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HTML video
HTML video is a subject of the HTML specification as the standard way of playing video via the web. Introduced in HTML5, it is designed to partially replace the object element and the previous de facto standard of using the proprietary Adobe Flash plugin, though early adoption was hampered by lack of agreement as to which video coding formats and audio coding formats should be supported in web browsers. As of 2020, HTML video is the only widely supported video playback technology in modern browsers, with the Flash plugin being phased out.
The <video> element started being discussed by the WHATWG in October 2006. The <video> element was proposed by Opera Software in February 2007. Opera also released a preview build that was showcased the same day, and a manifesto that called for video to become a first-class citizen of the web.
The following HTML code fragment will embed a WebM video into a web page.
The "controls" attribute enables the browser's own user interface for controlling playback. Alternatively, playback can be controlled with JavaScript, which the web designer can use to create a custom user interface. The optional "poster" attribute specifies an image to show in the video's place before playback is started. Its purpose is to be representative of the video.
Video format support varies among browsers (see below), so a web page can provide video in multiple formats. For other features, browser sniffing is used sometimes, which may be error-prone: any web developer's knowledge of browsers will inevitably be incomplete or not up-to-date. The browser in question "knows best" what formats it can use. The "video" element supports fallback through specification of multiple sources. Using any number of <source> elements, as shown below, the browser will choose automatically which file to download. Alternatively, the JavaScript canPlayType() function can be used to achieve the same. The "type" attribute specifies the MIME type and possibly a list of codecs, which helps the browser to determine whether it can decode the file without beginning to download it. The MIME type denotes the container format of the file, and the container format defines the interpretation of the codec string.
The HTML specification does not specify which video and audio formats browsers should support. User agents are free to support any video formats they feel are appropriate, but content authors cannot assume that any video will be accessible by all complying user agents, since user agents have no minimal set of video and audio formats to support.
The HTML5 Working Group considered it desirable to specify at least one video format which all user agents (browsers) should support. The ideal format in this regard would:
Initially, Ogg Theora was the recommended standard video format in HTML5, because it was not affected by any known patents. But on 10 December 2007, the HTML5 specification was updated, replacing the reference to concrete formats:
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HTML video AI simulator
(@HTML video_simulator)
HTML video
HTML video is a subject of the HTML specification as the standard way of playing video via the web. Introduced in HTML5, it is designed to partially replace the object element and the previous de facto standard of using the proprietary Adobe Flash plugin, though early adoption was hampered by lack of agreement as to which video coding formats and audio coding formats should be supported in web browsers. As of 2020, HTML video is the only widely supported video playback technology in modern browsers, with the Flash plugin being phased out.
The <video> element started being discussed by the WHATWG in October 2006. The <video> element was proposed by Opera Software in February 2007. Opera also released a preview build that was showcased the same day, and a manifesto that called for video to become a first-class citizen of the web.
The following HTML code fragment will embed a WebM video into a web page.
The "controls" attribute enables the browser's own user interface for controlling playback. Alternatively, playback can be controlled with JavaScript, which the web designer can use to create a custom user interface. The optional "poster" attribute specifies an image to show in the video's place before playback is started. Its purpose is to be representative of the video.
Video format support varies among browsers (see below), so a web page can provide video in multiple formats. For other features, browser sniffing is used sometimes, which may be error-prone: any web developer's knowledge of browsers will inevitably be incomplete or not up-to-date. The browser in question "knows best" what formats it can use. The "video" element supports fallback through specification of multiple sources. Using any number of <source> elements, as shown below, the browser will choose automatically which file to download. Alternatively, the JavaScript canPlayType() function can be used to achieve the same. The "type" attribute specifies the MIME type and possibly a list of codecs, which helps the browser to determine whether it can decode the file without beginning to download it. The MIME type denotes the container format of the file, and the container format defines the interpretation of the codec string.
The HTML specification does not specify which video and audio formats browsers should support. User agents are free to support any video formats they feel are appropriate, but content authors cannot assume that any video will be accessible by all complying user agents, since user agents have no minimal set of video and audio formats to support.
The HTML5 Working Group considered it desirable to specify at least one video format which all user agents (browsers) should support. The ideal format in this regard would:
Initially, Ogg Theora was the recommended standard video format in HTML5, because it was not affected by any known patents. But on 10 December 2007, the HTML5 specification was updated, replacing the reference to concrete formats: