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
