HTML5: Up and Running

What Works on the Web

If your eyes haven’t glazed over yet, you’re doing better than most. As you can tell, video (and audio) is a complicated subject—and this was the abridged version! I’m sure you’re wondering how all of this relates to HTML5. Well, HTML5 includes a <video> element for embedding video into a web page. There are no restrictions on the video codec, audio codec, or container format you can use for your video. One <video> element can link to multiple video files, and the browser will choose the first video file it can actually play. It is up to you to know which browsers support which containers and codecs.

As of this writing, this is the landscape of HTML5 video:

• Mozilla Firefox (3.5 and later) supports Theora video and Vorbis audio in an Ogg container.

• Opera (10.5 and later) supports Theora video and Vorbis audio in an Ogg container.

• Google Chrome (3.0 and later) supports Theora video and Vorbis audio in an Ogg container. It also supports H.264 video (all profiles) and AAC audio (all profiles) in an MP4 container.

• As of this writing (June 9, 2010), the “dev channel” of Google Chrome, nightly builds of Chromium, nightly builds of Mozilla Firefox, and experimental builds of Opera all support VP8 video and Vorbis audio in a WebM container. (Visit webmproject.org for more up-to-date information and download links for WebM-compatible browsers.)

• Safari on Macs and Windows PCs (3.0 and later) will support anything that QuickTime supports. In theory, you could require your users ...