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A Skeptical Comparison of HTML5 Video Playback To Flash
gollum123 writes "Think we'd all be better off if HTML5 could somehow instantly replace Flash overnight? Not necessarily, according to a set of comparisons from Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center website, which found that while HTML5 did come out ahead in many respects, it wasn't exactly a clear winner. They did find that HTML5 clearly performed better than Flash 10 or 10.1 in Safari on a Mac, although the differences were less clear cut in Google Chrome or Firefox. On the other hand, Flash more than held its own on Windows, and Flash Player 10.1 was actually 58% more efficient than HTML5 in Google Chrome on the Windows system tested. As you may have deduced, one of the big factors accounting for that discrepancy is that Flash is able to take advantage of GPU hardware acceleration in Windows, while Adobe is effectively cut out of the loop on Mac."
gollum123 also links to additional tests indicating that Flash "does not perform consistently worse on Mac than on Windows."
The second test seems to forget that Flash added GPU acceleration in Windows, which dramatically drops CPU usage. It's not even small amount, it's 60%->12% with YouTube 720p video and most likely even more with 1080p. They've been working a lot with NVIDIA on it, which means more bad news for HTML5. I also installed those new NVIDIA drivers and newest Flash beta and full screen video is considerably smoother.
And where's Opera in this test? They added HTML5 support in 10.5 final too and their whole drawing engine will be hardware accelerated, with websites also. Their canvas implementation is also faster than with any other browser.
How much of a performance hit am I prepared to accept for open standards? 100%. The performance of the open platform will double every 18 months, but the DRM'd content will be forever limited.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
As soon as the video tag becomes popular implementations using the GPU will appear, and will not only work in Windows. We will be farther better off.
And if Google open sources the VP8 codec the just purchased, it will be even better.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
From what I can tell by reading the article that says that 'Flash "does not perform consistently worse on Mac', what they really mean is that not only does Flash run slower on Mac, but Safari is also coded really poorly for Windows.
Well, for those of us interested in the development of Linux as a viable alternative to other operating systems, closed source software that comes to be considered "necessary" for general computer use means more time and resources spent on developing software against the de facto closed standards. Imagine if all those people trying to make Flash work on Linux could do something else with code that they can actually see. I dunno about you, but when I code for something, I like to know what the heck I'm working on and how it will fit in, rather than flying blindly at some goal.
HTML 5 is a clear winner by virtue of not being Adobe Flash or any other proprietary application but an open standard.
You can't handle the truth.
HTML5 hasn't even settled on a video codec
They aren't goint to settle on it. It will be unspecified, just as image formats were in past HTML specs.
how can there even be a real comparison here?
You compare both platforms with the same codec, of course.
Of course HTML5 can't take advantage of GPU acceleration yet, they don't even know what they'll be accelerating yet!
If they don't know, how do they play it today?
In fact, they do know. A de facto standard is already in place (Flash played a part in that as well), and it's called H.264.
HTML5 hasn't had the chance to implement GPU acceleration and that maybe they should consider it as part of their criteria in their codec selection process.
HTML5 doesn't implement acceleration, browser vendors do. It's not any harder for them to do so than it is for Adobe, so presumably, if Flash can hardware-accelerate, so can the browser. It's just that they didn't get to that point yet.
Obviously this is anecdotal, but the fans on my Macbook pro often spin up playing full screen flash video, but never while playing video in Quicktime. But even if HTML5 performs no better than Flash currently, HTML5 still wins because it doesn't rely on Adobe to issue security and performance updates.
Since flash is not fully supported in 64-bit. 64-bit OS:es will not be able to be widely spread.
There are a couple different problems with this statement... I'll just say that I'm posting this from a 64-bit OS and a browser that runs Flash just fine. (Well, as fine as a Flash can be run anyway, which is "not very", but that's sort of beside the point.)
You've just described the tailspin that we're in. To get out of it, somebody must loose face because their device/system is incapable of supporting open and free standards. It's sad that the end users will be collateral damage to this, but the sooner it happens, the better off we'll be.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
gollum123 also links to additional tests indicating that Flash "does not perform consistently worse on Mac than on Windows."
Yes, tests provided by... Mike Chambers of Adobe. I'm sure that they're completely impartial.
When I turn on HTML5 video support at YouTube, the exact same clip in the exact same browser on the exact same OS on the exact same session runs at a third of the CPU power. Sure, it's an anecdote - and one that's been observed by hundreds if not thousands of others, consistently over the years. But according to Adobe, nope, no problems at all. Emperor's clothes look really chic.
Fuck off, Adobe. You had years to improve your damn plugin, and we'll all be better off when it and its horrid performance and security record are no more.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
It's not really fair to compare a technology that is still being developed to others that are very well established. The big benefit of HTML5 is it's non-proprietary nature. Once the standard is adopted and applications are built around it these comparisons will look very different.
By saying "PC and MAC", TFA disregards handheld and small devices. These may be dominant players in the medium term(till they are as powerful as PC's and Macs). HTML5 may have an edge, especially with the iPad attitude of limited Flash support
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Performance is rather secondary. This is about standards and cross-platform compatibility. Flash is an atrocity in this regard, and the earlier it gets tossed out on the trash heap of computing history, the better.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This is an issue for browsers like Firefox.
"Only" because Firefox refuses to use something like DirectShow to use whatever codecs are available on the system.
See here for why; they aren't necessarily bad reasons, but changing their opinion on this matter would largely solve the H.264 codec patent issue as far as Firefox is concerned.
check this:
http://jilion.com/sublime/video
It's not a crap article because it's true. If you look at the 10.1 public beta release notes it says:
In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under Linux and Mac OS. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. We will continue to evaluate adding the feature to Linux and Mac OS in future releases.
How Apple react to this will be a good litmus test of how fair Steve J is prepared to be with Adobe. Will he make the APIs available to benefit his customers but risk making HTML5 less attractive, or will he just ignore them and play hard ball.
As for Linux, the historical lack of a unified approach to solving this (that includes all interested parties) is going to leave us out in the cold for some time yet. Let's hope that Gallium3D sticks, gains enough traction and doesn't get dropped for something else a few years down the road. That will make a nice change!
MPEG2 compresses by a factor of about 5 to 10, while H.264 AVC compresses by a factor of about 20 to 30 and the subjective quality is better too, being not blocky.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I don't care if Flash is 50% faster than HTML5 video. I don't want the vulnerability-laden Flash on my primary OS just to watch a YouTube video. Period.
I don't know about him but I tried your link on my netbox, a 1.8GHz Sempron running XP Home, and it kept the CPU redlined while the video was a slideshow, even though the video was just a tiny slice on the screen, while only having two tabs open (this page and the video). Meanwhile Youtube H.264 in SD plays just fine full screen and plays nicely even with multiple tabs open.
Was that the point you were trying to make? Or was it that the link you provided was to a "better" HTML5 player? Because if I'm gonna have to fire up my quad just to watch a video in HTML5 I'll stick with Flash, thanks anyway. I can always slap a cheap 4650 into the AGP slot if I want to get HD on this single core PC, thanks to hardware acceleration. Can I do that with HTML5?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Playing the video on my MacBook Pro resulting in Safari going from 5% of CPU to 20%. Clearly, YMMV.