

54% of Web Video is now available in HTML5 - tvon
http://blog.mefeedia.com/html5-oct-2010

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tibbon
I'm going to call bullshit, on the basis on porn. I have yet to see a porn
page that is using HTML5 instead of Flash for streaming their video. Unless in
the past 2-3 years the percentage of porn to other videos online has changed
significantly, or the entirety of the 46% is porn, that number seems really
high.

I just googled 'html5 porn' and there was something about YouPorn switching to
HTML5, but then I went and checked, no HTML5. In fact, not only was the video
flash, but there were 3 flash-based ads on the page as well. Good way to eat
processor and kill batteries.

~~~
tvon
You're probably mostly right, but I don't think a porn site is likely to
advertise adoption of HTML5, so you might try looking at the mobile sites they
serve up to see what tech they're using.

I suspect MeFeedia doesn't index porn sites, but I went ahead and asked in the
comments.

~~~
tibbon
I dunno, porn is all about niche right?

Here's an idea: PornForGeeks. HTML5 valid, HTML5 <video>, strong use of
semantic tagging, 'smarter' ads, strong query engine, etc

~~~
motters
There no doubt is a gap in the market for PornForGeeks. Chicks with C64s.
Overclocking. Salacious LAN parties, etc.

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rmc
Saying "HTML5 Video" is misleading. There is no video encoding format for
HTML5 video in the html5 spec. I could be using Firefox, which supports html5
video, go to a site that has html5 video in h264 format, then I can't see it,
despite me using a html5 browser and the video being a html5 video.

~~~
WiseWeasel
For now, we can assume that HTML5 video = h.264, since that's what the
iDevices play.

~~~
rmc
Yes that's a fair assumption for the moment. It'll be interesting to see what
happens with WebM

~~~
buster
Why reencode to WebM when the rest of the world can play flash. Based on your
"assumptions" it comes down to flash video for 99% of users vs html5+h264 for
iDevices..

All in all it is just really sad that the major companies weren't able to
agree on one common video format for html5 (thanks, Microsoft and Apple!).

What's the future now? Flash for Windows Phone, html5/h264 for iPhone,
html5/webm for chrome and android, html5/ogg for firefox and i think opera
should just go for html5/avi+intel indeo, maybe nokia could do html5/animated
gif. (the sarcasm ends here, btw.)

~~~
patrickaljord
Both Opera and Firefox support WebM.

~~~
buster
That was sarcasm, btw ;)

My point is that thanks to Microsoft and Apple (who are both getting money
from licensing H.264) we have no consistent video format and we will never
have. MS and Apple will never support ogg or webm and Firefox will never
support H.264 (which is the only decision they could have made from their
point of view).

The dream of one consistent standard for the web that was HTML5 has been
destroyed by some greedy corporations once again.

~~~
rmc
What makes you think Microsoft and Apple won't support WebM?

My hope is that WebM takes off and becomes really popular. Then they would be
fools to not support it.

~~~
buster
Not fools. But companies.

They get license fees for H.264. That's all management will need to know. They
will tell us how there is no hardware acceleration and how H.264 has superior
quality, when in reality they only want the money. The goal is that the
defacto standard for web video becomes H.264. Imagine the income: When H.264
replaces all flash videos, they can leech money out of every device that plays
those and everyone that makes those. That's PCs, tablets, phones, TVs and much
more which equals a large amount of money.

That's why i said, it's a shame that there was no decision for one video codec
in HTML5. They (the w3c/whatwg) should've went with "screw you all, the video
codec is ogg(or webm). If your browsers don't support it they are not HTML5
compliant." Instead they went with "ok, fine. Everyone can do whatever he
wants", willingly accepting that the bigger companies will go for the money
decision and lock-out of competition. IE is still big enough to make the
situation really bad. MS will go the way of supporting other codecs through
the windows API. But those codecs need to be installed, degrading them to 2nd
class citizens and big video publishers will have to go the route of H.264 to
not scare customers away with installing some non-default codec.

The irony: In the end, the better choice will be to atleast support flash
videos, because flash is available almost everywhere, whereas the alternative
is a much more fragmented HTML5 standard. In the end, this decision may have
disrupted the goal to replace flash video with HTML5.

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tomlin
I really do hate these "Flash hate-bait" narratives because it only regresses
progress in making the video tag _viable_. Which is, above all else, the real
goal.

HTML5 video does not support any sort of RTMP streaming. This is an undeniably
important feature. Having to wait until a video loads before you can seek to a
specific point is woefully disappointing for the end-user.

Not having a reliable base of encoding across all platforms is a real kick in
the teeth as well.

~~~
vetinari
In both .webm and .mp4, the index is/can be at the beginning of the file, so
you don't have to wait until video loads.

Also, since HTTP 1.1 we have byte ranges, so in combination of above point,
you can freely seek with HTTP-streamed videos.

~~~
ROFISH
And Apple devices use "Live HTTP Streaming" as their alternative for real-time
video.

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nfriedly
Correction: 54% of Web Video is now _available_ in HTML5

~~~
tvon
Good point, updated submission title to reflect that.

~~~
fsinton
Correct - thanks for picking up on that.

For Desktop/Laptop browsing, most sites still playback the Flash version. The
capability to dynamically detect device and serve as HTML5 or Flash is the
most significant change in the video space, with mobile playback via HTML5
being the market driver.

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citricsquid
I'd be interested in a breakdown of what contributes to those totals, sites
like Youtube have a huge share in Video so it's not that out there to suggest
that a single change they make could have such a huge impact internet wide. I
know Youtube have been HTML5 for a while now so it isn't them, but it could be
a similar site!

Edit: oh, I think I misread. They're counting individual videos, not sites. So
while Youtube has HTML5 available to _everyone_ not all videos support it. My
mistake, disregard.

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pornel
No, it's not available. That's how Vimeo looks in Safari 5 with plug-ins
disabled:

<http://imgur.com/xrdlF.png> (To watch this video, you need Flash 10. You have
an old version of Flash. Click here to download the latest version.)

and there's no trace of <video> element in the source.

They only use HTML5 as a workaround for browsers with "iP" in User-Agent
string.

~~~
Yaggo
Sorry, but am I missing something? I'm currently watching a video on Vimeo
with Safari 5 & plugins disabled. All you need to do is to click the "Switch
to HTML5 player" link.

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seanalltogether
"Our final tally included only video that can be delivered within HTML5’s
“video” tag. In the vast majority of cases, this means videos were encoded in
H.264."

This is misleading because many providers use H.264 but don't have solutions
for HTML5 video. Hulu for example uses a H.264 but uses a streaming server
with drm protection on the stream that can only be played within the Flash
player.

~~~
smackfu
Plus the whole subset of "yes we support HTML5 video tags so it should work on
your iPad/iPhone but we are banned from showing video on mobile devices so too
bad." For instance, any music video on YouTube.

------
tvon
via [http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/10/27/54-of-web-video-is-
now...](http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/10/27/54-of-web-video-is-now-html5/)
(which wasn't submitted because they didn't have a source at the time).

------
motters
I should probably reserve a bottle champagne, or some other celebratory
indulgence, for the day that I no longer need to run Flash.

