syntax for queries and fragments should be identical
- b. The MF syntax should be unambiguous
- c. The MF syntax should allow any UTF-8 character for dimensions that need it
- d. The MF syntax should adhere to applicable formal standards
- e. The MF syntax should adhere to de-facto usage of queries and fragments
- f. The MF syntax should be as concise as possible
4.1 General Structure
A list of name-value pairs is encoded in the query or
fragment component of a URI. The name and value components
are separated by an equal sign (=), while
multiple name-value pairs are separated by an ampersand
(&).
name = fragment - "&" - "="
value = fragment - "&"
namevalue = name [ "=" value ]
namevalues = namevalue *( "&" namevalue )
The names and values can be arbitrary Unicode strings,
encoded in UTF-8 and percent-encoded as per
RFC 3986. Here are some examples of URIs
with name-value pairs in the fragment component, to
demonstrate the general structure:
http://www.example.com/example.ogv#t=10,20
http://www.example.com/example.ogv#track=audio&t=10,20
http://www.example.com/example.ogv#id=Cap%C3%ADtulo%202
While arbitrary name-value pairs can be encoded in this
manner, this specification defines a fixed set of
dimensions. The dimension keyword name is encoded in the
name component, while dimension-specific syntax is encoded
in the value component.
Section 5.1.1 Processing name-value components
defines in more detail how to process the name-value pair
syntax, arriving at a list of name-value Unicode string
pairs. The syntax definitions in
4.2 Fragment Dimensions apply to these Unicode
strings.
4.2 Fragment Dimensions
Media fragments support addressing the media along two dimensions (in the basic version):
- temporal
This dimension denotes a specific time range in the
original media, such as "starting at second 10, continuing
until second 20";
- spatial
this dimension denotes a specific range of pixels in
the original media, such as "a rectangle with size (100,100)
with its top-left at coordinate (10,10)";
Media fragments support also addressing the media along two additional dimensions (in the advanced version defined in
Media Fragments 1.0 URI (advanced)):
- track
this dimension denotes one or more tracks in the
original media, such as "the english audio and the video track";
- id
this dimension denotes a named temporal fragment within the original media, such as "chapter 2", and can be seen as a
convenient way of specifying a temporal fragment.
All dimensions are logically independent and can be combined. The outcome is independent of the order of the dimensions.
The id dimension is however a shortcut for the temporal dimension and combining both dimensions need to be treated as described in
section 6.2.1 Errors on the general URI level.
The track dimension refers to one of a set of parallel media streams (e.g. "the english audio track for a video"), not to
a (possibly self-contained) section of the source media (e.g. "Audio track 2 of a CD").
4.2.1 Temporal Dimension
Temporal clipping is denoted by the name t, and specified as an interval with a begin time and an end time
(or an in-point and an out-point in video editing terms). Either one or both parameters may be omitted, with the begin time
defaulting to 0 seconds and the end time defaulting to the duration of the source media. The interval is half-open: the begin time
is considered part of the interval whereas the end time is considered to be the first time point that is not part of the interval.
If a single number only is given, this corresponds to the begin time except if it is preceded by a comma that would in this case
indicate the end time.
Examples:
t=10,20 # => results in the time interval [10,20)
t=,20 # => results in the time interval [0,20)
t=10 # => results in the time interval [10,end)
Temporal clipping is specified as Normal Play Time (npt) RFC 2326. It can also be specified
as SMPTE timecodes SMPTE or as real-world clock time (clock) RFC 2326 in the advanced version
described in the Media Fragments 1.0 URI (advanced) document.
Begin and end times are always specified in the same format. The format is specified by name, followed by a colon (:),
with npt: being the default. In this version of the media fragments specification there is no extensibility mechanism
to add time format specifiers.
Normal Play Time can either be specified as seconds, with an optional fractional part to indicate miliseconds, or as colon-separated
hours, minutes and seconds (again with an optional fraction). Minutes and seconds must be specified as exactly two digits,
hours and fractional seconds can be any number of digits. The hours, minutes and seconds specification for NPT is a convenience only,
it does not signal frame accuracy. The specification of the "npt:" identifier is optional since NPT is the default time scheme.
