YouTube's thoughts on Flash and the video tag

http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html

by tensafefrogs • 16 years ago

113 33 16 years ago

apiblog.youtube.com

Interesting that the people whose business model actually rely on video distribution (Hulu, YouTube) have opinions that are the opposite of the common user consensus in Redddit or Hacker News ("Flash is dying", "HTML5 is ready", etc).

megaman821• 16 years ago

Maybe HTML 5 isn't ready for YouTube or Hulu, but for people who just want to post a video of their cat on their blog, it is a lot simpler to use the video tag than a Flash solution.

TotlolRon• 16 years ago

for people who just want to post a video of their cat on their blog

The simplest way is via a YouTube embed. So if it isn't ready for YouTube, it isn't ready for the web.

not_an_alien3• 16 years ago

So if people want to post a video of their cat in their blog, they must encode it in 2-3 different formats, and use an HTML5 video player with a fallback to a Flash video player ... as opposed to a single video file and a single Flash player.

Unless those people who own cats are all Richard Stallman impersonators, I don't see how that makes any logical sense.

yesimahuman• 16 years ago

I don't know about everyone here, but I have nothing but trouble with HTML 5 video (on chrome or firefox). Either it won't play (codec issues I assume), or I can't seek while I watch. I hope it improves.

Shorel• 16 years ago

I think that the consensus seems to be: 'Web video requires Flash' has to die.

Of course, it needs to be alive in order to its death being a necessity.

I don't know any single opinion stating that HTML5 is ready.

sdurkin• 16 years ago

Changing the policy of a large corporation is like turning a tanker ship at sea. To avoid upsetting the balance, one has to go verrrry slowly.

This was a load and clear signal that Youtube knows full well that the time of HTML5 is coming soon.

RossM• 16 years ago

While I'm excited about HTML5 coming sooner rather than later this article has set me back in confidence about how soon that might be. Maybe I was optimistic but it sounds like there's a lot to be done before YouTube would set about making a full switch to those that support <video>.

not_an_alien3• 16 years ago

Or maybe a loud and clear signal for people to stop assuming they're doing it just because of their beta HTML player.

dchest• 16 years ago

"Without content protection, we would not be able to offer videos like this." Indeed... http://i.imgur.com/NWJut.png

Also, is it so difficult to not use PR-speak in a blog?

pavs• 16 years ago

Which specifically PR-speak are you referring to? I thought it was very direct.

mambodog• 16 years ago

The word 'excited' in press releases needs to die.

WilliamLP2• 16 years ago

> Google, Mozilla, and Opera have all committed to support WebM, and we have already started making YouTube videos available in the WebM format. Adobe has also committed to support VP8, the video codec for WebM, in an upcoming Flash Player release.

If Apple isn't going to support it for iPhone and iPad, and you seek a common video encoding, you might as well say straight out that it isn't viable.

The cover-all solution for video is exactly what YouTube uses right now - Flash and H.264. There is absolutely no chance in the foreseeable future of eliminating the H.264 piece, because of Apple. There is some chance of eliminating the Flash piece, depending on IE9 becoming widespread and Firefox either relaxing their stance on H.264 or becoming irrelevant some day.

These facts make people upset, but they are facts.

pornel• 16 years ago

Broadcom, which has some of its chips in iPhones already, supports WebM: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/broadcom-accelerates...

Qualcomm, AMD, TI and NVidia are also on list of supporters: http://www.webmproject.org/about/supporters/

Apple may be able to get hardware decoder for WebM bundled in the same package as H.264 codec.

It's likely that WebM will be widely supported and technically good enough for Apple, so Apple would have to have a good reason to "veto" it.

vetinari2• 16 years ago

You are overestimating the power of Apple.

If Youtube uses native webm, with flash fallback for browsers that do not support webm and native application with low-resolution for iPhone (i.e. status quo on iOS), where do you see the problem?

Apple will have to provide a very good reason why they are sole platform vendor refusing to support webm in any way.

WilliamLP2• 16 years ago

> where do you see the problem?

1. iOS isn't just iPhone, but includes one of the fastest selling devices in tech history.

2. low-res for the iPhone isn't going to cut it either anymore.

