Re: Issue 142: Video Poster (or, what's in a name?)

Hi, All:

Eric Carlson writes:
> Hi Gregory -
> 
> On Jan 6, 2011, at 7:13 AM, Gregory J. Rosmaita wrote:
> 
> > my 2 cents (U.S.) on the "poster" controversy
> > 
> > perhaps the biggest problem with "poster" is the attribute's name,, 
> > "poster" -- if it is not meant to be viewed/rendered, why, then, 
> > call it a "poster" -- seems that the semantic problem is strictly 
> > with HTML5 and its inappropriate use of the word "poster" which 
> > has caused us to loose valuable cycles debating over an error in 
> > the HTML5 spec itself -- if it isn't meant for human consumption
> > and not meant to be rendered to a user, then it isn't really a 
> > "poster" and a more adequate attribute name needs to be used, 
> > instead of "poster"
> > 
>   The "poster" *is* rendered, just like the first frame of the video file is rendered when there is no poster attribute. 
> 
>   The poster is meant to be a placeholder for the video, the image that is shown until the video begins playing. Again, just like the first frame of the video file is shown when there is no poster attribute.
> 
I would argue further that it is correctly named. Our video poster,
whether explicitly specified by poster= attribute, or implicitly by the
behavior defined in the html5 spec, stands firmly in the tradition of
movie posters and even vaudeville posters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_poster

In my own personal experience, movie posters did indeed entice me to
plunk down my $2 (American) in order to gain access to a seat inside the
Orpheum theater. Or, they didn't grab me, so I moved down the street to
examine the poster at the Lyric. The difference today is that we have
technology to include people who can't see posters or movies, whereas we
had no such technology back in the days of Cary Grant and Marilyn
Monroe.

Janina


> eric

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
		sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net

Chair, Open Accessibility	janina@a11y.org	
Linux Foundation		http://a11y.org

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Web Accessibility Initiative	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Received on Thursday, 6 January 2011 18:23:43 UTC