This specification builds on the RTSP specification of NPT RFC 2326.
npt-sec = 1*DIGIT [ "." *DIGIT ] ; definitions taken
npt-hhmmss = npt-hh ":" npt-mm ":" npt-ss [ "." *DIGIT] ; from RFC 2326,
npt-mmss = npt-mm ":" npt-ss [ "." *DIGIT]
npt-hh = 1*DIGIT ; any positive number
npt-mm = 2DIGIT ; 0-59
npt-ss = 2DIGIT ; 0-59
npttimedef = [ deftimeformat ":"] ( npttime [ "," npttime ] ) / ( "," npttime )
deftimeformat = %x6E.70.74 ; "npt"
npttime = npt-sec / npt-mmss / npt-hhmmss
Examples:
t=npt:10,20 # => results in the time interval [10,20)
t=npt:,121.5 # => results in the time interval [0,121.5)
t=0:02:00,121.5 # => results in the time interval [120,121.5)
t=npt:120,0:02:01.5 # => also results in the time interval [120,121.5)
4.2.2 Spatial Dimension
Spatial clipping selects an area of pixels from visual media streams. For this version of the media fragment specification,
only rectangular selections are supported. The rectangle can be specified as pixel coordinates or percentages.
Pixels coordinates are interpreted after taking into account the resource's dimensions, aspect ratio, clean aperture, resolution,
and so forth, as defined for the format used by the resource. If an anamorphic format does not define how to apply the aspect
ratio to the video data's dimensions to obtain the "correct" dimensions, then the user agent must apply the ratio by increasing
one dimension and leaving the other unchanged.
Rectangle selection is denoted by the name xywh. The value is an optional format pixel: or percent:
(defaulting to pixel) and 4 comma-separated integers. The integers denote x, y, width and height, respectively, with x=0, y=0 being the
top left corner of the image. If percent is used, x and width are interpreted as a percentage of the width of the original media, and
y and height are interpreted as a percentage of the original height.
xywhprefix = %x78.79.77.68 ; "xywh"
xywhparam = [ xywhunit ":" ] 1*DIGIT "," 1*DIGIT "," 1*DIGIT "," 1*DIGIT
xywhunit = %x70.69.78.65.6C ; "pixel"
/ %x70.65.72.63.65.6E.74 ; "percent"
Examples:
xywh=160,120,320,240 # => results in a 320x240 box at x=160 and y=120
xywh=pixel:160,120,320,240 # => results in a 320x240 box at x=160 and y=120
xywh=percent:25,25,50,50 # => results in a 50%x50% box at x=25% and y=25%
If the clipping region is pixel-based and the image is multi-resolution (like an ICO file), the fragment MUST be ignored, so
that the url represents the entire image.
More generally, pixel-clip an image that does not have a single well defined pixel resolution (width and height) is not recommended.
6 Media Fragments Semantics
In this section, we discuss how media fragment URIs should be interpreted by user agents. Valid and error cases are presented.
In case of errors, we distinguish between errors that can be detected solely based on the media fragment URI and errors that can only be
detected when the user agent has information of the media resource (such as the duration of the media resource).
6.1 Valid Media Fragment URIs
For each dimension, a number of valid media fragments and their semantics are presented.
6.1.1 Valid temporal dimension
To describe the different cases for temporal media fragments, we make the following definitions:
- s: the start point of the media, which is always zero (in NPT);
- e: the end point of the media (i.e. duration) and e > 0;
- a: a positive integer, a >= 0;
- b: a positive integer, b >= 0.
Further, as stated in section 4.2.1 Temporal Dimension, temporal intervals are half-open (i.e. the begin time is considered
part of the interval whereas the end time is considered to be the first time point that is not part of the interval).
Thus, if we state below that "the media is played from x to y", this means that the frame corresponding to y will not be played.
For t=a,b with a <= b, the following temporal fragments are valid:
- t=a with a < e: media is played from a to e.
- t=,b with b <= e: media is played from s to b.
- t=,b with e < b: media is played from s to e.
- t=a,b with a = 0, b = e: whole media resource is played.
- t=a,b with a < b, a < e and b <= e: media is played from a to b (the normal case).
