Ask HN: A start-loading button for videos?

by cool-RR on 11/23/2009, 2:16 PM with 3 comments

(Reposting.)

I thought of an idea: Online videos should have a button, "Start loading", which makes the video start loading. Personally, when I come across a video I want to see, I usually hit play and then immediately pause, then go read something else, so the video will be completely loaded when I start watching it. And it's annoying to do that, especially because sometimes it takes time until the pause button shows.

So I suggest a "Start loading" button that will cause the widget to start downloading the video. It will disappear the moment it is pressed or "play" is pressed.

What do you think?

  • by nostrademons on 11/23/2009, 2:24 PM

    Most videos start loading in the background as soon as the Flash embed loads. Or at least, they should - I've heard the YouTube team complain of bugs in Flash player that sometimes break the load. This makes much more sense than a manual "start loading" button, though, since it requires no manual intervention and loads the video with unused bandwidth as soon as possible.