[whatwg] Scripted querying of <video> capabilities

[Robert O'Callahan]

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 9:44 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:

>
> On Tue, 14 Oct 2008, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 12:13 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs at apple.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > While the underlying media frameworks can't necessarily answer, "if I
> > > give you a file with this MIME type, can you play it?", they can at
> > > least give a yes/no/maybe answer, which can still be quite helpful,
> > > since the UA will know it does not need to check some media streams at
> > > all.
> >
> > I agree. If the API lets us answer "maybe", there is not much need or
> > temptation to lie, and we can still return information that could be
> > useful to scripts.
>
> I have added window.navigator.canPlayType(mimeType). It returns 1, 0, or
> -1 to represent positive, neutral, and negative responses.


navigator.canPlayType could be confusing since authors might think it
includes media playable via plugins or other browser functionality. Making
it a method on <video>/<audio> would be more obvious and, I think, no less
useful in practice.

I am proposing changing the spec to make the load() not select a resource.
> Instead, load() would immediately return, and the user agent would then
> asynchronously try each resource that it might otherwise use in turn,
> firing a single loadstart event at the start, lots of progress events, and
> then a loadedmetadata or error event depending on how things go.
>

That sounds good.

Rob
-- 
"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are
healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his
own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah
53:5-6]
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