Proposed new bug for video element - disable video

Hello,

As presented in the webtv workshop in Hollywood and Issue-18 here is a proposed bug to be submitted to html5. Feedback is welcome.

Best Regards,
JanL

Title: video element - disable video

There isn' t a means to disable the video track. The motivation for the ability to disable of video is in case the application wants to simply have audio track playing but no video. It may be possible to hide the video but it unclear if the associated resources are released or not. Making an explicit method makes for a clear behavior by the browser and easier for developers to create webpages that may need the additional resources.

This may be required when developing web pages that overlay or cover the fullscreen while playing a live broadcast. If the video is HD quality and uses a large amount of processing power a the web page that may be overlayed termporarily it may require addition graphics or cpu power. The audio may continue to be played in order for the user to be able to track the live broadcast.

An example is if live broadcast is being rendered during commercials the end-user may want to play a game but listen to the commercials in order to know when to turn off the game. With this approach more advanced web pages may be supported on terminals with a reduced capacity.

The proposal is to have a similar option as text track to disable the video track.