[whatwg] Timestamp from video source in order to sync (e.g. expose OGG timestamp to javascript)

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 18 Aug 2010, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> >
> > Agreed. I've made the API clearly say that "duration" is the time at 
> > the end, even in the case where the start is not actually zero, to 
> > sidestep this issue somewhat. (The start will almost always be zero, 
> > so the slightly misleading name seems like a non-issue.)
> 
> It's a shame we are using the word "duration" instead of the more 
> appropriate word "endTime" for this. Would it be too difficult to change 
> it at this time?

For most people it'll be a duration. I don't think it's a big deal.


On Mon, 23 Aug 2010, Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
> 
> It's too late, all scripted controls for <video> that display a timeline 
> are already using the duration property.

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010, Chris Double wrote:
> 
> And they're probably using it as a duration not an end time. Doesn't 
> this change cause problems?

I don't see how why they would. The only time it makes a difference is if 
they have a non-zero starting time, and they'd have to handle that too 
(using .initialTime). It's unlikely that someone will use .initialTime 
correctly, but .duration incorrectly, IMHO.

Also if they do use it incorrectly the mistake will probably be pretty 
obvious. :-)


On Mon, 23 Aug 2010, Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
> 
> It can't in Opera, since currentTime will always start at 0 (modulo 
> bugs). Is there any browser that really intends to let currentTime start 
> at an offset, and why?

That's a good question; if .initialTime is always going to be zero then we 
will likely just drop it.


> If so, I suppose that the seek knob will start somewhere in the middle 
> and that any attempt to seek to before that point will just seek to that 
> non-zero offset. That's a pretty weird UI and one reason I think the 
> timeline should always be normalized, whatever the timestamps or other 
> metadata of the resource itself says.

The UI would be the same either way -- instead of 0..10 it would just 
5..15 or some such. DVRs use this kind of UI a lot, for instance when 
they show the "real" time of the video on their seek bar.

-- 
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