HTML5 web video flashes past Flash

Where is it all?

Where is this HTML5 stuff. I watch quite a bit of video streaming content each day, but have yet to come across any HTML5 stuff. In second place to flash for me is DIVX streaming....

No...

The whole point of the HTML5 video tag is to be able to offer video without requiring a plug-in to display it. Most Flash video is actually encoded in H.264 and wrapped in a Flash container (which you need a flash plugin to play).

The HTML5 video tag can present video in any video format (not Flash and obviously the browser has to support the codec), the main contenders are H.264, Ogg Theora and Google WebM.

So the war is Flash vs HTML5, there just also happens to be a sub war happening with a number of companies trying to push different codecs as the HTML5 standard according to what suits their corporate agenda.

Answer?

Ask Mr Jobs. He thought he had the answer to this one...

@I don't get it

HTML5 can do anything HTML4 can, including the markup for Flash. What this article refers to is the native <video> tag in HTML5 which is intended to create a single, standard markup for video. While embedding video for a particular player means unique markup for that player, not to mention complications such as, for Flash, the need for different tags for IE and Mozilla (<embed> and <object> ; I forget which goes with which), the native <video> tag is much simpler, universal and unambiguous.

The codec dispute is over what codec the content specified in a <video> tag should use. Originally the choice was the open-source Theora, which is believed to have no patent issues. Apple raised holy hell about it and managed to strong-arm the W3C into removing the codec specification entirely, leaving the choice of codec to the coders of each video; thus, some videos will play on some systems and not others, depending on which codecs are installed on that particular computer.

H.264 is considered the best performer (by a fairly slim margin), but is full of patent encumbrances (which enrich Apple and Microsoft--surprise!). That is very properly unacceptable to open-source Mozilla, which stands by the core principle of the Internet's design that says making use of Internet-standard protocols will be free and open; there will be no associated costs, directly, or as in this case, indirectly.

Any time you view a video using the <video> tag that is encoded with H.264, you are using a proprietary codec. To have that codec on your system you have to have installed a player that includes it, and they are not free, as you'd expect in the case of anything that uses patented technology. (And I'm pretty sure there's no way to get one for Linux, at least a legit one.) Also, In any case, if it's proprietary, it can be charged for, if not now, then someday, and if you have to have it to watch video that does not involve a third-party app (like Flash or Silverlight), you are paying to use <video>, an Internet standard. and that's just plain wrong.

Thanks

Thanks. Was a bit confused by this story and how the hell html5 video could have overtaken flash so quickly, but then read your explanation and realised the story was, in fact, nonsense.

One thing's for sure

Anyone watching video on an Apple device is watching it as H.264 encoded, <video> tag embedded, content.

Which is why it is being provided, at all, of course.

Which was Jobs' aim all along.

If we assume (and I'm sure the haters would prefer to assume this) that the majority of Apple devices tend to be used in more 'trivial' areas of Internet use, then we can also assume that there is a very large and growing number of devices, in existence, which have a disproportionate penchant for consuming video content, and which can only consume it as H.264 encoded, <video> tag embedded, content.

If we also assume that it's true that "all Apple users have more money than sense", and that a "fool and his money are soon parted", then it's the 46% of sites that aren't bothering to address this market, which are looking like the real fools. There's nothing smart about ignoring the only consumers who are still behaving like there's no recession on.

So regardless of how of it still exists, learning Flash, these days, is starting to look about as sensible as taking up Delphi.

@HTML5 example

Note: That video is encoded with Theora (actually the Ogg container, Theora video and Vorbis audio codecs)

@AC 201010281153

Exactly. In fact, you need not even qualify your conclusion as your opinion; it's hard, provable fact. That is why the W3C's failure to specify an open codec is such a tragedy. W3C isn't really in the big interests' pockets: they fought, it succumbed to Apple under tremendous pressure. Not that it matters; the decision is what it is regardless of how it was coerced.

Content providers aren't going to code in multiple formats for long; it's expensive, time- and resource-consuming and error-prone.. They'll slowly gravitate in one direction until it becomes a de facto standard. The big boys with the vested interests in H.264 will do (and spend) what it takes, carrots and sticks, to steer that trend in their favor.

Web video with Theora looks great. At best, there's a marginal improvement with H.264 that is discernible only by a handful of especially sharp-eyed critics, if that. Google's codec ("WebM"?) is a newer successor to Theora and is open-source and royalty-free. One of the two surely can step in.

Apple cited an "uncertain patent landscape" in resisting Theora; read: a patent landscape they and the rest of the MPEG-LA cabal (including Microsoft, for heaven's sake) cannot exploit in their favor. And I have no doubt that M$ is delighted that content using only H.264 won't play on anything in Linux. Multimedia support is one of Linux's remaining challenges. Progress there is good; but this could cripple that effort.

I don't understand why this hasn't excited more response and pressure on W3C to reconsider.

Meanwhile, if somehow enough content providers can be encouraged to choose Theora or WebM and eschew H.264, there's hope.

(Note: The so-called forever-free H.264 license offered by MPEG-LA is sometimes thought to apply to content encoding and decoding products. It does not; it only applies to free web video broadcasts; see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/26/mozilla_on_h264 )

(@Liars often figure...) It's not too early at all.

"There are a lot of videos on the web not using [the H.264] codec, even if it is very popular for new content."

Unfortunately, that's not much comfort to Joe User, or you or me for that matter, when we try to watch a video that uses only that codec and it won't play. As more and more content uses it, as you say, the problem will get steadily worse.

"Video being available in one format does not exclude it from being available in another."

Yes, if the content provider doesn't mind incurring the lost time and expense of doing the encoding over again for each of the various codecs it wants to support.

This is by no means too early to start addressing the problem before content providers gravitate toward H.264 and it becomes so entrenched as to be indispensable. Usability of any part of an Internet standard MUST NOT be allowed to become dependent on anything that is not open and free, much less, like H.264 is now, unavailable for some platforms at any price.

Flash and similar things may indeed be proprietary; they are also arbitrary add-ons with their own vendor-defined syntax, using the <object> and <embed> tags created for just such things. The specification for the <video> tag, on the other hand, defines a specific syntax and functionality that must be universally compliant across content and browsers and native to them. That's why it was created in the first place.

TV shows

Most of the officially uploaded TV shows on youtube are DRM encoded (4od, demand Five etc)

Unplug can't download these to watch later, which is a shame as i would prefer to watch them on a nice big screen through my Geexbox media player attached to my 32Inch TV than on a small laptop screen

Slight Exaggeration

Curious - can you confirm that it is easy to download any program you like from BBC iPlayer (which uses Flash on desktop browsers) with a Firefox plugin? Jeez, the BBC won't be happy...

Irrelevant

Your point is irrelevant if the video itself is DRM'd - which of course most 'valuable' content is. HTML 5 <video> doesn't do DRM content, full stop.