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Ask HN: What happened to video progress bars?

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Ask HN: What happened to video progress bars?

#1

Post by BraverHeart »

It seems all notable platforms are deliberately getting rid of this crucial UI, it has become frustrating, especially if you wanted to skip parts of the video or rewind to a specific point in the video, which are reasonable user behaviors.

I find myself downloading videos to "solve" this.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to video progress bars?

#3

Post by jaredsohn »

For Facebook some videos require you click on it to get the progress bar and annoyingly you then have to click the unmute button to hear it.

Related - if you search Google for a video and it finds a video on a Youtube /search page it will play it but it pauses when you tab away from it. If you want to listen to it in the background you need to move the tab to another window or open YouTube and probably watch an ad.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to video progress bars?

#5

Post by Pyrodogg »

I consider the lack of ability to scrub through video to be an accessibility problem.

Controlling speed helps but as you say, sometimes you just need to "repeat that bit" and not wait for a whole minute to roll around where you might forget to catch what you're looking for. Or God forbid you do something like open comments and the video restarts.

I haven't pursued downloads yet but started looking for plugins, haven't tried any yet though. Installing plugins in a frustrated mindset didn't seem ideal.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to video progress bars?

#6

Post by badpun »

jaredsohn wrote: post #3

For Facebook some videos require you click on it to get the progress bar and annoyingly you then have to click the unmute button to hear it. Related - if you search Google for a video and it finds a video on a Youtube /search page it will play it but it pauses when you tab away from it. If you want to listen to it in the background you need to move the tab to another window or open YouTube and probably watch an ad.

OMG. It seems that tech follow exactly the path of the media (TV, newspapers)- if we were paying customers, the tech would be tailored to our needs. But, since we aren't, the tech is tailored to needs of advertising, which leads to bizzare aberrations such as this one. Similarly, free-to-play/pay-to-win games' design is not about the player getting the best experience, but about compelling them to spend as much on in-game purchases.

It's a shame we are such cheapskates that we prefer to suffer such crappy tactics instead of paying for a decent service or content.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to video progress bars?

#7

Post by kypro »

jaredsohn wrote: post #3

For Facebook some videos require you click on it to get the progress bar and annoyingly you then have to click the unmute button to hear it. Related - if you search Google for a video and it finds a video on a Youtube /search page it will play it but it pauses when you tab away from it. If you want to listen to it in the background you need to move the tab to another window or open YouTube and probably watch an ad.

I think this might be related to autoplay. A video can only auto play if it's muted and I think in some cases browsers require you also interact with the video to play it so they might be forcing a click to get to the progress bar or something.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to video progress bars?

#9

Post by jaredsohn »

kypro wrote: post #7
jaredsohn wrote: post #3

For Facebook some videos require you click on it to get the progress bar and annoyingly you then have to click the unmute button to hear it. Related - if you search Google for a video and it finds a video on a Youtube /search page it will play it but it pauses when you tab away from it. If you want to listen to it in the background you need to move the tab to another window or open YouTube and probably watch an ad.

I think this might be related to autoplay. A video can only auto play if it's muted and I think in some cases browsers require you also interact with the video to play it so they might be forcing a click to get to the progress bar or something.

Yeah, sounds right. But Facebook could still show progress bars for videos on all of their pages.
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