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Filed under: *VIDEO* •compression •Distribution •Mobile Devices •

Microsoft diplomatically backs Apple & Google’s position, favoring HTML5 and H.264

From my perspective, the issue began back in 2008, when I was inspired to write an article called Encoding web video in the age of the iPhone. Now, the situation has become as suspenseful as the final chapters of a Latin American telenovela. On April 5th, 2010, I published Tépper is glad that the iPad doesn’t support Flash. During the last week of April, Steve Jobs publishes his open letter about why he has disallowed Adobe’s Flash on all of Apple’s mobile devices, including iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Then Adobe refutes Steve Jobs’ statements in a video interview with the Wall Street Journal. Now, Microsoft diplomatically backs Apple’s and Google’s position with a blogpost by the Internet Explorer manager, stating that the future is indeed HTML5 and H.264, which has been my position since my original 2008 article. Ahead you’ll find links to all of the mentioned incidents.

• Article: Encoding web video in the age of the iPhone (2008, Allan Tépper)
• Article: Tépper is glad that the iPad doesn’t support Flash (April 5, 2010)
• Steve Jobs’ open letter: Thoughts on Flash (last week of April, 2010)
• Adobe CEO’s rebut-interview with the Wall Street Journal(April 29, 2010)
• Microsoft’s blogpost HTML5, which backs Apple’s and Google’s position (April 29, 2010)

My seminars and webinars will continue to show the best ways to encode and embed content in such a way that it is both compatible with HTML5, yet with automatic fallback for older browsers.

Allan Tépper’s articles, seminars, and audio programs

Get a full index of Allan Tépper’s articles and upcoming seminars and webinars at AllanTepper.com. Listen to his radio program TecnoTur, which is now available both in Castilian and in English, free of charge. Search for TecnoTur in iTunes or visit TecnoTur.us for more information.

Disclosure, to comply with the FTC’s rules

None of the manufacturers listed in this article is paying Allan Tépper or TecnoTur LLC specifically to write this article. Some of the manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. At the date of the publication of this article, none of the manufacturers listed above are sponsors of the TecnoTur programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are (or have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine.

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I think you’re overselling HTML 5 and H.264 without pointing out the fact that much of the current hardware struggles with HD H.264 playback. Yes, it may be the “future” but the future is not here and the tech world for people creating content, this is key. Flash is installed on way, way more devices than reliable H.264 playback engines today. So you if want to be sure your video will play on the most browsers, a medium rez flash video is the best choice, today.

And H.264 is not anopen format either - it’s licensed, patented tech. So by “future” we don’t know yet if that’s the long-term future or not. And, although I don’t love Flash either (the app or the media), Steve Job’s ridiculous posturing is provoking a developer and industry backlash that may bring other things to forefront.

If I were a betting man, I would venture that what Android/Chrome decides is the standard will win. I think the iPhone/iPad OS vs. Android is starting to resemble the Apple OS vs Win 3.1 war or beta vs VHS.

We all know who won those.

Posted by stephen v2  on  05/01  at  10:25 AM

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Stephen,

Please re-read the last sentence:

“My seminars and webinars will continue to show the best ways to encode and embed content in such a way that it is both compatible with HTML5, yet with automatic fallback for older browsers.”

When it falls back, it falls back with H.264 embedded in Flash. This is to achieve backward compatibility with the past. Android/Chrome already support H.264.

Allan Tépper

Posted by Allan Tépper  on  05/01  at  10:29 AM

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Thanks for the clarification but still, H.264 embedded in Flash can still hit CPU usage hard, so I’m not sure that’s the best solution for ubiquitous playback today. For HD content, perhaps, but since I encode a lot of HD for the web in various formats, I think HTML 5 (which is really vaporware still) and H.264 are not the holy grail for web video.

I’m aware of Androids support for H.264 but I’ve noted Google’s recent moves http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-04-14-n44.html

I think it’s important that this be part of the discussion. Any smart content creator and distributor should be aware that H.264 is not yet crowned as the gold standard for future online video.

Posted by stephen v2  on  05/01  at  10:51 AM

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Talk about “Steve Jobs’ ridiculous posturing…”

http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2010/04/30/30gigaom-apple-may-be-gunning-for-open-source-codecs-27016.html

Posted by wsmith  on  05/03  at  08:13 AM

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I wonder is Apple secretly had anything to do with developing this utility. It’s called “BashFlash” and it “stops Flash dead in its tracks” to preserve battery life in portables. I suppose some would prefer to bash Flash rather than just uninstall it.

http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1739473&tag=nl.e530

Posted by wsmith  on  05/07  at  03:28 PM

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