Hi
I can’t remember where we had the discussion about moving the timeline of a video to the bottom of the screen rather than the current position at the top, but in that discussion it was mentioned that the UI would be getting an overhaul this year.
I’ve had some other thoughts around this. A screen shot of playing video below which I’m sure we are familiar with.
Now, I appreciate that different users have different needs, but my preference would be to minimise the overlays so that as much of the video is visible as much of the time. Currently in the example above, there’s only about half of the show visible.
Other things like the quick guide or show info is handy on occasion but I’d rather it wasn’t there by default. Either as a system wide setting or hide it behind an info (i) type button.
On iPad, I’d like to think that the UI for controlling playback could fit within the black bands at the bottom / top of a widescreen video so that none of the video is obscured. Perhaps even then an option to not auto hide the UI might be handy. For example, the other day I was watching the cricket I had recorded. You can jump forwards 20secs or so between balls and not really miss anything. This was annoying with the UI obscuring the video so I was constantly having to make the UI appear and disappear.
On iPad I’d also like to think there might be space for multiple jump duration buttons. Eg, jump forwards 10 / 20 / 30 seconds for example.
What would be really cunning is to adapt the UI based on the aspect ratio of the video and the device. Perhaps too tricky to pull off well, but again, on the example above, almost all of the info / buttons etc could easily be occupying the black spaces to either side, leaving the video fully visible. The timeline being something that wouldn’t work in a vertical orientation.
Anyway, just some thoughts around the playback UI. Hope they are helpful.