It's such a handy feature on other video-centric sites, so I'd be curious as to what that actually entails, especially since the GB player has the two options segregated.
Video Player: Will streaming and progressive ever merge?
The closest thing we have now is the HTML 5 player, which allows you to buffer video and also skip ahead. YouTube sometimes has the best of both worlds by allowing their auto streaming service to buffer for a much longer time. Last time we checked they weren't actually doing it for all their videos though. Anything over a certain time limit actually seemed to get a cap on how much you could buffer. This make sense for most providers as allowing an unlimited buffer gets real expensive when people don't watch the entire video. For gamespot we just increased the amount of buffer so I think when the player comes over this should help on GB side. Also fwiw it's worth YouTube seems to actually switch between streaming and HTML 5 like progressive without the user knowing. We've always kept everything separate because so many of our videos are super long and finding the right player for each person seemed to be better left to the user. This could all change in the future but so far this has been the strategy.
@alexisg: thanks! I didn't know about the YouTube player switching midstream, but I did notice the cap on buffering recently. Seems to be just a few seconds ahead of the current position. If actually totally forgotten about the HTML 5 player, so maybe I'll give that a shoot. Thanks again for the reply!
@bisonhero: I talked to him on Twitter, this is where I was instructed to post it! Don't pick on me. :(
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