YouTube Moving to Open Formats? | Hacker News Reader

YouTube Moving to Open Formats?

thechromesource.com

16 pointsdcawrey6 comments

I've just upgraded to FF3.5 and dailymotion.com was featured on the welcome page, I've checked the dailymotion.com and it was cool except one seemingly buggy video on the main gage (the one in which people are saying welcome to FF in their native languages) I must say,the results are very fine and promising, but I think the MOST important aspect of HTML 5 is not the end-results we see on web pages but the convenience it offers to the web app developers.

I firmly believe that HTML 5 is the only way to go for the web developers. It's like the declaration of independence from abuse-prone and CPU-eater Flash applications, finally.

Still hoping Google's acquisition of On2 means the VP* series of codecs is coming to HTML 5 royalty free.

The real question is: why?

Besides being free of Flash, there aren't a lot of benefits that will result in a better end-user experience or competitive advantage. The only thing I could think of is trying to get away from H264, which could present some licensing issues at the end of the year.

That's right: There will not be many benefits on the user experience side. But there will be a remarkable amount of benefit on the developer's side, I estimate. And it's not just the <video> I'm talking about. In the long run, the front-end as a whole will benefit greatly from the easy addibility of visual, audio and video elements into the web pages. It might offer competitive advantages to those who will make use of it efficiently. How many times have I heard that smart question: "hmm but can you make Flash apps?" Flash has been the only way to design the so called "rich Internet applications" and I've been rejecting to learn Flash for years with an expectation that something better would come up, and that thing has finally come up. JavaScript yes, ActionScript no, thanks.

Check into it more. The tagging, alone....

Well yes and no. While you won't be locked into Flash, HTML5 still doesn't give you all the same benefits and features so you're stuck with a weird middle ground that benefits nobody. As a result, I think most developers will stick with Flash.

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