Skip to main content

HTML5 Video Tag Codec Support

By Will Beattie

 

Recently there was a question asked over on Stackoverflow.com regarding best practices around H.264 and the Video Tag.
The answer with the most votes has IMO provided an inadequate solution and I thought I would take the time to clear this up with a new post.

Unfortunately and to the frustration of developers that deal with Video content, HTML 5 has dropped the Codec as part of the specification leaving the Browser vendors to implement whatever they want.
However the consensus is to use H.264 with even Microsoft adopting this for the forthcoming Internet Explorer 9.

Here’s how it stacks in terms of browser support as of writing.

Browser H.264 Ogg Theora
Google Chrome Yes Yes
Firefox No Yes
Safari Yes No
IE9 Yes No
Opera No Yes

H.264 Only – Chrome, Safari & IE9

If you see this your browser does not support H.264

<video width="480" height="360" preload autobuffer controls>
    <source src="http://blog.willbeattie.net.s3.amazonaws.com/framecount.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
    <p>If you see this your browser does not support H.264</p>
</video>

If you view this on Firefox you will see that their implementation does not ignore the Video tag and display the paragraph tag, instead it shows show the big X.

Ogg Theora Only – Firefox, Opera, Chrome

If you see this your browser does not support Ogg Theora

<video width="480" height="360" preload autobuffer controls>
    <source src="http://blog.willbeattie.net.s3.amazonaws.com/framecount.ogv" type="video/ogg" />
    <p>If you see this your browser does not support Ogg Theora</p>
</video>

H.264 & Ogg Theroa – Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera & IE9

If you see this your browser does not support H.264 or Ogg Theora

<video width="480" height="360" preload autobuffer controls>
    <source src="http://blog.willbeattie.net.s3.amazonaws.com/framecount.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
    <source src="http://blog.willbeattie.net.s3.amazonaws.com/framecount.ogv" type="video/ogg" />
    <p>If you see this your browser does not support H.264 or Ogg Theora</p>
</video>

If you view this page on all of the aforementioned browsers you will notice that the current Video tag implementations are not very helpful to developers. The ideal would be that the Browser detects the Codec that they don’t support and then fallback to whatever is in the Video tag.

Now if you are just displaying video content then this doesn’t pose too much of a problem as you can just support a single codec and then fallback to a plug-in based media player of your choice. However if you want to start implementing features using Canvas then this becomes a major roadblock.

The only solution right now is to have an H.264 version and an Ogg Theora version of the same video which is a real PITA especially if you have thousands if not millions of videos to deal with.

If you do go the route of converting all your videos from H.264 to Ogg Theora then I’d recommended using the FFMpeg2Theora convertor as it’s very easy to use.

Hope this clarifies some of the challenges presented when dealing with Video content using HTML5.

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Freeing Disk Space on C:\ Windows Server 2008

By Will Beattie
  I just spent the last little while trying to clear space on our servers in order to install .NET 4.5 . Decided to post so my future self can find the information when I next have to do this. I performed all the usual tasks: Deleting any files/folders from C:\windows\temp and C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Temp Delete all EventViewer logs Save to another Disk if you want to keep them Remove any unused programs, e.g. Firefox Remove anything in C:\inetpub\logs Remove any file/folders C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles Remove any file/folders from C:\Users\%UserName%\Downloads Remove any file/folders able to be removed from C:\Users\%UserName%\Desktop Remove any file/folders able to be removed from C:\Users\%UserName%\My Documents Stop Windows Update service and remove all files/folders from C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution Deleting an Event Logs Run COMPCLN.exe Move the Virtual Memory file to another disk However this wasn’t enough & I found the most space...
Read more

ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate - Upgrade issues - Spec#

By
First of all, great news that the ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate has finally been released.  Full credit to the team for the hard work on this.  You can get the download here  However this is the first time I have had upgrade issues.  Phil Haack has noted some of the issues here   If like me you have lot's of CTP's and Add-Ins then you might experience some pain in Uninstalling MVC Beta on Vista SP1  This is the list of Add-Ins / CTP's I had to uninstall to get it to work  Spec# PEX Resharper 4.1  Sourcelinks ANTS Profiler 4   Can't say I'm too impressed as it wasted over an hour of my time.  As it turned out Spec# turned out to be the offending culprit, it's forgiveable to have issues with a third party product but a Microsoft one? Guess no-one on the ASP.NET team has Spec# installed. 
Read more

CPF Contribution Rates for new Singapore Permanent Residents (SPR’s)

By Will Beattie
Recently my wife and I applied and got approved for Singapore Permanent Residency. After completing the formalities the most significant immediate change is the contribution to CPF which is Singapore’s mandatory social security savings scheme requiring contributions from employers and employees. CPF contributions start from the date you obtain SPR status, which is the date of the entry permit.   Being a relentless budgeter I needed to know exactly how much I and my employer would have to contribute so that I could adjust my budget accordingly as the employee contributions get deducted from the monthly salary. After doing some research I discovered that there is a “graduated” approach to CPF contributions for new SPR’s where the contributions gradually increase in the first and second year and then upon reaching the third year are at the full amount. Note: There is an option for employers to contribute the full amount for year 1 and year 2 and the employee can use the gra...
Read more