RE: Firing media events early for throttled downloads

Boris Zbarsky wrote:

>
> If you want to do this, and remove the autoplay attribute, you also
> need
> to remove or limit scripted control over playing the video; otherwise
> the removal of autoplay is just a symbolic gesture.  I assume we agree
> on that, right?

LOL, I never actually suggested removing autoplay pre-se, but *DID* suggest 
that we not advocate it any documentation.  I acknowledge that there will be 
both times and needs for this type of functionality, but further cautioned 
that this functionality needs a very easy, visible ability to over-ride at 
the end user level.

>
> How would people feel about this proposal:
>
> 1)  There is an autoplay attribute.
> 2)  The page can call play() on the video.
> 3)  Whether play() works (and whether autoplay does anything at all)
> can be subjected to the same sort of controls as window.open() is
> now.
>
> This would allow the UA to present the user with an adaptive
> experience,
> including whitelisting of sites where autoplay should be allowed,
> prompting when the page wants to play, etc.  As a personal example, I
> would want to whitelist a site like youtube for autoplay (if I'm there,
> I want to see the video).  I'd want to blacklist a site like
> money.yahoo.com for autoplay (because they have gratuitous videos that
> randomly start playing when you load the page, and are often below the
> fold).

White listing would certainly be one way of going forward (excellent feature 
for UAs), but I am thinking that it needs to be slightly 'deeper' in the 
mix - that the end user would/could start with a baseline setting of 'never' 
(vs. always) - the potential for 'harm' is substantial enough that it needs 
to be hard-wired in the UA (rather than a scripted setting - if I am 
understanding your proposal fully).  Open to all suggestions however, and 
this certainly seems viable.

JF

Received on Saturday, 6 June 2009 18:52:40 UTC