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Flash-Free Video in 2016

open.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Flash-Free Video in 2016

#111

Post by CaptSpify »

guelo wrote: post #105
themartorana wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're only happy to see it die because it was never well cared for. Flash was much heavier and much, much more insecure than it needed to be with Adobe-level money behind it. They were terribly poor stewards of the technology. I mean no offense to anyone that was on the Flash team, I am making a (flawed?) presumption that it probably didn't feel great inside the company either. Others may tell you I'm wrong - it's ab…

The real reason Flash died was not technical, it was because Steve Jobs didn't want a whole platform he didn't control running on the iPhone.

well.... both really. Flash was a mess by then, but your point is also true. It would have made the app-store worthless

Re: Flash-Free Video in 2016

#112

Post by modeless »

akoumjian wrote: post #97

It should be noted that the native browser decoders for h264 still produce worse color presentation than flash players. Also, the flash runtime's pseudo-streaming is faster than Chrome's http pseudo-streaming (it takes longer for the same h264 file to start playing back). I love HTML5 video, but there are still huge areas for improvement that show up frequently.

YouTube in Chrome starts playing video practically instantly, before the page is even finished loading. It's faster than Flash ever was.

Re: Flash-Free Video in 2016

#113

Post by cpeterso »

One advantage of Flash over HTML5 video (in Firefox, at least) is that Flash has its own H.264 decoder for platforms that don't include one (like Windows XP or the "N/KN editions" of Windows for Europe and Korea). Flash can also use the GPU for decoding or compositing of video on XP, providing better performance than Firefox playing VP9 using a software decoder.

YouTube recently relegated Flash to the bottom of its list of preferred video formats. Firefox users on XP who used to get hardware-accelerated 1080p video using Flash now get VP9. Many older XP machines can't keep up decoding VP9 in software. I recommend Firefox users on XP install the "YouTube Flash Video Player" add-on, which will force YouTube to use Flash again:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-flash...

Re: Flash-Free Video in 2016

#114

Post by serge2k »

akoumjian wrote: post #97

It should be noted that the native browser decoders for h264 still produce worse color presentation than flash players. Also, the flash runtime's pseudo-streaming is faster than Chrome's http pseudo-streaming (it takes longer for the same h264 file to start playing back). I love HTML5 video, but there are still huge areas for improvement that show up frequently.

> native browser decoders for h264 still produce worse color presentation than flash players

which browsers? Which platforms?

Re: Flash-Free Video in 2016

#115

Post by j2bax »

I was at a primarily Flash based company during the glory days of Flash and then through the transition to HTML5/JS. While I understand perfectly (and even support) why the shift happened (thanks Steve!), its still frustrating sometimes to know that now, years later we still aren't able to provide the quality of games that we were in Flash 3-4 years ago. We can do a lot, and things have come a ways, but right before the major shift happened, when Flash gained GPU support, the effects and performance possible in most major desktop browsers was pretty awesome. I realize that HTML5 is now capable of utilizing the GPU, but its browser support is still not where it needs to be for us to offer it as a mass consumer option for most of our clients.

I look forward to the day when we can say HTML5 is so much better (than Flash) for interactive/media content on the web, but sadly we still aren't there. I have hope that we will get there eventually. Until then, we will continue providing slightly dumbed-down games and content with the benefit of it working on mobile, tablet and desktop browsers.

Re: Flash-Free Video in 2016

#117

Post by cmurf »

sparky_z wrote: post #57

I know everybody here hates flash (for excellent reasons!) and is happy to see it die. But, as a user who doesn't work in tech, I really miss the ability to enforce click-to-play loading of videos. From my pseudo-outsider perspective, the switch to HTML5 has been really frustrating. I happen to hang out around these parts so I understand the reasons for it, but if I didn't it would probably make me mad. It would feel…

Autoplay video on mobile makes me really angry. Both Chrome and Firefox on Android always autoplay videos on CNN, BBC, and other sites that mix video and text. All I care about 9 times out of 10 is the article, just to skim it, watching video is completely annoying and inefficient.

At first I'd yell profanities out loud. Now I stop going to those sites.

Re: Flash-Free Video in 2016

#118

Post by neals »

j2bax wrote: post #115

I was at a primarily Flash based company during the glory days of Flash and then through the transition to HTML5/JS. While I understand perfectly (and even support) why the shift happened (thanks Steve!), its still frustrating sometimes to know that now, years later we still aren't able to provide the quality of games that we were in Flash 3-4 years ago. We can do a lot, and things have come a ways, but right before…

I totally agree. I've worked with AS3 up until a few months ago but have also been moving to HTML5 for a few years besides. The amount of brainpower that is wasted on quirky legacy browser behaviour and the lack of consistency between them makes me long for the days where I could position and measure and control with ease and speed as in Flash.

Re: Flash-Free Video in 2016

#119

Post by teen »

eldod wrote: post #106
dave2000 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any technical or legal reason why it's not as easy to handle playing video as it is to show an image, from a site developer point of view? Why can't the browser do it natively? Why does it have to be handled via JavaScript and whatever else?

Today playing a video more complex than just decode a .mp4 file: most broadcasters use Adaptive Bitrate streaming formats like HLS and MPEG-DASH, that add a lot of complexity: How do you get the qualities and languages list? how and when do you switch the video quality? etc In case of hls.js used by the NYT, you actually need to transmux the mpeg-ts content used in HLS into fMP4 to make it playable by the Media Sourc…

yea, the transmuxing is unfortunately buggy though. i had to recently switch my site back to flash because so many browsers have issues with it. it loads way faster though
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