Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-values] Ability to address actual physical size

Though it's an aside to the main conversation, my take on TV vendors' 
reluctance (having worked with the same browser/vendor as @frivoal on 
that) is a combination of:

* following specs like the HbbTV one (which mandates desktop-like 
resolution as standard)
* at least at the time, a fear that having a different viewport size 
(and the resulting calculations needed to then upscale the output) 
would strain the CPU on set-top boxes/TV sets with built-in web 
browsing capability (which often lack dedicated GPUs)
* a fear that customers will be confused if they don't see the same 
site as on their desktop computer when accessing it on their TV
* a fear that if a TV set the viewport to be small (mostly, 
tablet-sized) with high pixel density, sites would naively assume it's
 a mobile/tablet device and do things like rely on touch events, thus 
breaking navigation
* a belief that authors will simply design specifically for the "web 
on TV" scenario and compensate for the inappropriate resolution by 
"making things bigger" (which is ludicrous, as that would mean every 
site would potentially need to make a separate TV version, AND do 
something like UA sniffing to then redirect devices that smell like 
TVs to that version, since there's no other indicator that's reliable)

I am still hopeful that with the more current crop of devices (and 
particularly now in light of 4K / 8K displays, which absolutely demand
 some form of upscaling or at least reassessment on what resolution is
 being pushed out) the idea that TVs should behave more like a 
tablet/large phone with high-resolution display (as that gels with a 
viewing distance of 10' or so) will catch on (from memory, the 
FirefoxOS enabled LG models do at least run at desktop-like 
resolution, but advertise a device pixel density of 1.5 or 2).

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Received on Wednesday, 16 November 2016 09:10:50 UTC