Talk:Media Types
Introduction
Media types that are supported by iDigBio may have additional derivatives or features available in the iDigBio APIs and web portal. Derivatives may include thumbnail images, wave forms, viewers or players, etc. Other media types may not have those additional features or derivatives and may only display a placeholder thumbnail image or textual media MIME type (if available).
iDigBio encourages the use of IANA media types (formerly MIME types) in the dc:format field where possible. See https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/
There are many valid media types that are "unsupported" by iDigBio for the generation of derivatives. We encourage data providers to continue sharing those media since sharing increases discoverability and accessibility to the community.
One of the primary driving factors between "supported" and "unsupported" in the iDigBio file sizes too large to be usable by a wide community, or need special software not commonly installed on computers, etc.
Legend
Each of the media types described on this page will be documented with the following:
- Description
- Brief description of the media type.
- iDigBio short name
- A single word that is a shortened name used by iDigBio internally (for example, the "bucket" name), in documentation about a media type, or possibly seen in API parameters.
Examples: "images", "sounds"
- Supported formats
- A list of known supported file formats in the format that is generally used to describe the format.
Examples: JPEG, JPEG 2000, MP4 (AAC audio)
- Common file extensions
- The most commonly used file extensions (letters after the last period in a filename) for files of the particular type.
Examples: .jpg, .jp2, .mp4, .stl
- Common MIME types
- The common MIME types known to be assigned to this media type, derived from the IANA controlling vocabulary of media types: http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml which is used to populate the dc:format.
- Known Unsupported formats
- A list of known unsupported file formats in the form that is generally used to describe the format.
Examples: DNG, RAW, PSD, TIFF, GIF
- Audubon Core Sample Values
- An example of a single media type as it could be represented in Audubon Core.
"dc:type" : "StillImage" "dc:format" : "image/jpeg"
- iDigBio derivatives
- List of derivatives that iDigBio creates for the media type.
Examples: "thumbnail", "webview", "fullsize".
Media Types
Sounds
- Description
- Recorded audio or signals such as bird calls, whale song, or electric fish pulses.
- iDigBio short name
- "sounds"
- Supported formats
- MP3 (MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 audio), MP4 (AAC audio)
- Common file extensions
- .mp3, .mp4
- Common MIME types
- audio/mpeg, audio/MPA, audio/mp4
- Known Unsupported formats
- WAV
- Audubon Core Sample Values
"dc:type" : "Sound" "dc:format" : "audio/mpeg"
- iDigBio derivatives
- thumbnail, webview, fullsize
Documents
- Description
- TBD
- iDigBio short name
- "documents"
- Supported formats
- Portable Document Format (PDF)
- Common file extensions
- Common MIME types
- "application/pdf"
- Known Unsupported formats
- DOC, DOCX
- Audubon Core Sample Values
"dc:type" : "Text" "dc:format" : "application/pdf"
- iDigBio derivatives
- **** TBD ****
Images
- Description
- Digital photographs of specimens, labels, sheets
- iDigBio short name
- "images"
- Supported formats
- JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG
- Common file extensions
- .jpg, .jpeg, .jp2, .png
- Common MIME types
- image/jpeg, image/jp2, image/png
- Known Unsupported formats
- DNG, RAW, PSD, TIFF, GIF
- Audubon Core Sample Values
"dc:type" : "StillImage" "dc:format" : "image/jpeg"
- iDigBio derivatives
- thumbnail, webview, fullsize
Models
- Description
- 3D models and meshes representing specimens as polyhedral objects
- iDigBio short name
- "models"
- Supported formats
- StereoLithograph (STL, binary), Polygon File Format (PLY, binary)
- Common file extensions
- STL, PLY
- Common MIME types
- model/mesh
- Known Unsupported formats
- **** TBD ****
- Audubon Core Sample Values
"dc:type" : "InteractiveResource" "dc:format" : "model/mesh"
- iDigBio derivatives
- **** TBD ****
Video
- Description
- Multiple frame capture of moving visual images with possible audio tracks included.
- iDigBio short name
- "videos"
- Supported formats
- MP4 (H.264 encoding), MPEG
- Common file extensions
- .mp4, .mpeg
- Common MIME types
- video/mp4, video/mpeg
- Known Unsupported formats
- GIF, DIVX, Adobe Flash (F4V, FLV), Quicktime
- Audubon Core Sample Values
"dc:type" : "MovingImage" "dc:format" : "video/mp4"
- iDigBio derivatives
- **** TBD ****