Re: Public feedback on HTML5 video

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+w3c@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 6:44 PM, Edward O'Connor <hober0@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Essentially, we have three things we'd like authors to be able to convey
>> to the browser:
>>
>>  1. Do whatever the browser thinks best.
>>
>>  2. Please autobuffer.
>>
>>  3. Please *don't* autobuffer.
>
> The question is whether 1 is needed in practice.  I don't see why it
> is.  Authors could just include autobuffer if the video is likely to
> be viewed (is the main point of the page), and not include it if not.

Even if the video is the main point of the page, it may make more
sense to leave the buffering approach to the particular browser: on a
mobile I'd not want to prebuffer it, while on a desktop it's ok, even
if I as a user decide not to play the video in the end.

I actually agree with the three cases and have myself fallen in the
trap of writing "autobuffer=no". I think "on" and "off" make a lot of
sense to me as attribute values to autobuffer.

In addition, the browser could be really clever and provide a
preference setting for users that can control what happens where the
autobuffer attribute on audio or video is not used. It will help the
browser make a decision. (Just saw that John Foliot proposed this, too
- I agree with him.)

There are several more preference settings that I can see necessary
for audio and video (e.g. show subtitles/captions by default) - I
think browser vendors will have to create a preferences tab for
audio/video anyway and this could be part of it.

Regards,
Silvia.

Received on Tuesday, 29 December 2009 03:29:47 UTC