Best Browser: ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN OF ULTIMATE DESTINY!!

[Caydr]

Only reason I wouldn't recommend chrome is that there are probably not as many good addons yet. If you read my (much) earlier post you'll see that I'm basically just waiting for Chrome to pass that imaginary point in my mind where I think it's probably got all the kinks worked out. Bruce kept on me for like 8 months to switch to Firefox... or was that his slightly disturbed friend? Dunno...

Bruce: I don't think it's supposed to look like IE, so much as it's supposed to not look like Win98.

[Das Bruce]

Only reason I wouldn't recommend chrome is that there are probably not as many good addons yet. If you read my (much) earlier post you'll see that I'm basically just waiting for Chrome to pass that imaginary point in my mind where I think it's probably got all the kinks worked out. Bruce kept on me for like 8 months to switch to Firefox... or was that his slightly disturbed friend? Dunno...

Bruce: I don't think it's supposed to look like IE, so much as it's supposed to not look like Win98.

A) Which disturbed friend?
b) I liked the win98/2000 look and was frightfully disappointed when I discovered they had made it retarded in vista.

[Mav]

That's cool then

I promise that all the kinks are worked out. It handles Adobe document fine now (my biggest complaint in the 1.0-2.0 days). It doesn't crash. It's incredible stable and has no memory leaks.

If you're waiting on extensions, yeah, probably stick with FF for a couple of months. Chrome is catching up fast though.

[Caydr]

A) Which disturbed friend?

Umm... I think, the one that went indoor skiing once and we made fun of him for failing so hard at it. Or was that us making fun of you? Or maybe it was the one that went to Egypt? ...No, that was definitely us making fun of you. Hmm...

[Das Bruce]

I was the one that failed hard at it. But SmokeyNSeinor will be the guy you're talking about, you'll be reassured to know he's in the army now.

[Mav]

To resurrect an old thread, something that I'm a couple weeks late on:

Youtube is currently in HTML5 beta stages. For those of you who aren't familiar (I'm guessing most of us geeks here know) HTML5 will have the ability to play audio and video in browser, no plugins required. This means that (hopefully) Flash will become obsolete. I really don't like Flash...

The required tag? <video></video>
Easy, huh?

Anyways, the only supported browsers ATM are Chrome and Safari. Firefox just rolled out its first HTML5 browser with FF 3.6, but Youtube hasn't added support yet.

If you want to give it a shot, go to Youtube HTML5 and opt-in for the beta (saved in cookies). I had to restart my entire browser for it to work, but the videos play perfectly with no problems whatsoever on my PC.

[Das Bruce]

What does this change other than exchanging a flash element for a html tag?
For flash based video players like youtube the control elements were in flash too, how will these be handled in html5?

[Mav]

What it does it change?

1) Well first off, why would we prefer some proprietary video player for in-browser video playback? I think we can all agree that video is nearly as commonplace as pictures on the internet, and we have never had to use plugins to view pictures. Can you imagine going to a webpage and seeing "The following picture requires you to download and install GIF Viewer 5.0 or higher"? Then you have to go through a download, installation, browser restart, update GIF Viewer when version 5.1 comes out, when it crashes it takes down your browser with it, etc, etc. All just to see a picture of cat getting kicked by a break dancer. No? You don't like that? Then why the hell would you want to do that for a video? The whole idea is pretty stupid really.

2) Any idea how much Flash costs as a developer? $699. That is one piece of expensive software. Anything to move away from a reliance on Flash is a good thing.

3) Flash opens up more security holes. Adobe has gotten pretty good about locking Flash down, but there have been several holes in the past that have allowed unauthorized access to computers. One less entry vector is a good thing, IMO.

4) Browser speed: as we've seen, both Chrome and Safari have gone balls-to-the-wall for speed, with Opera and Firefox not far behind (actually, Opera 10.5 beta is faster than Safari 4 according to Peacekeeper). Browser manufacturers understand our need for faster, better browsers, and have improved accordingly. Remember that POS IE6 that Microsoft ignored for so long? Yeah, it was a POS because it had no competition. No competition for Flash = less optimized plugin. You can bet your bottom dollar that Google and Apple and Safari and Mozilla are going to duke it out for fastest video playback, which is important in today's world of underpowered netbooks trying to run Youtube's (new!) 1080p videos. My parents have a new netbook that struggles to handle high-def Youtube videos.

5) Mobile Devices. Depending on your mobile device, Flash can be a real pain in the ass or nonexistent (as in the case of the iPhone). HTML5 browsers for mobile devices already exist, so special mobile versions of Flash are nonexistent.

Now, you asked about controls:
If the developer wishes, he can include tags that have custom controls. In the case of Youtube, they've designed the video frame to look very much like the current Flash version of Youtube, but is currently lacking resolution selection and true fullscreen mode.

If the developer doesn't care about fancy controls, than he just uses a simple video tag, and the browser handles the controls. I've only tested it on Chrome, but the stock controls are Play/Pause, Progress Bar, and Volume (which is about as much as you need for most video playback). I'm hoping that Fullscreen mode is coming soon.

Example:

Code: Select all

<video height="475"  width="407">
   <source src="Das_Bruce_Porn.ogv" type="video/ogg" />
</video>

It's really that easy. So if I knew next-to-nothing about HTML/Flash (which is just about true) and I wanted to start a site and put video on this site, it would be as easy as adding a video file to the server and using a <video> tag.

So using the same argument I made a few posts back, if we were starting the internet from scratch, and had nothing to go on, would we want:

A) Plugins for video that are maintained by a single company with virtually no competition, whose development software costs $699, open security flaws, sometimes crashes the browser, and use a ton of memory and CPU

B) Video handled by the browser automatically with no plugins, special development software, competition among browser companies, fewer security flaws and less resource usage.

I think I know which one I would go with

EDIT: Found a great example page with a few examples at the bottom, one with native browser controls and the others with different custom controls.
Check Out Opera's HTML5 Video Demos

[Das Bruce]

Ahh, cool. Does this make it harder or easier to save the video to disk? Seems at first glance like you could just save whatever src points to.

[Mav]

So, HD video is available on YouTube now, and honestly is sucks with HTML5 on Chrome.

After a little more testing I noticed that low-rez video was a little stutter-y and now that I can switch to high-rez, 1080p videos are totally unwatchable. Not just low framerates (around a frame every 2 seconds when watchable) but about 20 seconds into the video it just hangs.

So either YouTube, Chrome, or both have some serious work to do before this because the next big thing. Don't know about FF or Opera as they are not currently installed on this box.

[Das Bruce]

Can you watch otherHD videos? Through the likes of mpc/vlc?

[Mav]

Can you watch otherHD videos? Through the likes of mpc/vlc?

Oh yeah, my machine is more than capable of handling HD video, and I can handle 1080p YouTube/Flash videos with no problem either.

[Das Bruce]

I suppose that it isn't even finalised yet, so it's understandable to not have as good support as flash, which has been around for 16 years.

[Tribulex]

YES I HATE FLASH.

i have been fighting flash for years in my webdesign, using javascript and css instead.

DEATH TO FLASH FUUUU!!!!

CANVAS AND HTML5 FTW