[whatwg] media elements: Relative seeking

[Eric Carlson]

On Nov 24, 2008, at 2:21 PM, Calogero Alex Baldacchino wrote:

> Well, the length attribute could be an indication about such limit  
> and could accept a generic value, such as 'unknown' (or '0', with  
> the same meaning - just to have only numerical values) to indicate  
> an endless stream (i.e. a realtime iptv): in such a case, any  
> seeking operation could be either prohibited or just related to the  
> amount of yet played content which is eventually present in a local  
> cache.
>
   It is a mistake to assume that media data is present in the local  
cache after it has been played. Some devices have very limited storage  
(eg. small handhelds) and choose to use a very limited non-persistent  
cache, live streams have essentially unbounded size and can't be  
cached, even downloaded content can be so large that clients on a  
desktop class machine may choose to no buffer the entire file.

eric