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

On Wednesday 08 December 2010 01:16:54 you wrote:
> 
> On Dec 7, 2010, at 12:34 , Brad Kemper wrote:
> 
> >> 
> >> This is not specifically about having general web pages looking good on tvs, but also, and specially, for web apps specially crafted to run on the TVs and media devices (think of TV widgets for instance), which are usable using just a remote. You're also remarking blurry resolutions. For that, there is the tv media. The problem were discussing is the lack of safe/unsafe area support, which is another one.
> >> 
> >> Right now the solution is... browser sniffing, not pretty.
> > 
> > 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.
> 
> 
> I feel like I am missing something.  If they are creating content specifically for this environment, they probably want the display area to include the overscan (unsafe) and they can themselves be careful of placing important content within the safe area.  Why do they need CSS help in doing that?
> 
> David Singer
> Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.
> 

Because not having a CSS media query would require browser sniffing to decide whether to apply the safe area or not. I did mention that the safe area might exist or not, depeding on cable used, type of TV, where the user agent runs and other unpredicted conditions. It could run on an external device or on the TV itself. But I'm repeating myself.

Received on Thursday, 9 December 2010 11:56:25 UTC