I think what some of the other comments here are missing is that this was supposed to be a "wouldn't it be cool if we could actually do this" project as opposed to a "let's create a viable video player" project. Isn't that part of what hacking is about?
True, but this really isn't even doing anything. It's no different than an animated GIF. I think it would be truly interesting if they made it able to play normal video formats.
I hope to see a web stream player that don't use flash or java. But that's not it, not even close. Actually, it would be great if you could click on the link and open the stream on mplayer or vlc. The ads could be on the video itself and around the link. That would be perfect, I don't get why youtube and other sites like that don't take that approach.
More of a fast slideshow than a video player. Expected video quality goes hand in hand with Moore's law, so this approach would always be two steps behind a proper video player with keyframes, etc.
I'd go with something that can generate javascript code and then port an existing player to that. I believe PyPy has a javascript backend or one in development.
I actually did this in 1997 IIRC. I tried using an animated GIF but it was too dithered and grainy, so I switched to JS and showing JPEG frames with a timeout so I could get 24-bit color instead of 8-bit.
