If HTML5 aims to reduce the need for external plugins, how can different audio/video codecs work? [closed]

Closed. This question is off-topic. It is not currently accepting answers.

---

开发者_如何学C

Want to improve this question? Update the question so it's on-topic for Stack Overflow.

Closed 11 years ago.

Improve this question

I've noticed that one of HTML5's goals is to reduce the need for external plugins — Flash, for example. Considering that browsers would need external plugins to support many formats of video and audio as well, does that goal make sense?

Would the browsers be supposed to maintain the codecs without any external library? Would the codecs be embedded? Or is the main reason to avoid closed solutions like Flash?

---

I think the reason behind it is to open up as much of the web to as many devices as possible. External browser plugins prohibit this. I also think there's a general agreement among the browser developers and development community that we need to have easy, cross-platform, in-browser video & audio playing. It's no longer something that fringe sites are doing, it is a business necessity.

Will there be external browser plugins for playing video? Absolutely. But, a lot of video streaming services that are using Flash can start using HTML5 and open up their reach to more people. Particularly people on mobile devices. Which, let's face it, right now, regardless of your device of choice chokes hardcore on Flash. Mobile data and technology is the new in thing. There's a lot of money to be made in streaming video reliably over a strained network.

For example, the US government's streaming service of Congressional committee meetings currently runs Flash. This is a good example, in my opinion, of an existing video solution using Flash that should convert to HTML5. Or a system where Flash is a fallback solution.

This is a very contentious issue though. It is as much about opinion as it is fact...in my opinion.

---

Depends which standards group you ask.

WHATWG

The stated goal of the HTML5 being coordinated by the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group) is "Web Applications". The draft "living" standard covers a wide range of technologies beyond HTML itself.

The WHATWG, while open to any participants, is largely a Google initiative that started at a time where the W3C wasn't doing much with HTML5. Other prominent members are Apple, Opera and Mozilla. Notably absent - Microsoft. Given that group it seems clear to me that the "unofficial" goal of HTML5 is to enable products like Google Docs and make it harder for MS to monopolise web applications.

Officially:

The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) is a growing community of people interested in evolving the Web. It focuses primarily on the development of HTML and APIs needed for Web applications.

The WHATWG was founded by individuals of Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software in 2004, after a W3C workshop. Apple, Mozilla and Opera were becoming increasingly concerned about the W3C’s direction with XHTML, lack of interest in HTML and apparent disregard for the needs of real-world authors. So, in response, these organisations set out with a mission to address these concerns and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group was born.

W3C

If you asked the W3C though the primary goal of HTML5 would probably be "interoperability, accessability and openness" or something like that. Despite the claims of a lack of interest made by WHATWG the w3c has their own HTML5 working group and is currently making a last call to ratify a standard by 2014.

Officially:

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 325 organizations are Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide.

---

Yes, that is one of the criticisms of HTML5 is that it requires collaboration among browser technologies.

Google Chrome is already embedding many popular codecs.

The main reason is not to avoid closed solutions like the Flash Player (flex is open source, the player is not), the main reason is to create one open standard for development.

More info on their goals here:

http://www.w3.org/html/wiki/FAQs

---

Would the browsers be supposed to maintain the codecs without any external library? Would the codecs be embedded?

It’s up to the browsers what libraries they use, but yup, they’re expected to bundle whatever libraries or codecs they need to handle audio and video so that the user doesn’t have to install anything (like with images).

They’re not required to support any possible video format that authors might want to use though. (Just like they’re not required to display PhotoShop image files.)

There was a lot of discussion around choosing one video format for all browsers to implement (see http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html), but they couldn’t agree on one. (Standards aren‘t perfect.) Hence the HTML5 spec doesn’t mandate a particular format. But all browsers now support at least one video format natively, i.e. without the need for third-party plugins.

is the main reason to avoid closed solutions like Flash?

Possibly, although Opera and Microsoft are involved in the HTML5 standardisation effort, and their entire browsers are closed source. Bear in mind that web standards get made mostly by companies that make browsers — it’s not like there’s a completely independent standards body with a bias towards open-source that invents HTML5 and tells browser-makers what to do.

I believe Firefox refused to support H.264 because it’s not open-source, but equally Apple and Microsoft refused to support Ogg Theora because they thought the patent situation around it was too uncertain.