Category: HTML5

Categories
Apple HTML5 Item of Interest

Video: Flash on Android Is Shockingly Bad

Video: Flash on Android Is Shockingly Bad http://bit.ly/bHaKkM

And yet, people think it can be done on an iDevice and even want it!

While in theory Flash video might be a competitive advantage for Android users, in practice it’s difficult to imagine anyone actually trying to watch non-optimized web video on an Android handset, all of which makes one believe that maybe Steve Jobs was right to eschew Flash in lieu of HTML5 on the iPhone and iPad.

So, to be clear. There is no working version of Flash running on any smartphone, but somehow Apple should magically make it work on their devices with no access to the source code? In what reality is that reasonable?

Categories
HTML5 Item of Interest

Getting There From Here,

Getting There From Here, Technology http://bit.ly/9YtKpU Gruber’s take

I agree that the net would be better off with a much reduced use of Flash. Use it where it brings something valuable by all means, but a proprietary (show us the player source code) format should not be the dominant one.

Categories
HTML5 Item of Interest Video Technology

Ogg: The “Intelligent Design” of digital media

Ogg: The “Intelligent Design” of digital media http://bit.ly/bUYo7B

The only thing Ogg is good for, is being open source, which isn’t relevant to professional media producers.

People who actually work in media don’t mind paying for stuff, and don’t mind not owning/sharing the IP. Video production professionals are so accustomed to standardizing on commercial products, many of them become generic nouns in industry jargon: “chyron” for character generators, “grass valley” for switchers, “teleprompters”, “betacam” tape, etc. Non-free is not a problem here. And if your argument for open-source is “you’re free to fix it if it doesn’t do what you want it to,” the person who has 48 shows a day to produce is going to rightly ask “why would I use something that doesn’t work right on day one?”

The open source community doesn’t get media. Moreover, it doesn’t get that it doesn’t get media. The Ogg codecs placate the true believers, and that’s the extent of their value.

Categories
Distribution HTML5 Item of Interest

MPEG LA: H.264 Streaming Will Be Free Forever

RT @ccrask: HUGE NEWS via @ NewTeeVee MPEG LA: H.264 Streaming Will Be Free Forever http://dlvr.it/4Gp93 No reason not to be HTML5 as the default but the open source purists will find a way.

It’s late. Read the article. It’s good news.

Categories
HTML5 Item of Interest

Flash Video On Android Is Terrible.

Flash Video On Android Is Terrible http://bit.ly/bjjoZg or http://bit.ly/aUGBpZ

I know, I’m a Flash hater and always posting just how bad it is. And you’re right, I’m no fan of Flash on OS X – it’s been a dog for years and even with hardware H.264 acceleration it’s only marginally better. I also don’t like Flash because it is still controlled by one company and not an open standard.

That said, there’s a lot of value still in Flash, but seriously Adobe, you’ve been promising Flash on a smartphone for a long time now and complaining that Apple won’t let it on their iPhone, except you haven’t actually delivered something worth putting on an iPhone yet.

Above I’ve quoted two different reports of the current state of Flash on Android. It will get better before final release, but from the reports that needs to be a quantum leap.

Categories
Distribution HTML5 Item of Interest

BBC: HTML5 Is Not Ready For Video

BBC: HTML5 Is Not Ready For Video And Sailing Off-Course http://bit.ly/ckjcQS

The corporation’s future media and technology director Erik Huggers writes:

“The fact is that there’s still a lot of work to be done on HTML5 before we can integrate it fully into our products. As things stand, I have concerns about HTML5’s ability to deliver on the vision of a single open browser standard which goes beyond the whole debate around video playback.”

I think it’s widely agreed that HTML5 is not a complete replacement for every use of Flash at this time of the technology’s development, but this attack is hard to separate from the fact that there is a long-standing agreement between the BBC and Adobe to transition the BBC’s video to Flash.

The BBC is invested in a long-standing strategic relationshipsigned with Adobe late in 2007, allowing it to move its media delivery away from RealMedia to Flash. So it’s Flash on which one of the world’s most popular VOD services is now built – BBC iPlayer served 100.2 million online requests in June.

 

Categories
Distribution HTML5 Item of Interest

YouTube: HTML5 Video Is No Match for Flash (Yet)

YouTube: HTML5 Video Is No Match for Flash (Yet) http://bit.ly/d48tWW

Although YouTube has been encoding to H.264 since early 2007, most distribution is via their Flash player, although they do have an HTML5 player as well. The advantages of Flash for YouTube at the moment are:

  • Live Streaming (although almost nothing on YouTube is live streaming in that sense – it’s all progressive download). What Google means is control over buffering and dynamic quality of the files it serves up.
  • Content protection for the “Premium Content” demanded by the content owners, despite all kinds of DRM being pointless (don’t work) and annoy the legitimate user.
  • Encapsulation and Embedding. Flash is definitely easier for that and has better security.
  • Fullscreen Video. Tick. HTML5 players (mostly MP4 players) do not do Fullscreen video. Not that I use it often, but it’s an important feature to have.
  • Access to Camera and Microphone for interactive experiences, something not yet possible in HTML5

On the other hand, Hulu Plus kicks Hulu’s dependence on Flash for it’s iPad/iPhone application. (In fairness, you can do pretty much all of the above when you move from plug-in or native browser support to a custom application.)

Categories
HTML5 Item of Interest

IE9 supports Canvas and hardware acceleration!

IE9 supports Canvas…. hardware accelerated! http://bit.ly/cG20eG

Like I’ve said before, HTML5 is really a combination of the <video> tag, the <canvas> tag, Javascript and CSS transforms. That IE 9 will not only support the Canvas tag but do it through hardware acceleration is great news for HTML5.

Like all of the graphics in IE9, canvas is hardware accelerated through Windows and the GPU. Hardware accelerated canvas support in IE9 illustrates the power of native HTML5 in a browser. We’ve rebuilt the browser to use the power of your whole PC to browse the web. These extensive changes to IE9 mean websites can now take advantage of all the hardware innovation in the PC industry.