[salehenrahman]

Half the comments are pointing out that BPG is implemented in JavaScript.

Like no shit? It's not natively supported in browsers, and OP makes a call for everyone to push browsers to natively support it.

I mean like, geez, I want a proper video-like playback format (e.g. 24+ frames per second) at a smaller file size, so that I can view videos on my mobile phone.

Gif lags on mobile internet, and MP4 requires that we explicitly hit the play button on mobile browsers.

So either we adopt a format like BPG, or adopt another format based on h.264/h.265/VP8/VP9/Theora but for the sole purpose of being a Gif-like animation.

[dperfect]

> Gif lags on mobile internet, and MP4 requires that we explicitly hit the play button on mobile browsers.

Wouldn't the more obvious choice be simply adding an option in browsers to not require hitting the play button (perhaps for MP4 that has no sound)?

Even with browser support for BPG, MP4 has the huge advantage of hardware acceleration in almost all modern devices[1].

[1] In theory, BPG may be able to take advantage of similar hardware acceleration, but why not just fix the user experience around an existing format rather than implement yet another format?

[CaptSpify]

Honestly, I view the need to hit the play button as the right user-experience. Sure, a user-defined option to turn that off would be cool, but I'd never use it. I wish GIFs had that option as well, actually

[dperfect]

I agree - I wouldn't enable that option either, but at least it'd offer a better alternative for people who do like GIFs / GIF-like animations.

It's a bit ironic that the autoplay functionality of BPG is touted by some as a major advantage, yet the only reason it autoplays is because it currently has to be implemented in Javascript (bypassing the normal push-to-play behavior of web video).

If the people pushing for native BPG browser support get their way, the most likely outcome will be BPG implemented with the same push-to-play UX as any other kind of web video.

[JadeNB]

> I wish GIFs had that option as well, actually

They do, in Firefox! http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_Tips_:_Animated_Images

(I know this is really late, but HN has been really aggressive about "submitting too fast" lately, and a half hour's wait didn't convince it to let me try again.)

[CaptSpify]

Sorry, I guess I'm missing it? Can you point it out to me? I see only play once, play always, and never play

[JadeNB]

I'm sorry; you're right, I misunderstood your needs, and thought that you wanted GIFs not to play at all. As with "there's an app for that", the answer to most Firefox needs is "there's an extension for that". I'm not in touch with the current Firefox extension ecosystem, but some Googling suggests that https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toggle-animat... should fill the need.

[JadeNB]

> Wouldn't the more obvious choice be simply adding an option in browsers to not require hitting the play button (perhaps for MP4 that has no sound)?

This is basically what Imgur did with GIFV (http://blog.imgur.com/2014/10/09/introducing-gifv), I think.

[salehenrahman]

And also, I might point out, from an earlier comment that I posted; the BPG decoder is merely a polyfill.

If we rejected every feature that began as mere half-baked polyfills, we wouldn't have the web that we have today.

Here's just a few examples:

    - images for rounded corners    
    - Gif/Flash/JavaScript for animations    
    - Cookies for storage    
    - Flash for browser-based webcam calls, etc.

[Sanddancer]

Mp4 requiring you to hit play is a /feature/ in my book. The fact that animated gifs automatically play has caused more problems, like annoying banner ads, than it's created.

Were this fifteen years ago, I'd recommend that the makers of this format create a proper plugin to handle this format in the interim, but because browser makers are terrified of extra functionality, especially on mobiles, we can't do that anymore.