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The current spec says: A video element represents what is given for the first matching condition in the list below: * When no video data is available (the element's readyState attribute is either HAVE_NOTHING, or HAVE_METADATA but no video data has yet been obtained at all, or the element's readyState attribute is any subsequent value but the media resource does not have a video channel) * When the video element is paused, the current playback position is the first frame of video, and the element's show poster flag is set -> The video element represents its poster frame. It is possible to parse this as saying that there is no action for the first condition. The spec would be clearer if the matching condition description ended with ", OR" so that it is obvious that the intent is that the action given under the next condition should be taken.
HTML5.1 Bugzilla Bug Triage: Fixed, the current text has a poster frame for the first condition. If this resolution is not satisfactory, please copy the relevant bug details/proposal into a new issue at the W3C HTML5 Issue tracker: https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/new where it will be re-triaged. Thanks!