There’s been a lot of posting about video and video formats on the web recently. This is a good opportunity to talk about Microsoft’s point of view.
The future of the web is HTML5. Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only.
H.264 is an industry standard, with broad and strong hardware support. Because of this standardization, you can easily take what you record on a typical consumer video camera, put it on the web, and have it play in a web browser on any operating system or device with H.264 support (e.g. a PC with Windows 7). Recently, we publicly showed IE9 playing H.264-encoded video from YouTube. You can read about the benefits of hardware acceleration here, or see an example of the benefits at the 26:35 mark here. For all these reasons, we’re focusing our HTML5 video support on H.264.
Other codecs often come up in these discussions. The distinction between the availability of source code and the ownership of the intellectual property in that available source code is critical. Today, intellectual property rights for H.264 are broadly available through a well-defined program managed by MPEG LA. The rights to other codecs are often less clear, as has been described in the press. Of course, developers can rely on the H.264 codec and hardware acceleration support of the underlying operating system, like Windows 7, without paying any additional royalty.
Today, video on the web is predominantly Flash-based. While video may be available in other formats, the ease of accessing video using just a browser on a particular website without using Flash is a challenge for typical consumers. Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance. We work closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about the issues we know of in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today’s web.
Dean Hachamovitch
General Manager, Internet Explorer
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Despite his last paragraph, which over time is and will become less and less true, this is a big nail in Flash video’s coffin. Die, Flash, die.
Note to advertisers: (including those who advertise via third-party ad networks and become, in effect, our advertisers): Your Flash-based ads are no longer reaching the most well-heeled customers online: 50+ million iPhone owners. They’re also not hitting brand new iPad users or 35+ million iPod touch users. If you care about reaching people with discretionary income, you might want to consider dumping your flash-based ads and moving to a more open format that people with money and the will to spend it can actually see.
Help kill Adobe’s Flash:
• Ask MarketWatch to offer HTML5 video via the customer support web form here.
• Ask CNBC to offer HTML5 video via the customer support web form here.
• Contact Hulu and ask them to offer HTML5 video via email:
• Ask ESPN360 to offer HTML5 video instead Flash via their feedback page here.
• Join YouTube’s HTML5 beta here.
• On Vimeo, click the “Switch to HTML5 player” link below any video.
By the way, do not buy Adobe’s Photoshop Elements until you have tried Pixelmator’s free 30-day trial. We use Pixelmator daily.
Jumping on a bandwagon after its already left the gate.
Well, I’ll never use IE willingly, but I guess it’s nice to hear MS support HTML5 so enthusiastically. Their support, whether I like it or not, will add legitimacy to HTML5 as a standard, and may bolster more expedient adoption. So.. um, go Microsoft?
Like Java before it, Flash is a threat to Microsoft’s platform dominance. So this isn’t too much of a surprise.
And supporting H.264 is really the only correct choice at this point, if HTML5 video is going to have a chance of gaining enough mass adoption to serve as a viable Flash alternative.
Very interesting to see Microsoft behaving this way… in fact, dare I say it, they’re almost acting like a normal tech company – meaning, they’re not behaving as if they own everything or can bully everyone around. This is an extremely welcome change, and while it may only be an external facade (since I have no doubt there are factions within the company carrying the same arrogant attitudes from the past), I hope to see more of this works-well-with-others attitude from Microsoft in future.
The big losers here are Adobe (obviously) and Mozilla – suddenly Firefox is looking very, very lonely as the only browser with major user adoption not supporting H.264 for HTML5 video. I wonder how long that will continue to be the case…
Hm! Don’t know why i got a strange feeling: something tells me M$ will have few of its own code polluting html5. If not “creating” their own html5 from A to Z!…
Gabriel,
totally true. I’m wondering if Firefox management team is debating whether to reconsider their stand on licensing for H.264.
What is quite remarkable here is why MS never even ONCE mentioned their own WMV codecs specifically. The letter was a strategic contribution to the exchange started by Steve yesterday and continued by Narayen (of Adobe), so it was expected to focus on Flash vs. HTML5, but not even mentioning their own product? That is quite unusual for MS.
What are you up to, asks Steve B of Steve J after their bed collapsed.
Let’s just hope that Microsoft’s “support” doesn’t screw up H.264 as a web standard. M$ has a twisted way of corrupting standards in an attempt to maintain dominance and profitability.
If that were to occur, then “M$.264” would likely not be much better than Flash. It would simply introduce another decade or two of unnecessary proprietary cr@p.
Predrag: Does Chrome support H.264? Firefox has been crashing on open on my iMac so I’ve been thinking of installing Chrome as an option to Safari…though loving Opera on my iPhone so may go with that.
