Re: MediaStreams and src attributes

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 11:35 AM, Adam Barth <w3c@adambarth.com> wrote:

> > I prefer this. We'd have to define what happens when both "stream" and
> "src"
> > are set, but I guess that's not a big deal.
> >
> > I wouldn't call it "stream" though since media elements should be able to
> > both consume and produce streams, so "stream" is ambiguous. I suggest
> > "srcStream".
>
> We can worry about the naming issues once we've settled on a design.
>

OK, although if we can't come up with a good name for something that
usually indicates a problem with the design.

> Though, what if we want to support direct assignment of Blobs
> > too? Would we add "srcBlob", or should we go to "srcObject"? Would having
> > both "src" and "srcObject" confuse developers?
>
> This thought process leads to you wanting to build the most general
> thing, which is to be able to represent these resources using URLs.
> That gives you the full matrix of producers and consumers.
>

And lifetime problems. It may be valuable to have a dedicated API that
covers exactly the resources we have JS object representations for; I think
that's as general as we can get without introducing the lifetime problems.

If you want to stop short of the whole matrix, an sourceStream
> property would seem to make sense, presuming you can create a
> MediaStream object from a Blob.


We can't do it that way. For example you should be able to set the source
of a media element to a Blob and then seek within it, but you can't seek
within a MediaStream.


> It looks like HTMLMediaElement
> already has a "stream" property, which should perhaps be renamed to
> outputStream.
>

Yes, although that's not implemented in Gecko and we probably don't want it
after all anyway.

Rob
-- 
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. ... If you love those
who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors
doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more
than others?" [Matthew 5:43-47]