[whatwg] Video proposals

[Nicholas Shanks]

On 16 Mar 2007, at 15:32, Shadow2531 wrote:

>>> .loop, .startpos
>>> loop = false | true
>>> autostart = true | false
>>> startpos = 0 | specified pos
>>
>> Could you elaborate on the use cases for these?
>
> <video src="VideoIWasWatching.ogg">
>    <param name="startpos" value="value gotten from cookie where I  
> left off at">
> </video>

The downside of that is sites have to implement a cookie system. I  
don't want to do that on my own site and many personal website owners  
won't know how to either.
For the above usage case, I don't see why "remembering where you left  
off" can't be a user-agent feature rather than part of the  
specification. Granted that would fail if you switch browsers but  
people don't do that much.

All said, it would be very useful if the startpos param could be  
returned to the server when starting the download, or when scrubbing  
forward into parts of the video that haven't yet downloaded. as that  
would help avoid using bandwidth unnecessarily.

I see two ways to do that over HTTP:
1) As a HTTP header
2) In the URL

There is also currently this RTSP URL format understood by RealPlayer:
rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/french/fre0600.ra?start=%2220%22
Other formats may understand other parameters, or not define startpos  
as an integer number of seconds, but use hrs:mins:secs etc.
How would the UA then send the startpos if differing content types  
used different mechanisms?

- Nicholas.


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