- t=a,b with a < b, a < e and e < b: media is played from a to e.
- %74=10,20 resolve percent encoding to t=10,20.
- t=%31%30 resolve percent encoding to t=10.
- t=10%2C20 resolve percent encoding to t=10,20.
- t=%6ept:10 resolve percent encoding to t=npt:10.
- t=npt%3a10 resolve percent encoding to t=npt:10.
6.1.2 Valid spatial dimension
To describe the different cases for spatial media fragments, we make the following definitions:
- a: the x coordinate of the spatial region (a >= 0).
- b: the y coordinate of the spatial region (b >= 0).
- c: the width the spatial region (c > 0).
- d: the height of the spatial region (d > 0).
- w: the width of the media resource (w > 0).
- h: the height of the media resource (h > 0).
The following spatial fragments are valid:
- xywh=a,b,c,d with a+c <= w and b+d <= h: the user agent displays a spatial fragment with coordinates (in pixel xywh format) a,b,c,d (the normal pixel case).
- xywh=a,b,c,d with a+c > w, a < w, and b+d < h: the user agent displays a spatial fragment with coordinates (in pixel xywh format) a,b,w-a,d.
- xywh=a,b,c,d with a+c < w, b+d > h, and b < h: the user agent displays a spatial fragment with coordinates (in pixel xywh format) a,b,c,h-d.
- xywh=a,b,c,d with a+c > w, a < w, b+d > h, and b < h: the user agent displays a spatial fragment with coordinates (in pixel xywh format) a,b,w-a,h-d.
- xywh=pixel:a,b,c,d with a+c <= w and b+d <= h: the user agent displays a spatial fragment with coordinates (in pixel xywh format) a,b,c,d (the normal pixel case).
- xywh=percent:a,b,c,d with a+c <= 100, b+d <= 100: the user agent displays a spatial fragment with coordinates (in pixel xywh format) floor(a/w*100), floor(b/h*100), ceil(c/w*100), ceil(d/h*100) (the normal percent case).
The result of doing spatial clipping on a media resource that has multiple video tracks is that the spatial clipping is applied to all tracks.
6.2 Errors detectable based on the URI syntax
Both syntactical and semantical errors are treated similarly. More specifically, the user agent SHOULD ignore name-value pairs causing
errors detectable based on the URI syntax. We provide below more details for each dimensions. We look at errors in the different
dimensions and their values in the subsequent sub-sections. We start with errors on the more general levels.
6.2.1 Errors on the general URI level
The following list provides the different kind of errors that can occur on the general URI level and how they should be treated:
- Unknown dimension: only dimensions described in this specification (i.e.
t, xywh, track and id) are considered as
known dimensions. All other dimensions are considered as unknown. Unknown dimensions SHOULD be ignored by the user agent. - Multiple occurrences of the same dimension: only the last valid occurrence of a dimension (e.g. t=10 in #t=2&t=10)
is interpreted and all previous occurrences (valid or invalid) SHOULD be ignored by the user agent. The
track dimension
is an exception to this rule: multiple track dimensions are allowed (e.g. #track=1&track=2 selects both tracks 1 and 2). - Combining dimensions: the
id dimension combined with a temporal dimension results in multiple occurrences of
the temporal dimension (see previous item).
6.2.2 Errors on the temporal dimension
The value cannot be parsed for the temporal dimension or the parsed value is invalid according to the specification. Invalid
temporal fragments SHOULD be ignored by the user agent.
Examples:
- t=a,b with a >= b (the case of an empty temporal fragment (a=b) is also considered as an error)
- t=a,
- t=asdf
- t=5,ekj
- t=agk,9
- t='0'
- t=10-20
- t=10:20
- t=10,20,40
- t%3D10 where %3D is equivalent to =; percent encoding does not resolve
6.2.3 Errors on the spatial dimension
The value cannot be parsed for the spatial dimension or the parsed value is invalid according to the specification. Invalid
spatial fragments SHOULD be ignored by the user agent.
