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YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

youtube-eng.blogspot.com

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Re: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

#321
post #225

What joy it is to finally uninstall Flash. The last time I was this happy to uninstall crappy software was when I realized that I no longer needed RealPlayer. For those that don't know it, RealPlayer was a very popular proprietary media player (with its own proprietary formats) circa 2000. The company's stock was worth $380 a share in 2000; it's now worth $6. The only explanation for RealPlayer's popularity was its D…

RealPlayer was capable - just barely - of streaming sort-of watchable video over 56k. That really was revolutionary at the time.

Such blockiness, but very true!

Re: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

#322

What joy it is to finally uninstall Flash. The last time I was this happy to uninstall crappy software was when I realized that I no longer needed RealPlayer. For those that don't know it, RealPlayer was a very popular proprietary media player (with its own proprietary formats) circa 2000. The company's stock was worth $380 a share in 2000; it's now worth $6. The only explanation for RealPlayer's popularity was its D…

Having read your comment, I have just uninstalled Flash on my machines in delight.

I had been using ClickToPlugin under Safari to force HTML5 videos on sites (and mainly for a way to send YouTube videos to the AppleTV via AirPlay, as there was no other way to do it) but now all machines are Flash-free.

I think I'll have a coffee to celebrate.

Re: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

#324

What joy it is to finally uninstall Flash. The last time I was this happy to uninstall crappy software was when I realized that I no longer needed RealPlayer. For those that don't know it, RealPlayer was a very popular proprietary media player (with its own proprietary formats) circa 2000. The company's stock was worth $380 a share in 2000; it's now worth $6. The only explanation for RealPlayer's popularity was its D…

God I hated RealPlayer so much, truly awful piece of malware.

Re: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

#325
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pornhub has switched to HTML5

I stand corrected, then. Should watch more porn it seems :P

I tried it and they are still using flash, as is every other site I know of. Perhaps they mean there is an html5 option somewhere, but I don't see it.

Re: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

#326
post #314

Wait - so youtube is behind the porn industry by only 4.5 years? http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/flash_takes_a_blow_as...

This actually makes sense; the porn industry has much higher earnings per user and hence a much greater loss due to lower conversion for those who don't have Flash installed. So for them, it's a "my hair is on fire" kind of thing. Whereas for Youtube et al., it's a nice-to-have.

But won't it be same if you look at percentages?

Unless you hypothise that porn users not having flash installed is somehow a larger percentage compared to average web user not having flash installed?!

Re: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

#327
post #216
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately (though it's considerably more compartmentalized and constrained than prior iterations), Google is trying to replace Flash with a DRM mechanism that also requires proprietary software. So while you might think that the advent of HTML5 video means you no longer need proprietary software to interoperate with the services that use it, Google and its partners are working to ensure that that's not true.

If you're referring to Encrypted Media Extensions it's not a DRM mechanism that requires proprietary software. It's a specification for a communication channel between a browser and Digital Rights Management agent software on the local machine. While it's not ideal, it's just some javascript functions that interact with the DRM on the computer. The DRM software itself is completely optional. It's much better than hav…

> The DRM software itself is completely optional.

Unless you want the web page to work. One could just as well describe having a web browser as "completely optional".

Re: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

#328
post #124
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh my god I completely forgot about RealPlayer. Luckily there was an alternative, Real Alternative, that enabled you to play the content without having to install that ghastly RealPlayer. It seems like the community always finds a way around crappy software.

What's the community using instead of iTunes?

http://deadbeef.sourceforge.net/

Re: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only was it an awesome streaming client, I found it to be pretty sweet client for ripping/burning CDs at that time. It was sad to see it fall, but once Winamp got a bit more polished I never looked back.

I remember at one point Real Player had a redesign, it was sleek, well integrated and could stream all kinds of content very appropriately.

It also supported SMIL with real-time buffering of content from independent sources. You could create a small XML file that dynamically and seamlessly streamed video excerpts from multiple servers, appearing as one stream.
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