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This would break using mp4s as "gifs" which is a pretty common practice these days. Taking away these features might cause people to go back to actual gifs whic

This would break using mp4s as "gifs" which is a pretty common practice these days. Taking away these features might cause people to go back to actual gifs which would be terrible... so I can understand why they want to leave this loophole open. I would like the idea of having a user configured limit for autoplaying gifs though...

MBCook 9y ago
That's why I put the 250kb number in. Maybe it should be higher. Maybe limit the dimensions. But for the love of god don't waste my bandwidth on streaming video.
- jedberg 9y ago
  If you set any arbitrary number, the ad networks will simply report that number as the size, or chunk the video into that size and make the page keep requesting small video after small video.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    The browser could just cut off the network for the site until you click "approve".
jasonkostempski 9y ago
To fix that problem, they could remove gif support at the same time.
Pxtl 9y ago
Could easily use different infrastructure for giflike-mp4 vs streamed video. Different tags, even. Handle the "giflike" case as a file that must be hosted in full with audio forced off. Non-giflike case allows streaming.
rhizome 9y ago
A site's bandwidth bills are not more important than my annoyance.
- chickenfries 9y ago
  That's fair. I just feel like the cat is out of the bag on gifs. If all browsers rolled out something that blocked autoplay on every mp4 or webm regardless of audio being enabled or present, I imagine a good amount of users would feel like things had "broken even if they'd appreciate that videos on news articles don't autoplay at all (although they'd still be able to follow you around the page).
  - rhizome 9y ago
    What cat? In what way would .gifs make a site appear broken?
    - chickenfries 9y ago
      .gifs wouldn't make a site feel broken. We can't go back to actual .gifs (distinct from the layman's "gif") because they're an inappropriate format for the kind of gifs that people make today. I think people might feel like the browser has "regressed" or "broken" if they have to press "play" on silent, looping videos that they used to expect to autoplay. Maybe broken isn't the right word. I'm just saying that I think many people expect silent .mp4s to work the way that .gifs work: autoplaying.

MBCook 9y ago

That's why I put the 250kb number in. Maybe it should be higher. Maybe limit the dimensions. But for the love of god don't waste my bandwidth on streaming video.

jedberg 9y ago
If you set any arbitrary number, the ad networks will simply report that number as the size, or chunk the video into that size and make the page keep requesting small video after small video.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  The browser could just cut off the network for the site until you click "approve".

jasonkostempski 9y ago

To fix that problem, they could remove gif support at the same time.

Pxtl 9y ago

Could easily use different infrastructure for giflike-mp4 vs streamed video. Different tags, even. Handle the "giflike" case as a file that must be hosted in full with audio forced off. Non-giflike case allows streaming.

rhizome 9y ago

A site's bandwidth bills are not more important than my annoyance.

chickenfries 9y ago
That's fair. I just feel like the cat is out of the bag on gifs. If all browsers rolled out something that blocked autoplay on every mp4 or webm regardless of audio being enabled or present, I imagine a good amount of users would feel like things had "broken even if they'd appreciate that videos on news articles don't autoplay at all (although they'd still be able to follow you around the page).
- rhizome 9y ago
  What cat? In what way would .gifs make a site appear broken?
  - chickenfries 9y ago
    .gifs wouldn't make a site feel broken. We can't go back to actual .gifs (distinct from the layman's "gif") because they're an inappropriate format for the kind of gifs that people make today. I think people might feel like the browser has "regressed" or "broken" if they have to press "play" on silent, looping videos that they used to expect to autoplay. Maybe broken isn't the right word. I'm just saying that I think many people expect silent .mp4s to work the way that .gifs work: autoplaying.