I go over to PCWorld now and then to laugh at the Windoze fanboyz. I admit it, I even troll them. Why not they do it to us. They have had a rough couple of days, and now this – they are actually not posting so much right now. Notice the trolls are kinda silent these days?
M$ are only jumping on the ditch Flash bandwagon because they want to foist Silvershite on people. There is a M$ agenda here.
I used to like Flash but Adobe rested on their laurels got fat and lazy and failed to make Flash the product it could’ve been.
Surely a move to HTML5 would be good for Adobe to roll out a more integrated solution for Dreamweaver. The benefits of using HTML5 are obvious far better integration of video and visual effects within the bowser rather than dealing with a plugin within a page.
The design possibilities are fa greater than with a plugin.
When all the Flash fanbois have woken up they’ll be thanking Jobs for Web 3.0.
Best fence-sitting article in a while.
I have a vision of a Downfall parody with Ballmer as Hitler and being told they have to adopt the standards of others. Out in the hallway, the one woman comforts the other one with a “Don’t worry, I’m sure our IE team will find a way to screw up the actual implementation so that sites will still need to be re-worked for IE”.
This is awesome news. Remember – for Apple to win, Microsoft doesn’t have to lose. Microsoft is helping HTML5 go mainstream – it’s still a little weird, MS crawling in bed with Apple – like sleeping with the ugliest girl in the room… That’s what long hot showers are for I guess.
Anyway – this will help, not that Steve needs it but it does make is easier.
sent from my iPad
Here’s how I see it.
Flash currently stands in the way of MS ever making any advance with their own proprietary formats. Therefore, they don’t have any love for Flash. They see HTML5 as an interim way to push Flash off the table. In the future, MS hopes to increase the market share of their own proprietary standards. But they understand that will never happen as long as Flash dominates. Therefore, it’s in MS’s interest to see Flash go.
The last paragraph is intended to signal to Adobe that they are not against Flash like Apple is, and they don’t want a war with Adobe. “Keep us as your #1 development platform, Adobe.”
“What no flash? Well if my iPad doesn’t have a camera, why do I need a flash?”
Well, lets not forget that Microsoft has there own competing multimedia runtime. Sliverlight. So, I am not in the very least surprised that they come now an announce something among those lines.
Since when does Microsoft get it?
Don’t forget to visit this great site:
http://www.flashsucks.org
Microsoft would be more than happy to replace Adobe in all software fronts that Adobe currently enjoys dominance on the Mac. While Adobe wants to ride the Windows tide to world dominance, they forget MS still makes a lot of desktop software.
Adobe wants all OS/browsers to play dumb host under their Flash layer. Any surprise why platform vendors push back?
Only Google now still publicly support Flash for the sake of differentiating Android from behind the iPhone.
MS would like nothing better than to beat down Adobe to the point where a takeover could happen.
Just sayin’…
Ballmer must be home with the flu today!
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Once again, Microsoft is late to the party. By the time they get around to supporting H.264, a new technology will have arrived. Firefox and Chrome will lead the way. VP8 is a codec from On2. On2 was purchased from Google last year. The rumor mills are anticipating that Google will open source it at this year’s Google I/O conference. VP8 will emerge as the main competitor to H.264 except it will be free to use. MPEG-LA will either have to bite the bullet on H.264 in the next few years and kill the licensing or VP8 will eventually emerge as the new king. I even see Apple switching over leaving Microsoft as the last user of H.264.
Microsoft stating that they will support only H.264 in HTML5 does not have anything to do with Flash or Silverlight. It means that the video tag in HTML5 will need H.264 video in it for IE to play it. IE 9 will not support Ogg Theora. What that means is Firefox and Opera will only support Ogg Theora. Chrome will support both Theora and H.264. IE and Safari will only support H.264. But look for VP8 to emerge as the eventual standard.
So is Shantanu Narayen going to shit all over Microsoft and Hachamovitch in the press for this like he did with Jobs and Apple? No? Oh, what a surprise.
As usually MS follows Apple.
“A bit surprising. Microsoft mentioning support for HTML5 at this point could almost be interpreted as them siding with Apple against Adobe. Of course, Microsoft can never be trusted. And of course, they claim to be capable of handling every and all formats. And it’s all a game. But still, I’m just a tiny bit impressed by them choosing to make such a comment right now.”
It’s not really surprising, since HTML5 was to the be standard for IE9 from the beginning. You should also remember that from a security standpoint, Adobe products (particularly Flash and Acrobat) are persistent vectors for compromising browsers (if not the OS itself) on the Windows platform and M$ telemetry data proves it. Oh, how I would love to force our end-users to go IE8 x64 where Flash doesn’t work…