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murderslastcrow
May 1st, 2010, 06:27 AM
AMAZING!!?

Seriously, I joined the HTML5 beta on Youtube, and everything seems to load faster, you don't have to click as much, you can scroll while your mouse is over the videos (OMG!), among other things.

http://www.canvasdemos.com/ Is an awesome debut of the features in HTML5 that you can test now. I'm totally convinced that we can replace all of Flash's current functionality (or most commonly used functionality- videos, music players, animated games, websites) today.

I suggest we support HTML5 services that are here today, since they're so nice on CPU usage compared to... well, even a native video player, it seems. Amazing performance.

Also, if you run an older PowerPC iMac or flash-less ARM platform, you can play the majority of Youtube videos without relying on Gnash (although it's great, and I hope Gnash replaces Flash some day).

I know we talk about it a lot in other circles, but I want you guys' opinions on HTML5.

What's wrong with it? What small, unseen issues have I not highlighted so far that imply we're better off with Flash for now? I just wanna' hear an opposing opinion, since this is totally what we need! It's simply wonderful.

TheNerdAL
May 1st, 2010, 06:31 AM
That's wierd, I was just watching a video about that! Yes it is really amazing!!! It is better than Flash!! I love it!

Crunchy the Headcrab
May 1st, 2010, 07:14 AM
Html5 != h.264

woodmaster
May 1st, 2010, 07:24 AM
html5 != h.264
+1

oldsoundguy
May 1st, 2010, 07:49 AM
From what I have seen and read about HTML5 it seems it is the death knell for proprietary audio and video formats. Apple telling Adobe to take a hike is just the first major step.

murderslastcrow
May 1st, 2010, 08:24 AM
Lol. I know! I like Dailymotion's Theora video player, too! Hopefully Google opens V8, that would be awesome, and Theora would be jealous, even though it's technically an updated version of Theora. :D It'd be impossible to avoid it, an open standard that makes tiny videos at really high quality.

Lol, I just dream of a day when everyone's main format is ogg and ogv, it's nuts. @_@ (I actually converted all of my music to ogg just because my N810 can play it XD... oh, and it's smaller that way).

Paqman
May 1st, 2010, 08:51 AM
From what I have seen and read about HTML5 it seems it is the death knell for proprietary audio and video formats. Apple telling Adobe to take a hike is just the first major step.

Formats no, third-party plugins yes. The media can still be encoded in a proprietary format, it just doesn't need a plugin to play it.

Once HTML5 is widespread video will be treated a bit like images are now. The code just refers to a file, and the browser renders it natively. The file itself can be in any proprietary format that the browser is able to handle. HTML5 (quite rightly) doesn't stipulate the actual format you have to use.

EarthMind
May 1st, 2010, 10:27 AM
Lol. I know! I like Dailymotion's Theora video player, too! Hopefully Google opens V8, that would be awesome, and Theora would be jealous, even though it's technically an updated version of Theora. :D It'd be impossible to avoid it, an open standard that makes tiny videos at really high quality.

Lol, I just dream of a day when everyone's main format is ogg and ogv, it's nuts. @_@ (I actually converted all of my music to ogg just because my N810 can play it XD... oh, and it's smaller that way).

You probably mean the VP8 codec. Google already announced that it will release it under an open source license.

That's good news for all browsers, except maybe IE...

murderslastcrow
May 2nd, 2010, 02:34 AM
You know, it's hilarious how many Grandmas and non-tech heavy people who wanted to use Chrome but just got the Chrome frame for Internet Explorer for the sake of comfort.

I wonder if there's anyone who knows about web browsers who actually uses Internet Explorer mainly? Microsoft can DEAL WITH IT. People will follow Youtube/Google's move, since they're the big technology mastermind of the day. If they don't follow them, everyone will ask, "why aren't they doing it the same way?"

And usually this would be a huge problem, but since it's open software and open standards, Google could really move the world into a more integrated, comfortable, explosive age of web development. I'm all for it!

WinterMadness
May 2nd, 2010, 03:36 AM
flash sucks im glad theyre trying to phase it out.

Mateo
May 2nd, 2010, 03:56 AM
h.264 is going to be the html5 video format (it's already won). what this is turning into is a death kneel for firefox. First getting lazy and focusing too much on extensions, allowing webkit and chrome to pass them by as innovators. Then getting into the mobile game why too slowly. And now standing behind a loser video format.

gletob
May 2nd, 2010, 04:37 AM
From what I have seen and read about HTML5 it seems it is the death knell for proprietary audio and video formats. Apple telling Adobe to take a hike is just the first major step.