Examples:
- xywh=4,5,abc,8
- xywh=4,5
- xywh=foo:4,5,7,8
- xywh=percent:400,5,6,8
- xywh=4,5,0,3
6.3 Errors detectable based on information of the source media
Errors that can only be detected when the uiser agent has information of the source media are treated differently. Examples of such
information are the duration of a video, the resolution of an image, track information, or the mime type of the media resource
(i.e. all information that is not detectable solely based on the URI). Note that a lot of this information is located within the
setup information. We provide below more details for each of the dimensions.
6.3.1 Errors on the general level
The following errors can occur on the general level:
- Non-existent dimension: a dimension that does not exist in the source media (e.g. temporal clipping on a
still image or spatial clipping on an audio file) is considered as a non-existent dimension. If the user agent knows the mime type,
it is able to detect non-existent dimensions and SHOULD ignore them.
6.3.2 Errors on the temporal dimension
To describe the different cases for temporal media fragments, we use the definitions from 6.1.1 Valid temporal dimension. The
invalidity of the following temporal fragments can only be detected by the user agent if it knows the duration (for non-existent
temporal fragments) and the frame rate of the source media.
- t=a,b with a > 0, a < b, a >= e and b > e: a non-existent temporal fragment, the user agent seeks to the end of the media
e. - t=a with a >= e: a non-existent temporal fragment, the user agent seeks to the end of the media
e.
6.3.3 Errors on the spatial dimension
To describe the different cases for spatial media fragments, we use the definitions from 6.1.2 Valid spatial dimension. The
invalidity of the following spatial fragments can only be detected by the user agent if it knows the resolution of the source media.
- xywh=a,b,c,d with a >= w and/or b >= h: the top-left coordinate (a,b) of the rectangular lies outside the source media and is
therefore invalid. The user agent SHOULD ignore this spatial fragment.
7 Notes to Implementors (non-normative)
This section contains notes to implementors. Some of the information here is already
stated formally elsewhere in the document, and the reference here is mainly a heads-up.
Other items are really outside the scope of this specification, but the notes here
reflect what the authors think would be good practice.
The sub-sections are not mutually exclusive. Hence, an implementer of a web browser as a media fragment client should read
the sections 7.1 Browsers Rendering Media Fragments, 7.2 Clients Displaying Media Fragments and 7.3 All Media Fragment Clients.
7.1 Browsers Rendering Media Fragments
The pixel coordinates defined in the section 4.2.2 Spatial Dimension are intended to be identical to
the intrinsic width and height defined in HTML5.
For spatial URI fragments, the next section describes two distinct use cases, highlighting and cropping.
HTML rendering clients, however, are expected to implement cropping as the default rendering mechanism.
7.2 Clients Displaying Media Fragments
When dealing with media fragments, there is a question whether to display the media fragment in
context or without context. In general, it is recommended to display a URI fragment in context since
it is part of a larger resource. On the other hand, a URI query results in a new resource, so it is
recommended to display it as a complete resource without context. The next paragraphs discuss for each
axis the context of a media fragment and provides suggestions regarding the visualization of the
URI fragment within its context.
For a temporal URI fragment, it is recommended to start playback at a time offset that equals
to the start of the fragment and pause at the end of the fragment. When the "play" button is
hit again, the resource will continue loading and play back beyond the end of the fragment.
When seeking to specific offsets, the resource will load and play back from those seek points.
It is also recommended to introduce a "reload" button to replay just the URI fragment. In this
way, a URI fragment basically stands for "focusing attention". Additionally, temporal URI
fragments could be highlighted on the transport bar.
For a spatial URI fragment, we foresee two distinct use cases: highlighting the spatial
region in-context and cropping to the region. In the first case, the spatial region could
be indicated by means of a bounding box or the background (i.e. all the pixels that are
not contained within the region) could be blurred or darkened. In the second case, the region
alone would be presented as a cropped area. How a document author specifies which use case
is intended is outside the scope of this specification, we suggest implementors of the
specification provide a means for this, for example through attributes or stylesheet elements.
Finally, for track URI fragments, it is recommended to play only the tracks identified by the
track URI fragment. If no tracks are specified, the default tracks should be played.
Different tracks could be selected using drop-down boxes or buttons, with the selected tracks
highlighted during playback. The way the user agent retrieves information regarding the available
tracks of a particular resource is out of scope for this specification.
