Standardization

The W3C Multi-device Timing Community Group was created in 2015 to advocate standardization of the Timing Object as the core part of a much needed timing model for the Web. As part of this initiative, a the Timing Object Draft Specification was published and timingsrc was created as a reference implementaion for this proposal.

Since then, the Multi-device Timing Community Group has been included within the scope of the Media and Entertainment Interest Group, responsible for standardization of Web technologies related to media. Multi-device Timing is also included in the roadmap of the interest group. Beyond this, the Media and Entertainment Interest Group has not yet addressed the gap concerning time controls across media components and frameworks.

Current standardization activities (2020) are still predominantly media centric as they mostly address synchronization relative to HTML5 media playback. As a general approach though, this is both limiting and short sighted, making it an unfortunate choice of timing model for the Web (see Media Synchronization on the Web).

The Timing Object is the foundation for a new timing model, opening up for synchronization and consistency across media sources, media types, media components or media frameworks. Also, crucially, this timing model expands the scope of synchronization and consistency from local media experiences (i.e. within a Web page) to globally distributed media experiences.

Though no formal steps have been taken with respect to standardization of the Timing Object, the timingsrc JavaScript implementation is ready to use. It has has been maturing through steady use since 2015, and recently it is seeing increased usage from Web programmers around the world, not least after Corona. It seems the boost of online activity is making issues with synchronization and consistency even more evident.

Note

The Timing Object Draft Specification has not been updated since its original publications, so deviations made by the timingsrc implementation have yet not been included.