Sitebiz-BlogHTML 5 Project 1
We have been asked about HTML5 alot lately. We are very lucky to be working with a client to develop our first complete HTML5 site... The video tag is still in its infancy and misses some core functionality. Browser vendors are tempted to implement incompatible solutions instead of agreeing upon standards, which will leave us with some issues to over come.
The biggest issue is codecs for video.
Here is a little information for those that are not following this
The H264 versus OGG debate is not over, most all browsers have chosen a codec - Firefox and Opera picked OGG (foolishly), Internet Explorer and Safari choose H264 (foolishly). Chrome plays it safe and does both -- Correct!
Their reasoning is not practical, bottom line the majority of online video content is encoded in H264. Nearly all mobile devices that support web browsing use H264. Desktops and laptops can do hardware decoding of H264. By contrast, content in OGG is virtually nonexistent and the number of mobile devices supporting OGG decoding is devoid. The lack of hardware decoding for OGG makes playback of HD content a resource hog, this is foolish at best. Developers want to use HTML5 video today and today's online video format is H264. Bottom line Google, Apple and Microsoft all support H.264 the hardware support is there for it and mobile devises support it. However there is a problem...
H.264 requires a licensed codec to play. This poses a difficulty for Firefox, which is otherwise free software. For this reason, they only include the Theora codec, which is unencumbered. There's no plan to license and include an H.264 codec.
There is good news OS codecs through gstreamer, directshow, etc are available sort of. On Windows or Mac the H.264 is available via the operating system, this is great news if your on one of these platforms. However firefox currently cant use those built in codecs for some reason... I don't know why and I dont know if there's a plan to support OS codecs but it seems very foolish not to.
I have read a lot of people saying that the a codec is a fundamental web technology. We strongly agree... there must be open standards that the web is built on.
Our first project is going to be a difficult one - we want to support all of the browsers equally and it seems that video is going to be an issue. As we get further along we will figure out ways to solve the obvious problems and keep you informed of our solutions to these problems.
Here is a list of web browsers and the HTML5 video formats they support (included the minimum version required)
- Google Chrome 3: Ogg Theora and h.264
- Internet Explorer 9: h.264
- Mozilla Firefox 3.5: Ogg Theora
- Safari: h.264
- Opera: Ogg Theora
Which browser is the best for end users? Google Chrome 3 and newer versions obviously as it is the only web browser that supports both video standards.
