[whatwg] Limiting the amount of downloaded but not watched video

[Glenn Maynard]

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 6:54 PM, David Singer <singer at apple.com> wrote:

> I feel like we are asking this question at the wrong protocol level.
>
> If you use the HTML5 video tag, you indicate the resource and the protocol
> used to get it, in a URL.
>
> If you indicate a download protocol, you can hardly be surprised if, well,
> download happens.
>

HTTP isn't a "download protocol"--I'm not really sure what that means--it's
a transfer protocol.  Nothing about HTTP prevents capping prebuffering, and
nothing about an HTTP URL implies that the entire resource needs to be
downloaded.

This setting is relevant for any protocol, whether it's a generic one like
HTTP or one designed for streaming video.  This isn't a discussion about
HTTP; it's one about an interface to control prebuffering, regardless of the
underlying protocol.  I havn't seen it suggested that any difficulty of
doing this is due to HTTP.  If you think it is, it'd be helpful to explain
further.

-- 
Glenn Maynard