[whatwg] Comments on the <video> element

[Martin Atkins]

Mihai Sucan wrote:
> 
> For Youtube, a site which provides bloggers an easy way to integrate 
> videos, this would prove even ... hard. Here's the simple code users 
> have to copy/paste:
> 
> <object width="425" height="350">
> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/id"></param>
> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param>
> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/id" 
> type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" 
> height="350"></embed>
> </object>
> 
> Switching to the <video> element, would require a <script> element, and 
> technically, for the developers at Youtube, this would mean a lot more 
> work. They script must be carefully coded so that it doesn't break the 
> myriad of blog systems, etc. Blogs don't even allow scripts to be run 
> (last time I heard). Say Youtube wants to do this, users themselves 
> would no longer like this. "What? Am I going to put a potentially risky 
> script within my site?"
> 

This comment has reminded me about LiveJournal...

LiveJournal traditionally barred all SCRIPT and OBJECT elements (and 
various other, similar elements) in all user-supplied content because it 
would allow users to run arbitrary code in LiveJournal's security context.

More recently, LiveJournal has made an exception for OBJECT elements 
that match certain predefined patterns, such as the above YouTube code. 
They even attempt to massage the code to prevent auto-play.

Having a completely declarative (i.e. no scripting required) <video> 
element would, I'm sure, be very useful to LiveJournal since they would 
be able to allow it as indiscriminately as they do <img> right now.

However, if it requires any scripting to use it'll never work because 
LiveJournal absolutely cannot allow scripting.

So allow me to offer this as another vote to video being, by default, a 
completely standalone element with browser-provided UI. By all means 
allow authors to override it if they want to do something neat.