“Vimeo’s new HTML5 system is just like YouTube’s, in both execution and technical details, in that it’ll only work with a few browsers—Safari and Chrome, for now—and that it’s compatible with most, but not all, of the company’s video libraries. It’s something that most people won’t bother to try at this point, and if they do, they’re probably be underwhelmed, since HTML5 video playback is almost indistinguishable from Flash video playback,” Herrman reports. “But it’s primed to be something that everyone ends up using, and that would be a Very Good Thing. Flash video performs terribly on Mac OS X and Linux, and on the few mobile devices that do support it, playback is uniformly terrible.”
“HTML5 allows certain types of video to be rendered in the browser natively, like JPEGs or GIFs are now,” Herrman reports. “It’s an objectively simpler, more efficient solution, and disregarding the massive infrastructure built up around Flash video, it would be the obvious choice.”
Herrman reports, “Luckily, YouTube accounts for a hefty chunk of said architecture, their catalog is rendered in HTML5-friendly h.264 format already—that’s how you watch in on the iPhone and Android, by the way—and with help from smaller sites like Vimeo, they could actually get the ball rolling on, you know, murdering Flash video.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Support HTML5 and die, Flash, die!
Of course it will… and the sooner the better!
HTML5 could also kill Internet Explorer… btw!
Flash is game over soon!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
“Flash is a bag of hurt.”
-Steve Jobs
Cant happen soon enough!
The good thing about flash though, is that you can download it to your computer. For example, I’ve downloaded quite a few youtube political videos. Will we be able to download videos in this new format?
And when is the ETA for this? 2020?
The way Flash haters talk about its impending death all the time, you’d think it was right around the corner.
Doesn’t FireFox also support html5 video tag?
It works on my Firefox….
HTML5/CSS3 = goodbye Flash and IE.
I think it’s amusingly hypocritical the way Mozilla refuses to support the multi-vendor H.264 due to patent considerations, yet has no qualms about supporting and promoting the single-vendor, even-more-highly-restricted Flash plugin its stead. Hypocritical much?
This exchange from the comments was rather eye-opening:
Commenter: If you really want to stand behind this argument [against H.264], then you should also drop support for the evil and proprietary platforms like Windows and MacOSX altogether.
Mozilla Person:If we could drop support for Windows or Mac without losing much influence, we probably would.
So, apparently ideological purity trumps sanity. (Well, except where Adobe Flash is concerned, of course.)
@ R2 – Odd to see you not banging your one-note multi-tasking drum for iPhone OS. Good to see you branching out a bit though, monomaniacal obsessions are unhealthy.
I think Apple got the ball rolling against Flash when it steadfastly refused to put Flash into the iPhone.
People keep calling for Apple to buy Adobe, but why? It’s much more fun to kill Adobe off one product at a time! Plus you have all that pizza money left over!
By the end of this year, iPad will be in the hands of millions people. Add that to mobile browsing from iPhone/iPod (as well as Android), and you get a significant number of web surfers with NO Flash support.
When major web site operators begin to see that an increasing percentage of their visitors cannot see flash contend and are therefore abandoning their web properties before leaving dollars (or delivering eyeballs or ad click-throughs), they will quickly begin to re-engineer their sites around that Flash obstacle. And this is how Apple will win, and Adobe (and Microsoft, with its Silverlight) will lose.
There are millions of web sites out there that currently heavily use Flash, whose functionality and content could be completely duplicated using HTML5, AJAX and other open standards. The web designers are essentially lazy. Flash is extremely easy to create and any idiot can learn how to create an interactive animated banner in a day. And the web is totally littered with totally unnecessary bandwidth-clogging Flash crap.
This is obviously Apple’s power play, but the ultimate benefit will be ours. Let us hope that the iPad (with iPhone’s and iPod’s help) begins the massive cleanup of this crap.
The day Hulu drops Flash is the day I buy an iPad.
Apple killed the floppy disk.
Flash is in Apple’s crosshairs now.
Flash would be acceptable, if it was used sparingly, but limp weenie web designers seem to get boners showing off with it. The sooner it’s gone, the better for all.
Ever since I loaded ClickToFlash a few months back, my web using experience has improved dramatically.
@gRen
I use the Mac Hulu app. Does it use Flash?
Die baby die!!!
I’ve tried watching movie trailers from Apple’s website on my late 2006 MBP. They are so herky-jerky pausing all the time that I quit after a few moments. Not worth trying to watch. I use “small” to watch the keynote and that works.
Support HTML5 and The, Flash, The?
(the “the” pronounced “thee”)
Mark – “The good thing about flash though, is that you can download it to your computer. For example, I’ve downloaded quite a few youtube political videos. Will we be able to download videos in this new format?”
You have to download it to watch it. How else could you watch it? The problem is how to overcome the obstacles put in your way to keep it after you’ve downloaded it. Time alone will tell.
I certainly won’t be attending the funeral of Adobe Flash.
Long live html5..!
@Snow Leopard
That Sideshow Bob quote was the first thing I thought of too when I read the ‘take.
mmmm warm glowing warming glow…
I was just watching ABC news online about the iPad. They had the video review. Soon as that Flash content started to play, my MBP started to run in overdrive. The difference between QT? While streaming the huge video of the Apple iPad launch or the video promo the CPU stayed cool, fan never turned on. I can watch the video and hear the audio without the FAN ramping up like a jet engine under FLASH.
Bottom line. FLASH IS ONE BIG POS! The faster it goes away and sites like ABC adopt something more open and efficient, the better!
So, let me get this straight. HTML 5 is a better tool to author animation than Flash, and now Flash might die because of this? If flash dies I’m going to feel stupid learning actionscript.
@silverhawk
I have the same problem with Keynotes, but I think it is more of a server overload than an innate problem with the QT used. If you’re like me you try to watch the Keynotes the same day they are released. We’re fighting with a few million others for the streams. It’s always better a week or two later when the hub-bub has died down.
Anybody want fried eggs? I’m making them on my MacBook Pro right now, just by visiting a Web site that uses Flash ads. They’re guaranteed to make my MacBook Pro’s CPU about 10,000 degrees centigrade, and it happens on the Dull PC I have to use sometimes as well. All I have to do is to crack open some Grade A farm fresh eggs and in just a moment, I can give ’em to you sunnyside up or over easy. Just let me know.
Oh, and my favorite Flash ad is the one with the really dorky silouetted guy furiously pumping his arms about mortgage rates never being this low. It gets my Mac all toasty and warm. Actually, more like thermonuclear hot. Now, if Apple would just approve Flash for the iPhone and iPad, my hands will never be cold again in the winter.
Thanks, Adobe!
@Rgen, me too. Me too!
And does anyone know the link on Vimeo to request the html 5 version of their pages? Just curious: I’ve already joined the html 5 beta on youtube. Can’t wait to get flash off of everything my browser does–what a pig.