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."

Comments

GPU acceleration and Opera

[sopssa]

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.

Re:GPU acceleration and Opera

[shutdown -p now]

Well, I can't speak for Google, but Apple was one of three companies (two others being Mozilla and Opera) which founded WHATWG, thus putting a start to HTML5 development.

Also, it doesn't make sense for them to "comply with the standard" when there's no standard yet. As it is, both Google and Apple (and others) are writing the standard, and implementing the current drafts. Google also provides HTML5 beta of YouTube. If, as you say, there is no real business case for them to promote HTML5, they wouldn't do either thing.

The reason why Google touts Flash support in Android at the same time is because Flash is still relevant today, and because this is a major competitive advantage that Android has over iPhone. It would be foolish of them not to raise that point.

Re:GPU acceleration and Opera

[Aladrin]

So they're saying that when Flash isn't -doing- anything, it still sucks down 12% of the CPU. Yeah, that's awesome! Whoo!

They're also saying that With Flash using the GPU to the hilt, and HTML 5 not, they use about the same CPU.

Seriously, these are not impressive numbers.

Re:GPU acceleration and Opera

[PopeRatzo]

I favor HTML5, because it is "open", and people can manage their own risk.

Most people can't manage their own desktop, how they gonna manage their own risk?

Re:GPU acceleration and Opera

[IntlHarvester]

I wasn't particularly impressed with the Youtube HTML5 beta (using Chrome) and ended up opting out. Playback wasn't very smooth, the video controls are slightly buggy, and HD videos seemed to take more time buffering. As of right now, the Flash player provides a far better experience.

(And Youtube's player controls are probably far better than anything the average developer could come up with.)

Internet nerds are predicting that HTML5 will be the death of Flash Video, but IMO it still looks like it has a long way to go.

Re:GPU acceleration and Opera

[nahdude812]

In the mean time, Mozilla has stated that they're unable to ship H.264 as part of Firefox. H.264 has patent and licensing issues associated with it.

Your choices are still 1) create content once for a ubiquitous platform available absolutely everywhere except Apple embedded devices (where Apple chooses for you that you don't have access to it), or 2) create content multiple times in multiple formats, falling back on browser sniffing and other skulduggery, plus having to test on a variety of different platforms, then going ahead and creating the #1 version anyway since there are still people you can't reach without this no matter how hard you try.

HTML5 is the right direction. But it is a long, long way from mature. There isn't a single ubiquitous codec even when your users support the fledgling standard otherwise. Until then, Flash is still the right choice for all but technical purists, both for video, and for absolutely everything else Flash offers (including feature domain HTML5 doesn't cover even in draft).

Re:GPU acceleration and Opera

[Runaway1956]

Super cookies, yes. Maybe you have some? Read:

http://www.imasuper.com/66/technology/flash-cookies-the-silent-privacy-killer/

http://www.fightidentitytheft.com/blog/new-breed-super-cookie-defies-removal-almost

http://lifehacker.com/5245418/betterprivacy-prevents-tracking-by-flash-other-super+cookies

In short, if you don't know any better, Adobe enables web sites to install a cookie that your browser doesn't even know about, let alone manage. And, those cookies persist forever, tracking anything that the website chooses to track.

How much of a perfomance hit for open standards?

[symbolset]

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.

This is early days for the video tag

[javilon]

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.

Re:This is early days for the video tag

[sopssa]

Actually, GPU acceleration is why Theora is losing to H.264 again. H.264 can be already hardware accelerated in almost every device from PC's to mobile phones. But Theora doesn't have such support.

Re:This is early days for the video tag

[dingen]

Maybe not on a PC, but in a handheld device you really can't let the CPU do the decoding. You simply can't get the 10 hours (or so) of video playback on a phone that way with today's chips and batteries. A dedicated video decoding chip is the only option for such devices and right now, a chip for decoding MP4/H264 is already present in most systems.

Re:This is early days for the video tag

[BeardedChimp]

Many system on chips such as the omap3530 have a dsp. These are general purpose and for example the omap3530 can do 720p h264 and mpeg4 decoding.
However adding theora or vp8/6 decoding is a matter of writing a codec for the dsp as opposed to having to create a whole new decoder chip.
Devices that use something similar could add this functionality through patching even after either vp6/8 or theora get some support.

Let's wait and see

[oljanx]

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.

Honestly

[trifish]

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.

Re:Not a crap article

[TheRaven64]

It's not quite true on OS X. There is a standard way of playing back H.264 using hardware acceleration: use QuickTime. Adobe can't use this because they ship their own H.264 implementation (which is slower than the QuickTime one and ffmpeg), rather than using the supplied one. There aren't hooks for adding GPU acceleration to arbitrary CODECs, unless you use OpenCL, but there are APIs for playing back H.264.