Ever heard of H.264? It's the primary video format used with HTML5 Youtube.

madjr
May 2nd, 2010, 05:08 AM
ok so how can i create html5 stuff :O

Merk42
May 2nd, 2010, 05:13 AM
ok so how can i create html5 stuff :O

http://www.w3schools.com/html5/html5_reference.asp
HTML5 is much more than just the <video> tag
http://www.diveintohtml5.org/detect.html

Greg
May 2nd, 2010, 05:21 AM
Is it that HTML5 is amazing, or just that Flash is so god-damn awful?

arnab_das
May 2nd, 2010, 05:24 AM
even if html5 is awesome its gonna take at least 3-4 yrs for it to replace adobe flash. thats what sucks.

and just for the record, google and apple folks are heading the development of html5.

Merk42
May 2nd, 2010, 05:32 AM
even if html5 is awesome its gonna take at least 3-4 yrs for it to replace adobe flash. thats what sucks.

and just for the record, google and apple folks are heading the development of html5.

and Mozilla, Opera...

Paqman
May 2nd, 2010, 09:21 AM
even if html5 is awesome its gonna take at least 3-4 yrs for it to replace adobe flash. thats what sucks.


Indeed. Websites will have to support legacy browsers until HTML5 capable ones become the overwhelming majority. We could see a bit of browser sniffing in the meantime, though.



and just for the record, google and apple folks are heading the development of html5.

Google, Apple and Microsoft have all declared they'll support it with h.264 for video, while Mozilla and Opera are still gamely trying to wave the flag for Ogg Theora. So everybody's going to support the it, they just disagree about video codecs. As Mateo has mentioned though, the issue has pretty much been decided. It's going to be h.264.

HTML5 is about so much more than just video, it's just the bit that's getting the most attention because the open source movement has decided to try and pick a fight over it.

koanhead
May 2nd, 2010, 11:15 AM
I think HTML 5 is the bee's knees, and not just for the new video container.
As to the Theora vs. h.264 debate, I think it's more or less moot. Youtube uses h.264 because it has depended on Flash for years, and Flash supports h.264 and not Theora. I certainly don't expect Youtube to trans-code all those terabytes of video data just so I can use the HTML 5 container with Theora under Firefox, especially when I can just use TinyOgg:

http://tinyogg.com/

I've always had problems with Flash. I'm happy to say I now have two working Ubuntu installations without Flash installed, both of which can play Youtube videos.

So, HTML 5 is great for video. Hopefully the combination of SVG and Javascript will supplant Flash games going forward as well- although that might be a harder hurdle to overcome.

mmix
May 2nd, 2010, 12:52 PM
i think dirac or mjpeg is better solution than theora.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_%28codec%29

http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Th reatened_by_the_MPEG-LA

chappajar
May 2nd, 2010, 01:10 PM
h.264 is going to be the html5 video format (it's already won). what this is turning into is a death kneel for firefox. First getting lazy and focusing too much on extensions, allowing webkit and chrome to pass them by as innovators. Then getting into the mobile game why too slowly. And now standing behind a loser video format.

Except we don't know what will happen with VP8 yet. MS will have to wait quite a few years before an h.264-only IE9 is dominant enough to force sites like Youtube to follow suit. If Google pushes Youtube towards VP8 early enough, IE9 will support VP8 too, despite what MS says now.
Firefox and Opera would be more than happy to support an open sourced VP8, I'm sure.

freeball1
May 2nd, 2010, 02:04 PM
One question though, with flash all youtube video files are cached to my /tmp folder so one could open it from there or easily copy them somewhere else, this seems not to work with h.264 videos. Or are they cached somewhere else?

murderslastcrow
May 2nd, 2010, 11:31 PM
I wouldn't know. But VP8 is the most obvious solution, here. I don't mind if I have to wait 3-4 years, as long as nothing else takes HTML5's place and ruins our internet-lives. XD

Either way, most people I know don't play flash games anyway, and Youtube is the only thing they need Flash for, so Gnash+HTML5 seems to work fairly well in the majority of cases.

So, for all intensive purposes, we seem to be doing okay, but the web could be an amazing place if people would all get on the open standard bandwagon NOW.

Problem is, with everyone getting into the idea of open standards, software freedom, and net neutrality, Microsoft and Apple will likely become the public's next target as companies who use inconvenient and closed standards.

The thing is, Adobe is supporting Canvas with Flash CS5, and they're not too concerned with putting up a fight, here, as far as the press releases show. They're taking it very well.

Despite Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, to most of my friends all these technology companies seem like old news. Their computer is where they manage their music and documents. In many cases, Android phones are becoming main computers and desktops/laptops are becoming companions to PHONES.

