Submitted by “While HTML5’s video support enables us to bring most of the content and features of YouTube to computers and other devices that don’t support Flash Player, it does not yet meet all of our needs,” said YouTube programmer John Harding in a blog post Tuesday. “Today, Adobe Flash provides the best platform for YouTube’s video distribution requirements, which is why our primary video player is built with it.”
So nice to be able to watch YouTube videos without having to load Flash and have it max out the CPU.
YouTube in HTML5 mode doesn’t work for me in Firefox, why is that?
I’ve loved Firefox for a decade, but now its usefulness is fading.
That’s quite a trick given that Firefox is not a decade old, nor is Phoenix.
Youtube HTML5 is WebM/H.264, not Theora.
Firefox stable only supports Theora HTML5 video, for now.
Firefox sucks then.
Too noob for the internet, eh?
Maybe, and I don’t care about knowing the details of a fucking video codec. I have much better things to do with my time. If Firefox can’t show a video and other browsers can then it’s Firefox that sucks.
Considering that WebM is a new codec that is barely supported by any basic in their stable releases, I don’t think Firefox’s goal of supporting it in their next major release is faulty.
In other words, Harding re-iterated every single point I’ve made on the subject ever since their alleged HTML 5 demo came along. HTML 5’s “openness” is what’s going to make commercial content providers NOT embrace it… relegating it to the “PBS of the Internet” fringe whackos. (You know, the nutjobs who won’t install binaries on moral grounds)
Though I’d still point out that slapping the VIDEO tag into a XHTML 1.0 Tranny document is NOT a HTML 5 demo – it’s half-assed broken code…
But that’s the new Youtube and the new Google all-over. Give them another five years of ‘progress’ like this and they’ll be the next Yahoo!
Edited 2010-07-06 06:40 UTC
Not everything has to pander to the big corps.
I’m glad I can publish video which is widely accessible and the source video is available for people to do as they please; and I know that new devices and browsers may support it without me having to change my code (I got Amiga support via MorphOS and I didn’t have to wait for Adobe to support Amiga—oh wait, they don’t and never will).
Stop judging all developers by YouTube’s incompetence.
Flash has a 97% install base and nothing is preventing you from making your source video available.
How are they being incompetent? You’re just upset that they are not leading the war against Flash, just as I said they wouldn’t. Maybe the HTML5 warriors here will pay more attention to skeptics next time.
I would like to see Flash at least partially replaced with something else but that isn’t going to happen when the competition completely fails to acknowledge the needs of content creators.
Yep, just like nobody posts copyrighted images on the internet.
I think content providers will probably be happy with minor inconvenience-style ‘DRM’, e.g. intercepting right-clicks. After all, there are already a ton of youtube-downloader firefox add-ons.
YouTube streams aren’t protected.
HTML5 makes saving a local copy of a video stream incredibly easy. Flash makes it difficult.
If HTML5 was able to offer something to content creators that made up for this deficiency then you might have a case.
I wonder why the HTML5 group didn’t think of (and address) all those shortcomings before hand. Or is it that their 2014 (or whatever date they chose for the completion of the norm) deadline is so far that they felt compelled to deliver something that looks, in the light of the linked article, incomplete and crippled?
After all the fuss, Flash isn’t dying now. I’m disappointed.
Could be a lot of reasons. I don’t believe these issues were raised very early in the process. Remember also that no matter how often someone blogs about it nothing matters unless someone in the HTML5 working group hears about it and brings it up on their mailing list.
Regardless, going from “no video natively” to “we have a video tag” is a fine first step. Solving 100% of all problems out of the gate is unlikely and attempting it is unwise.
Fine.
I don’t agree with this. First, because I see the norm as the equivalent of the architecture in a software project or the foundations in a building project. It can’t cover all possible use cases but it must be thoroughly thought, with respect to the intended functionalities, or specify the extension points.
Moreover, HTML5 doesn’t have the excuse of pioneering its field like HTTP 1.0 or XForms 1.0. These were designed with not much previous art (although HTTP formalized HTTP/0.9 practices that existed). Videos in web pages are neither new nor rare. Whether now or back 5 or 6 years ago. HTML5, which covers more than just videos let’s not forget it, was designed with numerous examples of its future purpose available. So what happened? to the point that it can’t be a viable replacement not because of adoption but because of it lacking existing features?
Adding a <video> tag without thinking about the controls, subtitles, multi soundtracks or full-screen mode doesn’t look well-thought in my eyes. And no, trying to think things thoroughly can’t be unwise. At least, that’s what I like to think.
Saying that the standard is still a draft is a better reason.
It always always says “Page not found”..