7.3 All Media Fragment Clients
Resolution Order: Where multiple dimensions are combined in one URI fragment request, implementations are
expected to first do temporal, id, and track selection on the container level, and then do spatial clipping on the codec level.
Media Fragment Grammar: Note that the grammar for Media Fragment URI only specifies
the grammar for features standardised by this specification. If a string does not parse
correctly, it does not necessarily mean the URI is wrong, it only means it is not a media
fragment URI according to this specification. It may be correct for some extended form,
or for a completely different fragment specification method. For this reason, error
recovery on syntax errors in media fragment specifiers is unwise.
External Clipping: There is no obligatory resolution method for a situation where a media
fragment URI is being used in the context of another clipping method. Formally, it is up to the context
embedding the media fragment URI to decide whether the outside clipping method overrides the media fragment URI or
cascades, i.e. is defined on the resulting resource. In the absence of strong reasons to do otherwise we suggest
cascading. An example is a SMIL element as follows:
<smil:video clipBegin="5" clipEnd="15" src="http://www.example.com/example.mp4#t=100,200"/>. This should
start playback of the original media resource at second 105, and stop at 115.
7.4 Media Fragment Servers
Media type: The media type of a resource retrieved through a URI fragment request is the same as that of the primary resource.
Thus, the retrieval of a single frame from a video will result in a one-frame-long video. The retrieval of all the audio tracks from a
video resource will result in a video and not a audio resource. When using a URI query approach, media type changes are possible.
For example, a spatial fragment from a video at a certain time offset could be retrieved as a jpeg using a specific HTTP "Accept" header
in the request.
Synchronisation: Synchronisation between different tracks of a media resource needs to be maintained when retrieving media
fragments of that resource. This is true for both URI fragment and URI query retrieval. With URI queries, when transcoding is required,
a non-perceivable change in the synchronisation is acceptable.
Embedded Timecodes: When a media resource contains embedded time codes, these need
to be maintained for media fragment retrieval, in particular when the URI fragment method
is used. When URI queries are used and transcoding takes place, the embedded time codes
should remain when they are useful and required.
Reasonable Clipping: Temporal clipping needs to be as close as reasonably possible to what the media fragment
specified, and not omit any requested data. "Reasonably close" means the nearest compression entity to
the requested fragment that completely contains the requested fragment. For temporal fragments, this means that if a
request is made for http://www.example.org/video.ogv#t=60,100, but the closest
decodable range is t=58,102 because this is where a packet boundary lies for audio and video, then it will
be this range that is returned. The user agent is then capable of displaying only the requested subpart and should also
just do that. For some container formats this is a non-issue, because the container format allows specification of logical
begin and end.
Reasonable byte ranges: If a single temporal range request would result
in a disproportionally large number of byte ranges it may be better for the server
to return a redirect to the query form of the media fragment. This situation could happen
if the underlying media file is organized in a strange way.
7.5 Media Fragment Web Applications
Media Fragment URIs are only defined on media resources. However, many Web developers that
create Web pages with video or audio want to provide their users the ability
to jump directly to media fragments - in particular to time offsets in a video - through
providing a URI scheme for the Web page.
The way in which to realize this without requiring an extra server interaction is by
using a URI fragment scheme on the Web page which is parsed by JavaScript and communicates
the media fragment to the audio or video resource loader. In HTML5, it would need to change
the @src attribute of the appropriate <audio> or <video> element with the appropriate
URI fragment and then call the load() function to make the element (re)load the resource
with that URI.
A URI scheme for such a Web page may involve ampersand-separated name-value
pairs as defined in this specification, e.g. http://example.com/videopage.html#t=60,100&xywh=12,12,42,42.
However, the Web developer has to create a scheme that works with the remainder
of the Web page fragment addressing functionality. If, for example, the Web page makes use of
the ID attributes of the elements on the page for scrolling down on the page, adding media
fragment URI addressing to the Web page addressing will fail. For example, if
http://example.com/videopage.html#first works and scrolls to an offset on that Web page,
http://example.com/videopage.html#first&t=60,100 will not do the same scrolling. The Web
developer will then need to parse the fragment parameter and implement the scrolling
functionality in JavaScript manually using the scrollTo() or scrollTop() functions.