Re: Public feedback on HTML5 video

On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Leif Halvard Silli
<xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
>> I'm not clear what changes you want to the spec.  Making autobuffer
>> mandatory?  Do you really think browsers shouldn't be allowed to
>> ignore it if they know they're on a connection with expensive
>> bandwidth?  They should normally obey it, everyone agrees to that.
>
> Perhaps it should have been possible to decide via CSS and media
> targeting?

I'm not certain how that would have any effect on the discussion at
hand; you're just describing another way for the author to specify
autobuffer, but the question is whether the author's specification of
such should be always honored or treated as a usability suggestion
that can be overridden by the browser if it thinks it is necessary.

> The most common problem today is, I think, to _prevent_ the user agent
> from autobuffer. I assume that the reason e.g Webkit has been eager to
> buffer things, has been in order to provide a better user experience -
> my theory has always been that improved user experience has been the
> motivation for this. Therefore I can very well understand that one is
> sceptical about putting the ultimate judgement into the hands of the
> user agents.

The Webkit team has said that they realize that their decision to
buffer automatically in their desktop versions was a bad one, and they
will be changing it to not autobuffer by default.  That's all that's
required - the browsers establish what the better user experience is
and act on it.

> Can we be certain that the user agent _does not_ autobuffer when the
> autobuffer attribute isn't used? Or is this also up to the user agent?

It's up to the UA.  The user may want to autobuffer stuff anyway, for
instance.  Or the browser might be able to tell that the bandwidth is
good, and autobuffer videos when they're the only video on the page
(avoiding the scenario when they start autobuffering a video gallery
page and cripple your connection).  Whatever turns out is best for the
user.  The presence or absence of @autobuffer is just a suggestion
from the author.

~TJ

Received on Monday, 28 December 2009 19:25:02 UTC