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Adobe Releases Its Own HTML5 Video Player
An anonymous reader writes "Webmonkey has an interesting tidbit about Adobe's release of its own HTML5 video player: 'Adobe has released an embeddable video player that plays HTML5 native video in browsers that support it, and falls back to Flash in browsers that don't. It's cross-browser and cross-platform, so it works on iPhones, iPads and other devices that don't support Flash. Using Adobe's new player, these devices can show videos in web pages without the Flash plug-in.'"
So does anyone have an actual link to an example of the player? That seems like a rather blatant omission from the article.
So where's the link to the source code? I'd like to compile and test this video player.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
A browser plugin designed to play embedded HTML5 video
HTML5 video, whose selling point is to provide video without the need for a browser plugin
I think this just about tops MS and their opaque-binary embedded XML
It will let you view GIFs, JPEGs and PNGs on any page you visit.
I don't understand how this makes tactical sense for Adobe. They've been leaning heavily on their talking points that "80% of online video is in Flash format" and that Apple is depriving their customers by sticking with HTML5 (and not flash). I think there was even a fear that Adobe would jump into the working group and delay HTML5 just to protect Flash. If Adobe is supposedly king of the hill, why would they cede turf by moving towards HTML5? It can't be just to be more buzzword-compliant.
This is good an all, but it doesn't address the biggest issues with Flash:
1) Adobe (and Macromedia before it) give virtually NO control to the end user over how flash objects run. You can't stop them, you can't pause them, you can't unload them, nothing. Technically you can control if they store local shared objects (LSOs) on your machine but the interface for that is terrible. Half the time the pop-up window it prompts with can't even be accessed because of various z-index issues on the page. That is you can't even click the button.
2) It is a CPU hog. Forget the fact that its inherent performance isn't great. The issue is that if you browse the web for any length of time and have multiple tabs open you'll find that your Flash plug-in is taking up all your cpu (or a whole core). Why? because there are all sorts of little flash movies playing in all the pages. Mostly Ads but also paused video players, random web bugs and such. Plus, some of these random are poorly written and have memory leaks. Thus BECAUSE Adobe gives the user no control, you have to just kill the plugin.
Instead of trying to horn in on HTML5 maybe they should fix the fact that Flash is the SPAM of the web. (And yes, Flash itself could be fine... but the business practices they've chose to pursue make it a scourge rather than a blessing).
FlashBlock.. Only play the flash that you want to play. no more cpu hogging!
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Nearly everyone seems to be missing the point to this. It's not something the user installs, it's something that content providers use to provide their video on the server side. This is a GOOD THING - it makes it much easier for websites to transition to HTML5 without alienating users who don't have HTML5-capable browsers.
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
I think his point is - fix the product you have, rather than create something new.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I should have known Adobe wasn't really going to embed videos without requiring viewers to install proprietary plugins. After all, people wouldn't have any reason to use Flash anymore if they did.
It's cross-browser and cross-platform, so it works on iPhones, iPads and other devices that don't support Flash.
It would be more accurate to say that iPhones and iPads don't permit Flash. Adobe would be more than happy to support Flash on those platforms -- and probably has code ready to go -- if Apple allowed them to deploy it. The difference is significant and should not be ignored: Flash doesn't work on iDevices because Apple doesn't want it to. It's a repeat of Microsoft's unofficial MSDOS-era policy, "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run," only much, much more brazen.
(Before we resurrect the flamewar about why Apple doesn't allow Flash on its iDevices, allow me to note that I detest Flash and understand Apple's objections, at least the technical ones. I just think that users should be allowed to use whatever software they want on the devices that they've paid for, no matter how much it sucks.)
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
The problem with your code is that content of the "embed" element. IE: You actually need to have created some .swf version of the video. It would be nice if you could just specify the video name and the client would either view it directly or - if it is not supported - convert it to flash and view it without you having to create a separate .swf file on the server.
If I understand TFA correctly, that's what this player does. Views the video as it should be done in HTML 5 but if that doesn't work, it is displayed automatically through Flash.
'nuff said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVnArp9ZE0