[whatwg] video tag: pixel aspect ratio

[Lachlan Hunt]

Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-12-01 at 12:39 +0000, Ian Hickson wrote:
>> We definitely don't want to stretch the video. One of the important use 
>> cases if having a video playback area and then playing videos with 
>> different aspect ratios in that playback area. It should all just work.
> 
> I'm having a hard time seeing how this is a use case for video and not
> for img. If one wants the intrinsic width/height to be used, then simply
> don't set width/height. Otherwise, just setting just one of width/height
> or using CSS max-width/max-height should do the trick.
> 
> This is strange:
> 
> <video src="circle.mpg" width="400" height="400"> <!-- circle -->
> <video src="circle.mpg" width="400" height="300"> <!-- pillarbox -->

This is effectively how YouTube behaves now with their recent change to 
a widescreen player.  It would look terrible if 4:3 videos were 
stretched to fill the 16:9 viewport, instead of just using black bars on 
the side.  Even before when they were still using a 4:3 player, 
widescreen videos were rendered as letterbox.

> <img src="circle.jpg" width="400" height="400"> <!-- circle -->
> <img src="circle.jpg" width="400" height="300"> <!-- oval -->
> 
> I think it would be much more consistent if these elements behaved in
> the same way.

What is the use case for wanting a video to be stretched?

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/