That’s right you can now watch YouTube videos without using the flash plugin.
YouTube has an opt-in beta program for an HTML5 Video Player. It’s not great right now but it’s nice to see we are getting there.
HTML5
First things first. So what is this HTML5 thing?
Basically HTML5 is a new version of HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 that aims to enable web developers to provide rich web applications without the need of plug-ins such as Adobe’s Flash or Microsoft’s SilverLight.
For instance it allows a website such as YouTube to show videos without using Flash.
This description is intentionally brief as it is no the aim of this post to discuss HTML5 in detail. For more information you can start by reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5
My Experience
As I said there’s a beta to try the HTML5 version of YouTube. There are currently some limitations as it’s stated on their site:
- Videos with ads are not supported (they will play in the Flash player)
- Fullscreen is not supported
- If you’ve opted in to other testtube experiments, you may not get the HTML5 player (Feather is supported, though
YouTube HTML5 Loading Screen
Other things noticeable are that the controls are different and when playing it doesn’t show the download progress.
One thing that I didn’t like is that the video does not run very smoothly and the quality is not very good either. But, it’s a beta after all.
On the bright side the CPU usage is way lower than that with Flash. So, when everything is ready this will be definitely my preferred way of watching YouTube videos!
No a little video quality comparison.
Note that the screenshot are taken from the same video and the same browser and at the same point in the video (or close enough). The only difference is that ones uses the HTML5 Player and the other Flash.
YouTube Video - HTML5 Player
YouTube Video - Flash Player
Now if you want to try ir for yourself just go to: http://www.youtube.com/html5 and select the beta from the bottom.
Enjoy!
