HTML 5 Frees Up Multimedia

June 29th 09, 14:29

Though many web users may not be aware of this, HTML (one of the components making up web pages) has versions. Each new version adds new features, deprecates others and sometimes drops them entirely. Support for any new features is not always immediately available (sometimes we need to wait for new releases of our favourite browsers), but that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t worth getting excited about.

This is definitely the case about the latest version, HTML 5, in which there are new possibilities for displaying rich media (the wooshy bits). The final specification for the language is still being developed; nevertheless the video and audio elements show promise. Indeed, some particularly cutting edge browsers are already allowing use of these features (and offering implementation guidance, eg. http://tinyurl.com/mnmv6e).

Some companies, such as YouTube have developed video players using this emerging standard to demonstrate how it can replace their existing flash offering. “So?” I hear you cry (I have good ears). We can play video in flash now, why does this make any difference? Well, the current flash video players require that the user has the flash plugin installed on their machine. If / when this HTML 5 standard is ratified and implemented in all browsers (some quicker than others, no doubt), it will mean that users will not need to worry about plugins to view some content, potentially making for a smoother user experience on multimedia enabled sites that will just work “out of the box”.

It’s not just video either. The standard includes description for audio (as mentioned above). Additionally, companies such as Mozilla have created even more impressive technical demos (see below for a link by proxy) that give an idea of where this technology may take us.

That’s not to say this will eliminate the need for Flash or Silverlight. Plugins will continue to allow more specialised and technically sophisticated applications, but it will open up more options when it comes to media deployment.

The standard itself is not yet ready however. For a start, HTML 5 is being developed via a collaborative process. While this potentially leads to a better end product, it also has the potential to be a slower process (yeah, I have a very slight tendency towards impatience…). There are also technical hurdles. For example, the codec for video (i.e. coder / decoder – the thing which translates the raw data into a video) has not yet been decided on.

Nevertheless, it is most definitely a step in the right direction. As I have said in previous posts, I am all for anything that advances the web – such advancement facilitates better and more interesting sites and makes the web easier for people to use (and more importantly, to develop for!).

A more in depth examination of this topic, including links to some of the examples I mention, can be found here.

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer