HTML5 Video Growth Explodes

By | October 27, 2010 | 14 Comments

HTML5 Video Growth Explodes

Today, MeFeedia has released an interesting piece of information.

By using data from more than 33 000 different publishers, they revealed what appears to be a pretty significant growth of HTML5 playback.

According to report, numbers have doubled in the last 5 months and as of October 2010, 54% of H.264 videos are now available for playback in HTML5.

54% of web video is now available for playback in HTML5. Double in 5 months.
Flash remains the dominant player within desktop environments.
Mobile is driving HTML5 video adoption. HTML5 compatible (H.264 mostly) video is the most common format for mobiles (inc. iPhone, iPad and Android).
Publishers & platforms now offer iframe embeds, allowing them to switch players dynamically, depending on the access device.


About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • roentgen

    Is this supposed to be good news? People jump from flash to H.264. And all that when webm is here for free.

    Quoting from Wikipedia: “The [H.264] license terms are updated in 5-year blocks.”

    Well, see you in 5 years then when they will virtually be in position to charge both end-users and software makers.

    • nobody

      problem with webm is that it has problems:
      – it is worse than h.264, and given that google closed the specs it will stay so.
      – it is a patent/licence timebomb – there are fragments of code in specs that were taken straight from h264 codebase, these codecs are VERY similar. not identical, but similar enough for lawyers to smell big money lawsuit
      – h264 has critical mass, great authoring tools built in into content creation workflows. webm on the other hand has cool name..

      this topic has been beaten to death. webm is worse than h264 and is an underdog. this is a reason why people stay away. end users do not care, and big businesses MUST be aware of potential licence issues with webm.

      h264 used with tag is a TOTAL FAILURE of what it was supposed to be :/ money, pragmatism and business won over ideals

      • roentgen

        About WebM I read very differently in these 2 wiki articles:
        - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebM
        - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP8

      • Geek

        come on nobody, stay on topics where you have some true knowledge, not only what you have read somewhere..
        first, if you are comparing h.264 and webm its absurd. webm consists of VP8 video and Vorbis audio streams, so you can only compare H.264 vs VP8 (
        second, h.264 also is a patent timebomb. On2 Technologies (VP8 creator) which was bought by Google, for sure have some essential patents in video compression area (they were working in that area for about 20 years). so h.264 vs webm should be a stalement situation regarding patents.
        third, how h.264 is worse? in video compression if you want to compare codecs, first you need 2 mature encoders for those codecs and VP8 still doesnt have one. also webm doesnt have to be BETTER than h.264 because webm is oriented into www space (look at the name), and for a long time internet connection wont be enough for HD videos everywhere.
        forth, h.264 have a critical mass, Google have Youtube, so Google have a power to turn EVERYTHING around if it would want to. If Google would choose to ban all other codecs from Youtube except webm, then this codec would very quickly gather critical mass.
        if everyone would think like you (oh, someone is in the lead, so i shouldnt try to change situation), we would still be living in stone age. Google have power (Youtube) and money to change everything, and the only question remains – will they choose this strategy or maybe current situation is more useful for them.
        and yes – this topic has been beaten to death but you were only reading h.264 side of this story. so should anyone be surprised? maybe not, after reading constantly your primitive raging at Opera

        • nobody

          another open source geek?

          h264 vs webm (cut the semantic-nazi crap, ok?) patent battle might be much more one-sided than what you’ve read. On2 ‘claims’ that they’ve did a lot to prevent patent lawsuits, and indeed they did a lot, but given how patent legislation works, in my opinion they did not do enough.

          MPEGLA needs not to hurry, they can take their time and wait for webm to gain a bit of momentum and then strike: more money, bigger damage.

          as for the quality, yes, it is a codec for www, but claiming it is ok for it to be significantly worse than h264 because of that is rather funny. you still watch SD version of youtube? you stream SD version of movies? you go to apple trailers and watch SD version of them? or rather not? and in these – still WWW, but yet fullHD – scenarios webm is worse visually and it is a big deal for some people.

          google has youtube, google has mountains of money, but that is not enough to force anything on the internet. web is fragmented, and if anyone can force anything in terms of codecs these are content providers like hollywood studios. if they want h264, it will be h264.

          it might be otherwise, but google closed the specs and this format is set in stone. there will probably never be GOOD encoder, because specs are lines of code you have to implement, it leaves almost no room for quality improvements. it might compress movies faster due to some optimization, but with quality i do not expect any serious improvements

          and final problem – what with hardware decoding support? h264, while decoded ‘on die’ does not strain cpu (battery life). webm has no hardware support yet, and while you want to watch it it is almost entirely cpu afair (and this eats lots of power compared to dedicated hw). it is a no go for mobile platforms.

          it is not that i like closed patented codec, i dont, but i also do not like rain and who cares? it will rain, and h264 will stay as a leader :/

