how to render chapters (was Re: A new proposal for how to deal with text track cues)

Hi all,

I'd like to focus the discussion on the chapter issue for the moment.

I'm really wondering how to write the "cues in isolation" section:
http://dev.w3.org/html5/webvtt/#cues-in-isolation .

Since the HTML spec refers to it for rendering chapters:
"Note: For WebVTT, the rules for rendering the cue in isolation are
the rules for interpreting WebVTT cue text. [WEBVTT]"
it's bit of a dangling pointer that I want to close.

I've wondered about these approaches:

> The chapters could be represented through dots
> on the timeline and a mouseover could render the thumbnails. Or the
> chapters could be represented in a menu on the controls with the
> thumbnail as an icon.

There are more examples at
http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Use_cases_for_API-level_access_to_timed_tracks#Chapter_Markers

So, chapters could be in a special menu dropping down from the top of
the video or a list that is rendered off the video viewport, but
navigates the video.

Should the section say anything about rendering or just say that
browser should somehow expose chapters in the video controls?
What do people prefer?


Another related issues is that about thumbnails. You will have noticed
that many chapter rendering approaches have an image thumbnail in
them.

I can think of two ways to add an image thumbnail to chapter cues:

1. as markup inside the cue text
e.g.
<img data-url-encoded-image>

2. as a cue setting
e.g.
thumb:data-url-encoded-image

The first approach has the side effect that we can then also represent
images in caption or subtitle cues.

The second approach has the side effect that we can then also
represent caption or subtitle cues with an image thumbnail.

What is the preference here - and: are browsers interested to support
thumbnails?

Silvia.

Received on Sunday, 23 June 2013 09:22:11 UTC