[whatwg] video tag: pixel aspect ratio

[Philip Jägenstedt]

Now that the pixelratio override is gone, shouldn't the influence of
pixel aspect ratio on the layout be removed also? I would prefer if the
default were to stretch to fit if both width/height are given, just like
for img. Letterboxing/pillarboxing should be the special case, is the
idea that we should have the equivalent of SVG:s preserveAspectRatio
either via CSS or HTML?

Philip

On Mon, 2008-12-01 at 10:15 +0000, Ian Hickson wrote:
> 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.
> 
-- 
Philip Jägenstedt
Opera Software