          • geek

            wtf are you talking? WebM is a multimedia format and H.264 is standard of video compression. Do you compare Opera and V8? Oh look V8 is faster than Opera… IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE. Just admit that you dont know anything in video compression area, because know you look like a arrogant troll… But i guess its woulb be impossible for you. Obvious troll is obvious troll
            “given how patent legislation works, in my opinion they did not do enough” wtf are you talking about?? do you have any facts? its just speculations… nor i neither you know anything about the real situation, so just admit stalement situation. later if one side will start any action, we could see clearer picture, but now VP8 (WebM) and H.264 is the same potential patents bomb.
            “MPEGLA needs not to hurry” and Google too – if they would choose to push VP8 (WebM) on all fronts, then Google also would want to go on trial as late as possible because such cases will continue at least for a few years, and it would frighten potential adopters of VP8 (WebM)
            “google has youtube, google has mountains of money, but that is not enough to force anything on the internet”. 1. Google will offer Youtube videos only in WebM 2. hardware will adopt WebM acceleration (even iPhones, iPad and etc) 3. indie content providers will jump WebM ship. 4. most of remaining providers will jump WebM ship (the reason – just like with FF – open sources rules, lets promote this product. Not because its better but because its open source) 5. H.264 and VP8 (WebM) will coexist
            “VP8 bitstream is final, but some features of the WebM format are not yet complete. We expect to achieve better visual quality and performance in an official release soon while also doing a lot more testing”
            http://www.webmproject.org/code/roadmap
            Like i said – quality is enough for today web. For tomorrows web, Google could lunch updated WebM version, even with another name (WebHD). Possibilities is limitless if Google would choose such path. The most troublesome matter, that until now Google doesnt show any signs of aggresive WebM pushing. so you maybe be right – h.264 could stay a leader and webm will stay underdog because except Google i dont see any big corporations that would be interested in VP8 (WebM) adoption… Mozillas significance is droping fast..

  • RamaSubbu SK

    Most of these are YouTube change. YouTube is converting many of the videos uploaded to HTML5+H.264.

  • darklink88

    It’s sad to say this but only when porn sites will use html5 videos we will see the real growth of this new standard… think about VHS vs Betamax…it’s the same story! :-P

  • daddylo

    ’54% of H.264 videos are now available for playback in HTML5.’

    I doubt it .. I listen to most recent songs in youtube about like 10 nothing available in html5.
    Where do these people getting stats from ?

    • Ichann

      You need to sign up for the HTMl5 trial thing before you can view html5 videos.

      • Ichann

        Btw: its buggy as shit

      • daddylo

        Thanx ….

        What if I clean cookies .. do I have to sign up for it again ?
        I am not good with stuff that associated with google .. they are complicated .. at-least for me :(.

        • daddylo

          I can actually test that myself :). hehe I should stop being lazy …. lol.

  • jonny

    Geek I guess you know your math.
    But you should try to be more neutral in your forecast.
    You accuse people of having no clou and just speculating, but really you’re doing the same thing if you’re only seeing one side of the story.
    Don’t underestimate Steve Jobs, that’s happened many times before, and it worked in favor of Apple.
    In your analysis you logically speculated on google’s next steps to take vp8 to the next level.
    But you fail to do the same thing for Apple.
    They wont be just sitting on their hands doing nothing.
    Also you’re underestimating Apple’s influence as an orientation for others even when Apple isn’t the big dog in a certain market.
    Without the ipod mp3 might be obsolete today and we’d all be listening to atrac files..
    Gosh, without Ipod we might still be carrying around portable CD players :).
    Don’t get me wrong, I aint a fanboy, I dont own a single Apple device (to my knowledge).
    But it’s an interesting topic, and as such it should be evaluated from all angles on a neutral level and with less emotions.
    Maybe the outcome won’t be one or the other, but both will have their space.

    However in one point I really disagree with you.
    You say “and for a long time internet connection wont be enough for HD videos everywhere.”
    I don’t have specific numbers on how many people prefer HD videos over SD in online content, but as far as I can tell from the public numbers I know of about how fast the internet connection of internet users is around the world, playing online HD videos is no problem whatsoever almost everywhere.
    And it has been like this for quite some time already.
    I don’t know a single person who knows the difference who would not prefer HD video over SD video- and I don’t know a single person who doesn’t have an internet connection that isn’t able to stream HD videos.
    Since you were referring to youtube- 720p, 1080p, do you have any numbers on how many people aren’t able to stream that in full screen?
    It can’t be many people.
    I think you should avoid getting caught up in ideological confrontations with other commentators and instead focus on a neutral analysis.
    No offense, just sayin.
    Again this is an interesting topic, and it will be interesting to see what happens.

    In my eyes, obviously open source and licence free is always preferred.
    However in a bigger picture, google gaining more and more influence and having their hands in everything that happens in the web is contrary to the idea of open source if we’re thinking long term.
    Any factual monopoly is bad for competition, and what’s bad for competition is bad for evolution.
    So imo you can’t just see “oh it’s free and open source” you must also see who’s behind it, and with what interest and what are the long term effects.
    And the latter are huge and almost impossible to see in a whole.
    But one thing is for sure, if one big company has the control over big and relevant parts of the internet, it’s not in the interest of an open source fan.
    Just the fact that many of google’s services aren’t paid for directly by a single consumer doesn’t mean it’s free of charge and free of collateral damage after all.
    Google is not the salvation army, to say the least.
    I could elaborate on that forever, but I guess you can see yourself where I’m pointing at.
    Just think about how you don’t say, “I’m looking it up on the internet” let alone “I yahoo it”, but millions of people say “I google it”.
    It sounds abstract at first, but it gives and idea of what’s behind all of it.

«
»