YouTube Says Flash Is Best for Videos – Not HTML5 Yet

YouTube weighed in Wednesday on the question of whether HTML5 is ready to replace Flash Player as the preferred video-distribution vehicle for the web — an idea first proposed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in April. According to a new YouTube blog post, Adobe Flash currently provides the best platform for meeting the video-distribution requirements of the online service.

Though the video support built into HTML5 enables YouTube to deliver most of the service’s content and features to computers and other devices that don’t support Flash Player, YouTube software engineer John Harding observed that HTML5 has substantial shortcomings.

“We’ve been excited about the HTML5 effort and video tag for quite a while now, and most YouTube videos can now be played via our HTML5 player,” Harding wrote in a blog. “This work has shown us that, while the video tag is a big step forward for open standards, the Adobe Flash platform will continue to play a critical role in video distribution.”

Flash Player Advantages

According to Harding, one of the drawbacks of HTML5 is that the next major revision of the HTML standard currently under development does not address video-streaming protocols. By contrast, Flash Player provides fine control over buffering as well as dynamic quality control, Harding wrote.

“Flash Player addresses these needs by letting applications manage the downloading and playback of video via ActionScript in conjunction with either HTTP or the RTMP video-streaming protocol,” Harding wrote.

Furthermore, Harding observed that Flash Player’s ability to combine application code and resources into a secure, efficient package has been instrumental in enabling YouTube videos to be embedded in other web sites. “While HTML5 adds sandboxing and message-passing functionality, Flash is the only mechanism most web sites allow for embedded content from other sites,” he wrote.

Other Flash Player advantages over HTML5 include the ability to enable the viewing of high-definition videos in full-screen mode, which Harding noted has not historically been possible with pure HTML.

“While most browsers have a full-screen mode, they do not allow JavaScript to initiate it, nor do they allow a small part of the page — such as a video player — to fill the screen,” Harding explained. “Flash Player provides robust, secure controls for enabling hardware-accelerated full-screen displays.”

Customer Experience Advice

Customer experience professionals also need to be aware of HTML5′s shortcomings when it comes to designing rich, highly functional user experiences, noted Ronald Rogowski, a principal analyst at Forrester Research.

The downside to using HTML5 right now “is that it could lead to inconsistent experiences across today’s browsers,” Rogowski cautioned in a blog. HTML5 also “compromises performance for graphics-heavy experiences, [and] will require that users download a browser that supports the technology,” he wrote.

One big advantage of Adobe Flash is that the technology is already ubiquitous. “Over 99 percent of all Internet users have downloaded it into their browsers, often to view video content,” noted Al Hilwa, director of application development software at IDC.

Rogowski sees a few places where HTML5 can help improve user experiences today, such as providing an improved experience for people with disabilities. At the moment, however, Rogowski doesn’t think HTML5 is a viable platform for delivering next-generation rich Internet content and functionality.

“Forrester recommends using HTML5 as a way to enhance text-based content experiences while looking to more established technologies like Flash and Silverlight to build high-functional applications,” Rogowski wrote.

News Provider : Mark Long From News Factor Network