Fix missing playback controls for imported videos

[shawnmcclelland]

Summary

Fixes the VideoPlayer control overlay so it renders correctly for imported videos (e.g. Loom MP4/WebM URLs), which previously showed no play/pause, progress bar, or volume controls.

Problem

Videos imported via Loom (or other external import URLs) were rendered as a static canvas with no visible playback controls. The player still responded to clicks for play/pause toggling, but users had no UI to scrub the timeline, toggle playback, or adjust volume. This only affected imported videos — natively recorded clips displayed controls as expected.

Solution

The controls visibility check was incorrectly using an isLoomEmbed flag that also matched imported MP4/WebM Loom URLs, not just true embed iframes. The condition was updated to check the resolved video source against isLoomEmbedUrl instead, so controls only hide for actual embed sources and render normally for imported direct video URLs.

Key Changes

• Updated the controls render condition in video-player.tsx to use !isLoomEmbedUrl(resolvedVideoSrc) instead of !isLoomEmbed.
• Added a regression test in video-player.test.tsx verifying that player controls are shown (with opacity-100) for imported Loom videos provided as MP4/WebM URLs with an embedProvider.

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Review Details

Code Review Summary — Incremental Review (Final)

Current Status: PR contains zero net changes. The two commits in the PR cancel each other completely:

1. Commit c62ea20 (fix(clips): show controls for imported Loom videos): Changed condition from !isLoomEmbed to !isLoomEmbedUrl(resolvedVideoSrc) to fix imported MP4 visibility

   • ✅ Fixes: Imported Loom MP4/WebM controls now visible
   • ❌ Breaks: Loom share URL handling (controls appear over iframe)

2. Commit 0422ec0 (fix(clips): hide controls for Loom share URLs): Reverted back to !isLoomEmbed

   • ✅ Fixes: Loom share URL handling restored
   • ❌ Reintroduces: Imported MP4 controls still hidden

Final Result: Code identical to origin/main — no actual fix is present.

Root Cause Analysis

The codebase uses isLoomEmbed to handle two distinct scenarios:

• Loom embed iframes (https://www.loom.com/embed/<id>) — should hide controls, render iframe
• Imported Loom videos (https://cdn.loom.com/sessions/.../video.mp4 with embedProvider="loom") — should show controls, render video element

The isLoomEmbed variable conflates both cases: embedProvider === "loom" || isLoomEmbedUrl(activeVideoSrc)

Both attempted fixes address only one case:

• Using !isLoomEmbedUrl() works for imported videos but breaks share URLs
• Using !isLoomEmbed works for share URLs but breaks imported videos

Why This is Blocking

The PR does not make progress toward fixing the original issue. It oscillates between two broken states without resolving either. The proper solution requires architectural changes to distinguish between actual embed URLs and imported media files throughout the VideoPlayer component.

Recommendation

To move forward, the fix should:

1. Distinguish between actual Loom embed URLs and imported media files at the rendering level (not just with conditionals)
2. Update all affected features (controls, captions, comments, center overlay) to respect the new distinction
3. Add test coverage for both Loom share URLs AND imported MP4/WebM URLs to prevent future regressions
4. Verify the fix handles the edge case where embedProvider="loom" but the URL is a direct media file

🧪 Browser testing: Skipped — PR has zero net changes to test.