HTML5 Video Tag in Chrome - Why is currentTime ignored when video downloaded from my webserver?
- by larson4
I want to be able to play back video from a specific time using the HTML5 video tag (and currently only need to worry about Chrome). This is possible by setting the currentTime property of a video element. That works fine in Chrome with a video sourced from html5rocks.com, but is ignored when the same file is loaded from my own local webserver.
Using the sample code from http://playground.html5rocks.com/#video_tag, I have arrived at the following HTML:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<video id="video1" width="320" height="240" volume=".7" controls preload=true autobuffer>
<source src="http://playground.html5rocks.com/samples/html5_misc/chrome_japan.webm" type='video/webm; codecs="vp8, vorbis"'/>
</video>
<input type=button onclick="play()" value="play">
<input type=button onclick="setTime()" value="setTime">
<input type=button onclick="pause()" value="pause">
<script>
var play=function() {
document.getElementById("video1").play();
}
var setTime=function() {
document.getElementById("video1").currentTime=2;
}
var pause=function() {
document.getElementById("video1").pause();
}
</script>
</body>
</html>
Using Chrome, if you
Wait for the video to download
for a bit (until the progress bar is
about 10% in)
Press setTime - you
should notice the time jump to 2
seconds
press play
...the video will start at 2 seconds in.
But if I download the webm file in the source src to my local webserver, and change src to point locally:
<source src="chrome_japan.webm" type='video/webm; codecs="vp8, vorbis"'/>
...then setting currentTime is complete ignored. No errors are showing in the developer tools console.
Now, my webserver is serving this with mime type "video/webm", but it will be served like any old file -- not streamed.
Do I need a webserver that streams in some specific way? What else could be at fault here?
Note: The webserver is a proprietary platform and won't have any of the same exact settings or controls one might expect of Tomcat or some other commonly used webserver, though there may be other ways to achieve the same effect.
