Re: Should <video> buffer control be tri-state?

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Philip Jägenstedt <philipj@opera.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:44:44 +0100, Silvia Pfeiffer
> <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 5:20 AM, Philip Jägenstedt <philipj@opera.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:19:11 +0100, Leif Halvard Silli
>>> <xn--mlform-iua@målform.no> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Philip Jägenstedt, Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:35:54 +0100:
>>>>
>>>>> I support replacing the autobuffer attribute with a buffering
>>>>> attribute,
>>>>> Absence of autobuffer is replaced with buffering="auto" (um, this
>>>>> reversion *will* confuse, but oh well) while its presence is replaced
>>>>> with
>>>>> buffering="full". It's possible to add any number of states, but I
>>>>> don't
>>>>> support adding a third buffering="minimal" until it is shown in a
>>>>> browser
>>>>> that distinguishes between the first two states (e.g. Firefox 3.5)
>>>>> actually need a third state. If speccing only two states makes the
>>>>> change
>>>>> seem pointless, I would tend to agree, but at least it leaves the
>>>>> possibility of adding more states should they become necessary.
>>>>>
>>>>> Note: I'm not saying that a "minimal" state will be pointless for all
>>>>> future, I'm saying that it's better to wait on a proof-of-concept
>>>>> implementation that does something useful before deciding what to call
>>>>> a
>>>>> new state and what its conformance requirements should be.
>>>>
>>>> If we are to start with two values only, then why not "full" and
>>>> "minimal" instead of "full" and "auto"? 'Minimal' is still only a word
>>>> that means "as little as possible" - thus it is understandable that
>>>> exactly how little depends on what the UA is able to do with the
>>>> resources at hand.
>>>
>>> I wouldn't mind that if the absence of the attribute or any unknown value
>>> is
>>> equivalent to "minimal".
>>
>> I'm happy with that.
>>
>> All I absolutely wanted was an explicit specification of the two
>> states - "full" and "minimal". I would agree to add "auto" just to
>> give browsers the possibility to do whatever they like, which,
>> however, is equivalent to not mentioning the attribute, so not
>> necessary.
>
> I expect "auto" and be "minimal" to be equivalent, but I would have to agree
> that "auto" as a default is more intuitive. If all browsers treat auto as
> minimal then it's a redundant state, but oh well...

This still gets back to the question: Do we expect browsers do
anything other than minimal amount of network traffic for markup like:

<video src="video.ogg">

And if expect them to just do minimal amount of downloading for that,
why do we need another state meaning "I know you'd just download the
minimum if I didn't say anything, but I still want to tell you to just
download the minimum"?

/ Jonas

Received on Wednesday, 6 January 2010 00:23:41 UTC