GilgusMaximus
commented
3 years ago The idea in itself is nice, more because you save bandwidth than the energy aspect. Energy is really not a game changer on YouTube.
But the problem I see with this is a problem currently happening when changing qualities:
- The video quality will massively drop when you switch back to video, cause the player is probably going to buffer lower resolution video material than directly the correct quality (which at the moment does not even work 100%)
Additional problem I see is that the switch will be quite noticeable as the video player has to be reloaded.
If these two things can be fixed in the future, I do not see any other hurdles
Topic Please select what topic your discussion is about.
Discussion Here is the thing: Many people let videos play in background (e.g. while doing other things). This is a waste of bandwidth and energy (remember climate change etc.). Even though it is of course possible (e.g. for Music Videos) to play them enterily in the audio-only stream, sometimes there are videos that people still also want to look at (from time to time).
Now my theoretical idea is that FreeTube could offer an option in the settings, to always switch to the audio-only stream when the video is in background for a longer period of time (e.g. longer than 30 seconds) and then switch again to the regular video format when the viewer looks at it again/the freetube window is in focus again.
There is one potential problem I see though: Is the buffering/loading time between the switches maybe too long? So it would be actually too annoying for the user?
I am interested in your oppinion about this :slightly_smiling_face:.