3. Apple's customers are precisely the people who are most willing to pay for products. Treating them as second class web citizens is the worst business decision possible.

tfdu34• 16 years ago

John Harding, Software Engineer,

He is more the Engineering Manager for APIs, Mobile, and other aspects of Syndication at YouTube.

What's wrong with Google/Youtube using wrong titles in blog posts ? Do they tried to make us believe that even the low software engineer in the chain can publish under the Company's name ? Lame.

tensafefrogs• 16 years ago

Not sure why it matters so much to you, but for the record, most managers in google are also software engineers. John's earned that title, let him use it.

danudey2• 16 years ago

One of the things I'm surprised by on my iPad is videos on the web that won't play. By that I don't mean that most videos won't work because the iPad doesn't have flash - quite the opposite. I'm surprised when a video won't play because it so rarely happens.

Maybe I just browse all the wrong sites, but 90% of the video I come across on the iPad works just fine without jumping through hoops. Some of that is because YouTube videos are ubiquitous, but even going to a site like Penny Arcade for the first time on my iPad got me video that worked well and looked good.

HTML5 may not be ready for YouTube, but for sites that don't need (often-draconian) content controls, HTML5 is here already.

radley• 16 years ago

It's not surprising that someone on HackerNews won't be affected by the lack of video options - this simply isn't a creative arts forum.

But for creatives like myself, Apple's restrictions are difficult to bear. My own blog, vj.tv is difficult to view on my iDevices because half of the embedded videos are unplayable (vimeo only offers HTML5 playback directly from their site).

It's painful to have a hardware/OS/music company dictate the terms of how we can access our stuff when clearly the "standard" is lacking. I and others appreciate someone from YouTube coming forward and supporting our views and needs.

smackfu• 16 years ago

Try watching a music video on the iPad. Even the ones on Youtube don't work. (They don't even come up in searches from the iPad app.)

For instance, this seems like a normal YouTube link, except it doesn't work on the iPad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ95z6ywcBY

Edit: Wow, I hadn't realized how bad it was. YouTube is also blocking all the fan-made videos from the iPad. For instance, this one is a Lady Gaga song with lyrics overlaid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAoi_-_EVio

Linear• 16 years ago

>Concerns about patents and licensing have prevented some browsers from supporting H.264; this in turn has prevented the HTML5 spec from requiring support for a standard format.

I thought this was an odd statement since the original "standard format" was not H.264 but Theora. It seems you could equally rephrase that as "Concerns about profits and licensing have prevented some browsers from supporting Theora".

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

>For YouTube Rentals, video owners require us to use secure streaming technology, such as the Flash Platform's RTMPE protocol, to ensure their videos are not redistributed. Without content protection, we would not be able to offer videos like this.

[clicks link]

>This rental is currently unavailable in your country.

Geographically segregated, non-redistributable content: just what the web needs!

gnubardt• 16 years ago

Geographically separated content isn't unique to flash/rtmp, a user's ip address can still be matched with a region when retrieving content over http.

vetinari2• 16 years ago

Nobody said it is unique to flash.

The original reasoning was, that without RTMPE they would be unable to provide such content.

Well, at least for me, they are still unable provide such content, so from my POV this argument could be removed from debate and nothing would change.

rtrunck• 16 years ago

I particularly like this part:

"While WebKit has recently taken some steps forward on fullscreen support, it's not yet sufficient for video usage (particularly the ability to continue displaying content on top of the video)."

I.e., we need to put ads over the videos.

litewulf• 16 years ago

Or annotations. Or the playback controls...

Fice• 16 years ago

Following the link in the Content Protection section: "This video is not available in your country." (I am in Russia) Feels like discrimination.

Also if the video is streamed to my computer, which I have full control of, there is always a way to capture and redistribute it. That "content protection" is cheating both publishers and viewers.

roc• 16 years ago

> "Feels like discrimination."

It should, because that's exactly what it is.

Copyright agreements explicitly created the right to discriminate based on locale, so that copyright holders can set prices for individual countries based on local willingness and ability to pay to ensure maximum revenue at the expense of consumer rights and product value.

Vote with your currency of choice.

poundy• 16 years ago

I was expecting YouTube's thoughts in a video!

YouTube's thoughts on Flash and the video tag

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