Re: Defining safe areas for media devices and set top boxes

> OK, so I have been trying to define the size of the problem. And now it seems to be a problem that is pretty narrowly focused, mostly on authors creating content/pages/widgets specifically for TVs, for maybe the next 5 years or so (my guess as to when SDTVs might become irrelevant to that group of authors). Is that accurate? Do we agree that most general Web authors aren't going to care about unsafe areas? I'm not saying that this isn't or is reason enough, I'm just trying to understand the scope of the issue so that we can evaluate it in that light.
> 

Most game consoles ship with a fully capable browser nowadays. TV widgets and apps running on a TV don't need to worry about the safe area, while it's the other way around in external media devices, like set top boxes or consoles.

And now TV markers are pushing hard (again) for WebTV and internet connect TVs, and I personally think it's a good time for it, and there is definitely lots of demand for it.

It wouldn't be hard at all to define a new unsafe-area media query. The hairy part would be how to expose the safe area dimensions. e.g.: with an RCA cable it is probably 64 pixels, or probably even more in an older tv. On more recent hardware it can be 32 pixels or less. This doesn't mean that the content is going to be millimetrically cropped after the 32 or 64 pixels, but that it'll be cropped somewhere in between.

Received on Tuesday, 7 December 2010 18:46:23 UTC