On Nov 24, 2008, at 2:21 PM, Calogero Alex Baldacchino wrote:
Well, the length attribute could be an indication about such limit
and could accept a generic value, such as 'unknown' (or '0', with
the same meaning - just to have only numerical values) to indicate
an endless stream (i.e. a realtime iptv): in such a case, any
seeking operation could be either prohibited or just related to the
amount of yet played content which is eventually present in a local
cache.
It is a mistake to assume that media data is present in the local
cache after it has been played. Some devices have very limited storage
(eg. small handhelds) and choose to use a very limited non-persistent
cache, live streams have essentially unbounded size and can't be
cached, even downloaded content can be so large that clients on a
desktop class machine may choose to no buffer the entire file.
eric
