Under-the-hood changes to our video player

[Brenda]

The Bloggingheads video player has just been updated with new code. There are no new features and only a couple of minor changes in outward appearance (e.g., the full-screen button has moved from the lower toolbar to the upper one). The player should operate pretty much the same as before. If you notice any peculiar behavior, we'd appreciate your bringing it to our attention. Thanks!

[bjkeefe]

Originally Posted by Brenda

The Bloggingheads video player has just been updated with new code. There are no new features and only a couple of minor changes in outward appearance (e.g., the full-screen button has moved from the lower toolbar to the upper one). The player should operate pretty much the same as before. If you notice any peculiar behavior, we'd appreciate your bringing it to our attention. Thanks!

A complaint: if I pause the video and then click the "jump back 10 seconds" or the "jump forward 10 seconds" button, the video automatically starts playing again. This is annoying. If I pause the video, I would like to choose when it starts playing again. Often, for example, I pause a video to take a break, and when I return, I want to jump back 20 or 30 seconds, to remind myself of where the conversation was when I left off. (There are other use cases as well.)

Also, in confirming that the forward button has the same new characteristic as the back button, the player itself crashed. Not that this was a huge deal, but it is the first time it has happened to me that I can recall.

Write the latter off as a transient glitch for now (I'll report back if it persists) but I'd appreciate it if the jump buttons could be restored to their old behavior; i.e., that clicking them not cause a paused video to start playing automatically.

[chiwhisoxx]

It would also be nice if continuing the video after pausing for more than 5 minutes or so was possible. Currently, if you pause for longer than that, when you try to continue the video, it restarts from the beginning.

[Aryeh]

Chi's problem, and possibly bj's as well, can be solved via this method:

http://bloggingheads.tv/forum/showpo...64&postcount=1

[bjkeefe]

Originally Posted by Aryeh

Chi's problem, and possibly bj's as well, can be solved via this method:

http://bloggingheads.tv/forum/showpo...64&postcount=1

Thanks for noticing my report, Aryeh. Unfortunately, setting a start point as that post suggests does not affect the automatic resumption of video play problem that I described. Just tried it -- same thing happens.

I'd also observe that your assertion in that post you linked to about the prolonged pause problem -- that loss of pause point is "endemic to flash video" -- is not true in my experience on other sites. Others have noted this as well. To see this easily, pick any YouTube video, pause it, and come back to it a long time later. It will, in fact, resume where the video was paused. (Just confirmed this with a forty-minute wait, which is an interval appreciably longer than Bhtv diavlogs can be paused without problem.)

Your workaround for this pause/loss problem is an interesting suggestion. I have also found this workaround satisfactory: if I come back to a diavlog, realize it has been a while since I clicked Pause, and am worried that clicking Play will put the pointer back to 0:00, the thing I do is note the timestamp and then use it to modify the URL in the location bar. So, for example, if I am on the page

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/31798

and I paused at 22:38, I just add the timestamp for where I paused as a new start time to the end of the existing URL:

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/31798?in=22:38

This is effectively the same thing as your workaround. The difference is that it doesn't require one to remember to do something before walking away from a paused diavlog; it's something one can do upon returning and realizing, perhaps, that one had been away longer than originally planned -- maybe the phone rang or something.

[bjkeefe]

Originally Posted by bjkeefe

A complaint: if I pause the video and then click the "jump back 10 seconds" or the "jump forward 10 seconds" button, the video automatically starts playing again. This is annoying. If I pause the video, I would like to choose when it starts playing again. Often, for example, I pause a video to take a break, and when I return, I want to jump back 20 or 30 seconds, to remind myself of where the conversation was when I left off. (There are other use cases as well.)

Here's something I might have thought to check before, but I did not until now. It turns out that a request I had for the old video player is now implemented on the new video player: grabbing the triangle in the time bar slider and moving it causes a little balloon tip to pop up, showing the location as the triangle is moved. This obviates my use case above, where I said I like to be able to go back more than 10 seconds before resuming play.

Not sure if everyone else already noticed this aspect of the upgrade, but in case not, I thought I'd note it.

It is the case, however, that moving that triangle causes a paused video to start playing automatically as soon as the mouse button is released. As with the 10-sec jump buttons, this seems like an undesirability to me: if a user pauses a video, it should be up to the user when it starts playing again.

It's not a big deal, but if it turns out that upon lifting the hood, it's just a matter of flipping a switch, that would be a good switch to flip. (I have a feeling these two autoplay glitches are connected. And now that I think about it, they both may be connected to the setting that causes the video to autoplay upon page load, full diavlog or dingalinked segment.)