Frequently Asked Questions

QUESTION:

How does the browser I use affect my product? 

ANSWER:

Some Use Cases are specific to browser vendors and are not in the scope of the Red5 Pro product(s), such as the XDN accounts site.

Mostly, the items detailed in this document relate to browser-based media.

The term “browser vendor” in this document refers to the company that has developed a browser technology and interchangeably meaning individual browser implementation (i.e., Google Chrome).

See below for examples of browser specific use cases.

Video Element

The `video` element is an HTML DOM element that is used to playback media – whether it be a

user’s camera feed or a video from a remote location (either live or on-demand).

When added to an HTML page, the media controls provided (typically in the bottom of the element and shown on mouse hover) in the browser will differ by vendor; for example, the default controls provided from Google Chrome will look much different from Firefox. This is due to the design and business requirements for each browser vendor.

Here are examples of different design choices for a video element between browser vendors:

Google Chrome:

Firefox:

Safari:

As you can see, not only does each browser vendor have a different layout of elements shipped with their default media controls, but also the default functionality that is exposed to the User can differ.

Unfortunately, browser vendors additionally provide no JavaScript API to style their individual media control implementations. What is available are HTML attributes that can be added and removed from the `video` element. Most of these are standard between the browser vendors, but some have no affect between one browser vendor or another.

In the case of such products as the XDN Account Site, we have left the browser vendor default playback controls in place in order for the User to have familiarity with using the browser of their choice.

Playback Security Models

Browser vendors often also have security models in place for business reasons that they also feel benefit their End Users.

With regards to media playback, this specifically involves the ability to autoplay video elements on a page and whether they are played back muted or not.

In general, browser vendors require autoplayed content with audio unmuted to only be allowed based on a User impetus – such as clicking on a link in a page or a link to a page that will playback media. As such, you may see times where there are video elements declared for autoplayback unmuted on a page, but when the page is simply refreshed the audio is auto-muted. This is a security restriction enforced by the browser vendors and there is no JavaScript API that is exposed to us to override such a restriction.