[whatwg] video tag: pixel aspect ratio

[Ian Hickson]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2008, Peter Kasting wrote:
> >
> > I don't understand why this attribute would cause problems. Can you 
> > elaborate?
> 
> * Authors specify the wrong ratio, causing videos to look worse * 
> Authors, blindly copy-and-pasting, believe this attribute is required 
> and specify it everywhere, increasing the likelihood of both of these 
> bullet points
> 
> If you think the likelihood of the first bullet is low, consider the 
> confusion evident on this thread, and then extend that to authors who 
> have even less of a clue.  The attribute is confusing because your 
> intended use -- as a hack that people shouldn't use -- is confusing.
> 
> Videos encoded at the wrong aspect ratio are a real problem, but they 
> are one of an extremely large number of real problems, most of which we 
> (rightly) are not trying to solve.  I think you have given a few reasons 
> why we _aren't_ trying to solve others.  I don't understand why we're 
> trying to solve this one.
> 
> I don't think it is the end of the world if this attribute goes in, but 
> I see very little benefit to it, and I am always for removing items with 
> marginal utility.

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008, Chris Double wrote:
> 
> I'm inclined to agree. I think it's odd that an attribute is being added 
> to fix video's encoded incorrectly. Why can't the author of the video 
> fix the actual video?
> 
> One of the arguments for captions being embedded in video's rather than 
> having some way of defining captions by the page author was that it's 
> important not to use HTML to fix broken videos, and allow captions to 
> travel with the file. The same argument could be made for pixel ratio. 
> Fixing it in the HTML means everyone linking to the file using <video> 
> will need to remember to add pixelratio to their HTML. Better to fix the 
> file.

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008, Jonas Sicking wrote:
> 
> Ah, makes sense. Wasn't there once upon a time a CSS draft that let you 
> specify how replaced elements should stretch in situations like this? So 
> you could choose if it should zoom-to-fit (like it sounds like <video> 
> does) or stretch-to-fit (like <img> does), zoom-to-fill as well as a few 
> other things. I can't seem to find it though...
> 
> I guess my point is, can we let CSS deal with this? If it indeed needs 
> to be dealt with.

Fair enough. I've removed the pixelratio attribute.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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