In this case, HTML5 is the only logical direction to move for the web, anyway.

mamamia88
May 2nd, 2010, 11:36 PM
does it work in firefox yet?

murderslastcrow
May 4th, 2010, 05:12 AM
I haven't checked since a month or two ago, but HTML5 video on Youtube doesn't work in Firefox, I think because it doesn't support the H.264 codec. So you'll have to use Chromium or Safari, I believe. I hope the codec issues get sorted out sooner than later.

mamamia88
May 4th, 2010, 05:15 AM
yeah i hope it gets sorted out too. i don't like chrome and safari isn't native on ubuntu

Groucho Marxist
May 4th, 2010, 06:02 AM
HTML5 will be interesting to watch in the here and now as well as the months to come. I'm not going to immediately write off Adobe's Flash system as antiquated simply because Steve Jobs proclaims it to be so. I feel that Adobe will determine by their actions and the reactions of others whether or not Flash's offerings will be relevant for content delivery in our modern media landscape.

unntrlaffinity
May 4th, 2010, 06:35 AM
i think dirac or mjpeg is better solution than theora.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_%28codec%29

http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Th reatened_by_the_MPEG-LA

MPEG-LA's stance and the granting and application of software patents in general are so broad that even as the Dirac article indicates, all you can do is try to avoid infringing on other patents. So the same theoretical problems Theora and VP8 have, Dirac has too. Job's point of view comes across as claiming that any video format that isn't handled by MPEG-LA and its consortium is infringing.

What needs to happen is MPEG-LA, Apple, Xiph, Google, and really any major group involved in the development of video formats and codecs, regardless of whether or not they're open, need to bring a tangible case to court. F.U.D. and vague references to submarine patents simply serve to slow down development and widespread adoption.

If a court rules that Theora and VP8 do infringe, then it has to make that ruling on something tangible, which can then be worked around or circumvented since those applications are supposed to be quite specific. If it doesn't, then Apple and MPEG-LA's chest thumping is just smoke and can be ignored.

The longer they keep it out of courts, the longer they can extort money from licensees who would rather pay up than risk being liable later.

Also, whenever two large groups go to court with their respective patent portfolios, each side runs the risk of invalidating their own patents, which they may have invested vast amounts of money in. So they settle, and these issues continue to be tabled for another few years. The only acceptable settlement should be a recanting of their threats against open formats and codecs, a victory for open formats or codecs in courts, or even a loss which sets a tangible foundation by which to combat these vague claims.

I can't claim any insider knowledge of Google's business, but while converting their videos to VP8 or Theora seems like a waste of money now in lieu of using h.264, think of all the money they'll have to pay in licensing fees once MPEG-LA starts demanding royalties. And the broadness of MPEG-LA's licensing agreements means that even video rendered in h.264 and then converted into another format later is subject to royalties. That's a lifetime (well, the lifetime of the patents) of indentured servitude to a specific format, which will still make converting into future more advanced formats a costly endeavor. And who knows how much all of that will cost in the long run.

jesaisrien
May 7th, 2010, 01:28 PM
Please explain, "html5! = H.264".

Are you saying that there is a real connection there? It's my understanding that H.264 is the MPEG-LA thing that is on the road to making slaves of everybody for everything (for example, if you buy a cheap walmart camcorder and make a video and sell it, you're supposed to send money for the privelage to Larry Horn, just because), while I thought html5 was very free and open.

Merk42
May 7th, 2010, 01:58 PM
Please explain, "html5! = H.264".

Are you saying that there is a real connection there? It's my understanding that H.264 is the MPEG-LA thing that is on the road to making slaves of everybody for everything (for example, if you buy a cheap walmart camcorder and make a video and sell it, you're supposed to send money for the privelage to Larry Horn, just because), while I thought html5 was very free and open.

!= is programming talk for "is not equal to"

meaning HTML5 is not equal to H.264


The connection is that HTML introduced a <video> tag, and the parties involved couldn't unanimously agree on a default format. Opera and Mozilla wanted ogg, Safari wanted H.264 and Google didn't care (Microsoft is not a member of this group so they had no say).

H.264 has pretty much won out. There is no w3c spec that says the <video> tag must be H.264 or ogg, just as the <img> tag will take jpg, png, bmp
However due to it being of better quality (technically speaking, not license) and the fact that more devices can decode it than ogg, H.264 has won the 'war'

jesaisrien
May 7th, 2010, 02:12 PM
Thanks for the clarification. That is something of a relief. I just hope the momentum around H.264 turns around. From everything I've read it's not a very good thing.