Re: Media: Question about autoplay (video in browsers)

On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:12:43 +0100, Eric Carlson <eric.carlson@apple.com>  
wrote:

>
> On Jan 27, 2011, at 12:06 PM, Eric Carlson wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jan 27, 2011, at 10:39 AM, Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Short answer: Yes, it's possible.
>>>
>>> I've recently added a user preference to Opera to disable autoplay,  
>>> and this should be in a not too distant release of our desktop  
>>> browser. If it turns out that it's common with sites that use script  
>>> to force autoplay, then it's possible to go further. Specifically, one  
>>> could use the same techniques that are used for pop-up blockers to see  
>>> if the play() request was from user interaction or a background  
>>> script. If isn't from direct user interaction, one could ask the user  
>>> to explicitly allow the media to play, perhaps remembering the choice  
>>> for the site.
>>>
>>> However, this kind of thing would be an opt-in setting, since we don't  
>>> want to bother users with lots of dialogs by default.
>>
>>  iOS devices have this restriction - playback of a <video> or <audio>  
>> element can only be triggered in response to a user gesture (like  
>> pop-up blockers). This has caused no end of bug reports because it is  
>> impossible to differentiate script originated "auto play" from playback  
>> triggered by a script after a delay, eg.
>>
>>  onclick= "setTimeout(function(){ video.play() }, 200)"
>>
>> or in response to another event, eg. to start playback after something  
>> else happens:
>>
>>  button.addEventListener('webkitAnimationEnd', function (){ video.play)  
>> }, false);
>>
>>  Neither of these is a much of an edge case as you might think, I get  
>> bug reports all the time about web sites where <video> "doesn't work on  
>> the iPhone" because they use script to trigger playback.
>>
>   I meant to add that one real danger with this kind of change is that  
> many (most?) developers won't test with the setting enabled, so audio  
> and video on their pages won't just not auto-play - it won't play at all.
>
> eric

Indeed, this is another reason why we wouldn't want to make that behavior  
the default. A solution that might perhaps be less prone to breaking sites  
would be to just do what the spec calls "paused for user interaction",  
which would fire a waiting event and behave similarly to a network stall.

-- 
Philip Jägenstedt
Core Developer
Opera Software

Received on Thursday, 27 January 2011 22:18:45 UTC