[whatwg] Html 5 video element's poster attribute

[Silvia Pfeiffer]

On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 12:13 AM, Shiv Kumar <skumar at exposureroom.com>wrote:

>  Silvia,
>
>
>
> I don’t believe you’ve given is a good reason and use case for not having a
> single method the allows turning on and off the poster without any side
> effects.
>
>
>
> >I haven't seen a case yet that speaks for having this feature, but I can
> already come up with two good reasons for not having that feature.
>
>  The “feature” you’re talking about is not the feature I’m asking for. I’m
> asking for a simple method that allows turning on/off the poster without any
> side effects.
>
>
>
>
>
> >I can already come up with two good reasons for not having that feature.
>
>
>
> That’s like saying people will use the Html 5 video player for porn so lets
> not givem them that ability.
>
>
>
> Besides, they can do it (showing an image during pause) wheter you like it
> or not in a hundred other ways.
>

Indeed. The question is not whether it should be disallowed - I have no
problem with people rolling their own functionality for overlay images. The
question is whether it should be a standard feature and therefore something
that people are encouraged to use. I've listed some reasons for why the
functionality of automatically switching to a poster image upon pause isn't
desirable. I've also stated that I believe that the poster should indeed be
displayed when the video element is just loaded and not on autoplay. And I
have agreed that there should be a possibility to have that state return
after the video has played through.

The functionality that you are talking about, namely that of replacing the
video display with the poster image at any time is not what I understand a
"poster image" should be. That is a different kind of image and the only
reason for introducting such an image type would be to continue running the
default controls over the top of an overlay image. I do not believe that is
the aim of a "poster" image. This functionality may actually be possible
with the introduction of subtitle tracks, if subtitle tracks are to be
allowed to have images in them. That to me seems the more logical way of
introducing and satisfying such a need.

Cheers,
Silvia.
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