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Yes it's all about no sound. Everyone likes opening up a bunch of tabs that include auto-playing funny looping videos, but nobody likes auto-playing sound, espe

by Strom 9y ago

Yes it's all about no sound. Everyone likes opening up a bunch of tabs that include auto-playing funny looping videos, but nobody likes auto-playing sound, especially if it overlaps with some other sound.

dspillett 9y ago
I'm not sure if it is Chrome's doing or YouTube's, but if I open a couple of youtube links in tabs (a selection from the "related" list to the right of one I'm currently watching for instance) the clips in the new tabs don't start playing until that tab gains focus. This avoids the auto-playing sound overlapping problem and means you don't miss the start of the clip and drop in part way through. Surely this is the solution to that selection of requirements?
- Strom 9y ago
  I've noticed the Chrome feature as well. I watch a lot of Twitch streams, and it causes a frustrating experience, albeit with possible workarounds by Twitch. It's that Twitch is about live streams and live chat, but now the video autoplay is delayed until I activate the tab, but chat is still live from the moment I clicked on the link. It basically buffers the stream now, but makes me go out of sync with chat. One alleviator could be Twitch adding a "go live" button that shows up when I'm not live. There are still two classes of problems unaffected by this change. 1) As is popular with gifs, there could very well be multiple of these autoplaying videos on the same page, probably even multiple fitting in the same viewport area. If they had sound, these would interfere with eachother. 2) My understanding is that many listen to music from some source unrelated to the webpage containing these autoplaying videos. So even if there's only one video, its autoplaying sound could easily mix with my tunes. Doing autoplaying sound is hard, but with gaze tracking and knowledge of system sound usage status, I think a pretty good solution is possible.
- setzer22 9y ago
  That is not an (at least exclusive?) chrome feature, since it happens on Firefox as well.
_lce0 9y ago
Also volume control on mobile is completely broken. You cannot easily control the volume until the video starts playing; not even when the video is still loading. https://xkcd.com/1884/ https://xkcd.com/1884/
- jessriedel 9y ago
  Yea, it is such weird behavior. I can count the number of times I've ever wanted to adjust the volume of the ringer, rather than just turn it on/off, on one hand. Luckily on newer version of Android there is always an option to quickly access the media volume after you press the volume button once, but it's still unintuitive.
  - mtpn 9y ago
    Windows phone nailed this. As you change volume, a panel comes in with two sliders: one media, one ringer, so if you were in the wrong context and changed the wrong volume, you right away have access to the other one. I find (on iOS now) I fiddle with the ringer volume a lot throughout the day. Loudest possible is waaaay too loud for me, unless I’m in a noisy place.
- pflats 9y ago
  Good news: iOS changed the default behavior of the side buttons: they always control system/media volume now. (Unless you flip a switch in settings.)

by Strom 9y ago

dspillett 9y ago

I'm not sure if it is Chrome's doing or YouTube's, but if I open a couple of youtube links in tabs (a selection from the "related" list to the right of one I'm currently watching for instance) the clips in the new tabs don't start playing until that tab gains focus. This avoids the auto-playing sound overlapping problem and means you don't miss the start of the clip and drop in part way through. Surely this is the solution to that selection of requirements?

Strom 9y ago
I've noticed the Chrome feature as well. I watch a lot of Twitch streams, and it causes a frustrating experience, albeit with possible workarounds by Twitch. It's that Twitch is about live streams and live chat, but now the video autoplay is delayed until I activate the tab, but chat is still live from the moment I clicked on the link. It basically buffers the stream now, but makes me go out of sync with chat. One alleviator could be Twitch adding a "go live" button that shows up when I'm not live. There are still two classes of problems unaffected by this change. 1) As is popular with gifs, there could very well be multiple of these autoplaying videos on the same page, probably even multiple fitting in the same viewport area. If they had sound, these would interfere with eachother. 2) My understanding is that many listen to music from some source unrelated to the webpage containing these autoplaying videos. So even if there's only one video, its autoplaying sound could easily mix with my tunes. Doing autoplaying sound is hard, but with gaze tracking and knowledge of system sound usage status, I think a pretty good solution is possible.
setzer22 9y ago
That is not an (at least exclusive?) chrome feature, since it happens on Firefox as well.

_lce0 9y ago

Also volume control on mobile is completely broken. You cannot easily control the volume until the video starts playing; not even when the video is still loading. https://xkcd.com/1884/ https://xkcd.com/1884/

jessriedel 9y ago
Yea, it is such weird behavior. I can count the number of times I've ever wanted to adjust the volume of the ringer, rather than just turn it on/off, on one hand. Luckily on newer version of Android there is always an option to quickly access the media volume after you press the volume button once, but it's still unintuitive.
- mtpn 9y ago
  Windows phone nailed this. As you change volume, a panel comes in with two sliders: one media, one ringer, so if you were in the wrong context and changed the wrong volume, you right away have access to the other one. I find (on iOS now) I fiddle with the ringer volume a lot throughout the day. Loudest possible is waaaay too loud for me, unless I’m in a noisy place.
pflats 9y ago
Good news: iOS changed the default behavior of the side buttons: they always control system/media volume now. (Unless you flip a switch in settings.)