How does the HTML5 video tag eliminate the need for plugins. What does the video tag do in addition to the previously used tags like embed and object that removes requiring a plugin?
Please explain in detail.
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1Not sure this question is as profound as you think. HTML5 is just a browser spec. All that means is that the browsers are implementing a video player natively, as an alternative to those of various vendors like Quicktime, Flash, etc.McGarnagle– McGarnagle2012-04-11 11:42:56 +00:00Commented Apr 11, 2012 at 11:42
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@dbaseman : okay..this is what I wanted to know. So they are still using plugins, but its just that they are natively included in the browser and are compatible with html5 right?Ashwin– Ashwin2012-04-11 11:48:12 +00:00Commented Apr 11, 2012 at 11:48
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1I don't think that's right. A "plugin" is built by a third party using an API that the makers of the browser application provide. When you put HTML5 on the page, there's no plugin required (with the exception of fallbacks per Sarfraz), but rather the browser is supposed to render a video natively, that is the same way they would render any other HTML tags.McGarnagle– McGarnagle2012-04-11 11:55:14 +00:00Commented Apr 11, 2012 at 11:55
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3 Answers
A little gotcha on video and IE9. A client supplied the .mp4 video. We got it working on a website with the .ogg options and the flash object fallback for non-HTML 5. Everything was fine and dandy and working beautifully under XP fully updated to the lastest IE. So IE fine. Chrome fine. Firefox fine. Tablets fine. Website looked great.
Then we had a complaint - the video wasn't showing. Someone using Windows 7 and IE, again fully updated, couldn't see the video.
It turns out the client hadn't encoded the .mp4 as a H.264 format video and our fully updated XP system was only running IE8 (WinXP doesn't have IE9) and falling back gracefully to Flash. Chrome was fine with .mp4, FF with .ogg. But it turns out IE9 was reading the tag, but unable to read the .mp4 file - so no fallback to the Flash, just the red-cross. The solution was to re-encode the .mp4 (Miro used) so it had the proper codec.
The moral is if in doubt on IE9, check the .mp4 file has been encoded to the right format.
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How does the HTML5 video tag eliminate the need for plugins
Browsers that support HTML5 players have ability to shown the default or built-in player when using <video> tag.
What does the video tag do in addition to the previously used tags like embed and object that removes requiring a plugin?
The <video> tag does nothing to other/old tags but it does provide you an option for the fallback. If a browser does not support HTML5, they will fallback to old methods such as <embed>, <object>. Here is an example:
<video controls
preload="none" width="590" height="320"
data-setup="{}">
<source src="Real_Media.theora.ogv" type='video/ogg'>
<!-- fallback for older browsers -->
<object width="590" height="320">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z7pAr39ZnhA&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z7pAr39ZnhA&hl=en_US&&autoplay=1;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="590" height="320" wmode="transparent"></embed>
</object>
</video>
As you can see, we have specified <object> tag inside <video> tag. Though it is optional but you need to specify it for browsers that don't support HTML5. In above case, if a browser supports HTML5, the <video> tag will be used and <object> tag will be ignored and vice versa.
For in-depth details about HTML5 video, take a look at:
2 Comments
Ashwin
The link you sent says that "the browser will choose the first video file it can actually play." Then what is the role of html5. The browser will be able to play video which it supports. So what is html5 doing?
Hawken
@Ashwin you're right,
<video> is just a video-specific version of <object>; whether or not the browser supports a certain format is not managed by the [x]html standard it adheres to.Have a look at: http://html5media.info/ To include a one line .js to support <video> and <audio> tags in all major browsers and phones:
