Flash and HTML5

Nothing_Much

Nothing_Much

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Discuss your opinions on this stuff, as it's gotten quite big over the years (since 2010).

I personally haven't had THAT many problems with Flash on my PC's, even mobile, but as a Linux user, it's come down to switching completely over to HTML5 asap.

HTML5 on YouTube, at least, has drastically improved since 2010, it used to be really laggy, but now it's almost as good as Flash when it comes to video playback. (Using Firefox/Iceweasel 17.0a2) All it needs is the proper embedding options available, such as clicking the title of an embedded video to go directly to Youtube and vids with ads. It's a minor issue.

With websites, I really hope that at least in 2014, when XP bites the dust, HTML5 will become a standard "semi-alternative" to Flash.
 
First of all, semantics...

HTML5 != Flash replacement

HTML5 has tags for video, it makes no mention of specific ways of codecs, etc. Also, things like animation and SVG are different standards. I hate how people lump it all together under "HTML5", but I guess it may be a war I can't win (like hacker vs. cracker).

For YouTube, it's not so much them doing anything more as it is the browser makers iterating heavily on it. The problem with "HTML5" video is:
1.) Different codecs supported on different browsers (h264 is patent-encumbered)
2.) Flaky support across browser versions (even the latest versions have bugs)
3.) Performance vs. latest flash player with hw acceleration is dismal, especially on 720p+ video.
4.) Standard won't be finalized until 2014

It works OK on mobile devices since no mobile device has ever had good flash support and all mobile browsers support h264.

XP trail-off doesn't really matter since you can run browsers that support html5 video on it. Win 7 comes with IE8 which doesn't support any HTML5 video. Most web devs today have fallback players like SublimeVideo or something that will detect your browser version and fallback to flash if need be. I think this will be the standard way to do it for the next decade or so.
 
takethepants said:
First of all, semantics...

HTML5 != Flash replacement

HTML5 has tags for video, it makes no mention of specific ways of codecs, etc. Also, things like animation and SVG are different standards. I hate how people lump it all together under "HTML5", but I guess it may be a war I can't win (like hacker vs. cracker).

For YouTube, it's not so much them doing anything more as it is the browser makers iterating heavily on it. The problem with "HTML5" video is:
1.) Different codecs supported on different browsers (h264 is patent-encumbered)
2.) Flaky support across browser versions (even the latest versions have bugs)
3.) Performance vs. latest flash player with hw acceleration is dismal, especially on 720p+ video.
4.) Standard won't be finalized until 2014

It works OK on mobile devices since no mobile device has ever had good flash support and all mobile browsers support h264.

XP trail-off doesn't really matter since you can run browsers that support html5 video on it. Win 7 comes with IE8 which doesn't support any HTML5 video. Most web devs today have fallback players like SublimeVideo or something that will detect your browser version and fallback to flash if need be. I think this will be the standard way to do it for the next decade or so.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by "specific ways of codecs".

For YT, the codecs are just alternatives, you don't need all of them to use html5 video. The support for html5 has been improving a lot. I'm not sure about the hardware acceleration, I normally have it disabled with Flash and it runs fine, HTML5 works just as good as flash nowadays.
 
NothingMuchHereToSay said:
Not sure what you mean by "specific ways of codecs".

For YT, the codecs are just alternatives, you don't need all of them to use html5 video. The support for html5 has been improving a lot. I'm not sure about the hardware acceleration, I normally have it disabled with Flash and it runs fine, HTML5 works just as good as flash nowadays.
Click to expand...
At least on my graphics card, flash with hardware acceleration runs with less CPU than an HTML5 video on the same video.

I'm saying that the spec doesn't say "HTML5 video is in h264 or WebM, or Xvid" It just leaves it ambiguous. So some formats aren't supported on certain browsers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video#Browser_support
 
NothingMuchHereToSay said:
That's a good thing though, variety.
Click to expand...
Not in this sense. Before they standardized anything, it was hell. Now that they're leaving it open for browser vendors to implement what they want, it's going to be crappy because it's a lot of work to handle everything correctly anyways. This is already taking hold a lot with CSS3 and browser specific prefixes. Since they take so long to finalize standards, vendors are just implementing it how they think it should be which leads to many variations between browsers.
 
takethepants said:
Not in this sense. Before they standardized anything, it was hell. Now that they're leaving it open for browser vendors to implement what they want, it's going to be crappy because it's a lot of work to handle everything correctly anyways. This is already taking hold a lot with CSS3 and browser specific prefixes. Since they take so long to finalize standards, vendors are just implementing it how they think it should be which leads to many variations between browsers.
Click to expand...

I have to say now that Flash does indeed need to die, completely. Reasoning being is what Steve Jobs has said about it, not just for mobile however. Flash's monopoly is a serious risk towards an open web, which also has had everybody complaining about the software, not just for the lack of openness.

Also, bump.
 
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