Flash vs HTML5

[kwshaw1]

I just read Hank's comments about the NYT Flash vs HTML5 article, and noticed he skipped over some issues like content protection, performance comparisons, and support for older browsers. I've never been particularly fond of Flash and only use it to the extent it's the default on the video sharing site I use, which also has now has some option for an alternate mobile encoding format (maybe HTML5?).

A year or so ago when I asked around what format to use for my web videos the nearly universal answer was Flash, but now suddenly it's lost favor because of one guy running one company who wants to bolster his bottom line. Not saying we should ignore the significance of the HTML5 trend, but be careful you don't choose your web design and encoding decisions just based on what's fashionable.

[DavidPartington]

Great timing Kevin.  Only yesterday I was asked by a client to 'shoot' in both 'Flash' and 'HTML5' because his web designer wants both

My question is really simple but I fear the answer is not.  For HTML5, exactly what formats of video are supported?  My understanding was that some browsers were being picky due to the video players they supported.  Anyone care to have a go at this one?   I need support in at least:

• IE 6,7,8  (can detect browser and play flash if needed)
• Firefox (Win / Mac)
• Safari (Win & Mac)
• Chrome (Win & Mac)
• Opera (Win & Mac)

After that, things get a little esoteric so I'm willing to let them slide, but these are the main ones...

Content protection is obviously a concern.

[HankCastello]

Currently, the safest way to implement HTML5 on your web pages is to offer an alternative for browsers/devices not supporting html5 or the .ogg format -

Code:

<video src='video.ogg'>
  <object data='videoplayer.swf' type='application/x-shockwave-flash'>
    <param name = 'movie' value='video.swf' />
  </object>
</video>

.. from "Pro HTML5 Programming", APRESS Publishing.
.ogg can support either Theora or Vorbis encoding.

Last I checked, here are the browser support data -

Chrome - Theora, Vorbis, Ogg Container  and H.264 and AAC, MPEG-4
Firefox - Theora, Vorbis, Ogg Container
Opera - Theora, Vorbis, Ogg Container
Safari - H.264 and AAC, MPEG4 container

As to content protection - this is the Web!  There are hacker scripts out there that'll open up flv files and turn them into H.264, etc.  You cannot protect anything that is displayed on the Web.  Just put a little bug on it and post.  Consider any copying to be free advertising.  Remember, these are highly compressed files, so nobody is likely to copy and re-edit.

[HankCastello]

As to Kevin's concern about older browsers - it has been my experience that corporations are the worst at refusing to update browsers and many are still running IE6 (ugh!).

But everyday users, usually act when they get that update notice.  Updates are free, so why not?

Most of us aren't too concerned about corporate users, and besides, my code sample will serve up Flash for them just fine.

[kwshaw1]

I just checked the lastest browser usage statistics at w3schools.com, and according to them over 1/3 of Internet Explorer users are still on versions 6 or 7 - accounting for over 10% of all web traffic. Unless you want to take a chance that none of those users are potential customers, it makes just as much sense to support older browsers as it does to support the latest catchy web design trends.

By the way, an article from May of this year (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/46_of_internet_users_ready_for_html5.php)
noted that less than half of internet users are ready for HTML5, and there isn't final agreement yet on what the standard video format will be or which browsers will support what features.

So while Hank is right to mention HTML5 as important up-and-coming standard, the New York Times is also right that Flash is hardly dead yet. If we're not going to worry about content protection, maybe we should all be encoding our web samples to MPEG1 format at 320x240 resolution - I'd expect just about any media device to be able to play that!   ;-)

[HankCastello]

The code I showed above will work fine, even with IE6. (In case you're really concerned about 10% of market on XP computers)

Therefore, I really don't get the point.  Much more browsing is being done on portable devices than IE6, and a large percentage of that device browsing is Apple products.

Even if you say you'd rather have the outdated corporate users on IE6 than young, hip iPhone and iPad users, the code I showed would work, but I doubt that most of us will find our market in XP/IE6 users.

According to up-to-date stats from pcMagazine -

# 12.1 percent of Web browsing in organizations with over 50,000 seats comes from IE6.
# Less than 20 percent of Web browsing on commercial XP machines comes from IE6.

..and these talk about percentage of browsing "in organizations with over 50,000 seats" and "on commercial XP machines", not a total percentage of web browsers, which would include all organizations and all individuals and Linux and Mac machines.

As for MPEG1, it's limited to VHS quality and you do have to consider performance and file size issues.  Also, the lower the compression ratio, the easier to re-edit the material, thus increasing your copy concerns with MPEG1. 

(MPEG-1 supports resolutions up to 4095×4095 (12-bits), and bitrates up to 100 Mbit/s)

[HankCastello]

On performance/quality issues, Kevin raises a very valid point.  Tests done by Jan Ozer, (whom you recognize as an eventDV contributor), show  h.264 having the upper hand over Ogg Theora -
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/ogg-theora-vs-h264-head-to-head-comparisons.ars

[kwshaw1]

Much more browsing is being done on portable devices than IE6s...

That's not an accurate statement based on the stats I've been seeing, but you make a fair point that many young customers are using Apple devices for their web browsing, so we should of course take them into account.

But if we take all the available information together and say we don't care too much about copyright protection, the simplest solution is to use a single video format that works for the widest possible range of customer devices - which to some extent rules out both Flash and HTML5. Or use a web streaming provider that supports both Flash and HTML5, and let them do the coding work.

Personally I'm using Vimeo now, so I guess I need to test that on a wide range of browsers and portable devices.

(Technically Apple's portable products aren't really web surfing devices, since they can't view the whole internet.)

[HankCastello]

Technically Apple's portable products aren't really web surfing devices, since they can't view the whole internet.

Technically or not, I'm using iPhone pretty heavily now that I'm out of the office more.  When I need to find something, I Google it and go to the websites that come up, and choose one to do business with.  I don't think this is an unusual occurrence any more.

[kwshaw1]

Indeed, and I use my iPod touch when I'm on vacation. I just like to get a little dig in on Apple once in a while for selling hamstrung devices and then trying to make it look like it's the rest of the world's fault for not conforming to Apple's product decisions...