Get and Set HTML5 Video Current Time
Last week I explored how you could get the duration of a HTML5 video. It's an important technique, obviously, but one that may be a bit more important is managing the video's time setting. Both setting and getting the video's time is important when creating a chrome around the video, so let's review how to accomplish this feat.
The first and probably most important part of managing video time state is knowing that video currentTime
is the important attribute. You can retrieve the video's current time with the following:
// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwkej79U3ek
console.log(video.currentTime); // 25.431747
currentTime
acts as both a getter and a setter, so you can move about the video by setting a value to currentTime
:
video.currentTime = 0; // Restart
The API is easy enough and the property is self-explanatory. You'll still need to do the "second" math to interpret the time, both inward and outward, but the second unit is as fair as you could expect, so this API is one to be appreciated.
![Responsive and Infinitely Scalable JS Animations]()
Back in late 2012 it was not easy to find open source projects using requestAnimationFrame()
- this is the hook that allows Javascript code to synchronize with a web browser's native paint loop. Animations using this method can run at 60 fps and deliver fantastic...
![5 HTML5 APIs You Didn’t Know Existed]()
When you say or read "HTML5", you half expect exotic dancers and unicorns to walk into the room to the tune of "I'm Sexy and I Know It." Can you blame us though? We watched the fundamental APIs stagnate for so long that a basic feature...
![dwImageProtector Plugin for jQuery]()
I've always been curious about the jQuery JavaScript library. jQuery has captured the hearts of web designers and developers everywhere and I've always wondered why. I've been told it's easy, which is probably why designers were so quick to adopt it NOT that designers...
![Create a Spinning, Zooming Effect with CSS3]()
In case you weren't aware, CSS animations are awesome. They're smooth, less taxing than JavaScript, and are the future of node animation within browsers. Dojo's mobile solution, dojox.mobile
, uses CSS animations instead of JavaScript to lighten the application's JavaScript footprint. One of my favorite effects...
Yeah, it would be nice if it worked as expected.
On mobile browsers i.e., any glitch in network/video makes video stop while currentTime property continues advancing, making it unusable and unreliable unless countless per-browser workarounds are set.
Also changing orientation makes video pause, while currentTime continues running losing any reliability.
Too bad. All those html5 tags are fantastic on paper, in reality they are unusable, unless wasting hours fixing per-browser/device bugs and uniquenesses.