HTML5 Video: What It Is and Why You Should Use It [Video] | Online Video Publishing | Scoop.it

Robin Good: Jeroen Wijering, creator of the JW Player gave a valuable and informative presentation at the last HTML5 Video Summit event in Los Angeles, targeted at those video publishers wanting to better understand the key advantages of adopting HTML5 for video.


"HTML5 video is just a tag like an image tag, that is supported by HTML5. So you put a video tag in your website, you say ‘the source is this video,’ and it will play.


You don’t have to use Flash or Silverlight or other difficult tools or plug-ins. It’s a very basic way of embedding video on your website,” explained Wijering.


So that’s what it is, but why is it more useful that other methods of streaming video, such as Flash or Silverlight?


As to ‘why should I use it?,’ I think there’s two answers.


1) There’s a long-term answer in that if you have support in HTML5 itself, it’s a lot easier to have video interact with other stuff on your website. It’s a lot easier for accessibility purposes to be able to have blind people, deaf people jump into your video and see it in alternate ways. It’s a lot easier for search engines like Google to actually pick up the video. They have a lot of trouble right now because everybody has their own Flash player. ...That’s the long-term answer.


2) The short-term is much less elaborate.

“In terms of short term, it’s very simple: Apple does not support Flash,” said Wijering. Any publisher that wants to stream to iPad and iPhone owners had better get familiar with HTML5."


Recommended. 8/10


For more from the session including what audio and video codecs work with (some) HTML5 browsers, watch the full video:  http://www.onlinevideo.net/2012/02/what-is-html5-video-and-why-should-you-use-it/