Videos Are About to Change (Second Time Lucky)

Long time ago the way videos are presented in this blog were about to change. I was going to replace my useful flash flowplayer with the new HTML5 video tag. I changed my mind because video were not supported in any stable IE and there was some warfare about the supported codecs in the rest of the browsers.

At the same time I published that entry google made public the WEBM video+audio format, they created a webm project and since then the new codec has been quickly adopted by browsers. Only IE and Safari do not support WEBM by default, but this time google solved the issue announcing plugins for both OS integrated browsers (they are in a very early stage). Microsoft IE9 was released to the public in march of this year, with a lot of the new HTML5 features (included video and audio support). Iceweasel testing package was upgraded to 5.0 last week in Debian (the browser was still at 3.5 version before). Therefore all my requisites to trigger HTML5 solutions are accomplished and there is no reason to not change my videos.

From now on the videos are going to be presented using the video tag and only in WEBM format. Just like this:

<video src="out.webm" autobuffer controls>
  <img src="error.png" alt="Error!" />
  Your browser does not support the video tag. See this 
  <a href="/rickyepoderi/index.php?/archives/41-...">entry</a> 
  for more information about how to see the videos in this blog. 
  You can <a href="out.webm">download the file</a> instead.
</video>

And this is my last video in the new format just as an example (video used in Backing Up Data Into an Encrypted External Disk entry):

Your browser doesn't support the video tag. See this entry for more information about how to see the videos in this blog. You can download the file instead.

So maybe you have reached this post because you cannot see my videos. At this moment browser status about video and WEBM is the following:

• Firefox: Firefox supports both video and WEBM since 4.0 version.
• Chrome: Both are supported since 6.0.
• Opera: Video supported since 10.50, WEBM since 10.60.
• IE: IE9 supports video tag but WEBM is not a valid format out of the box. You need to install a plugin offered by the webm project. Remember that IE9 cannot be installed in Windows XP.
• Safari: Video is supported since 3.1 but again WEBM needs an external codec. Here there are two options, the plugin from google and perian, an open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats (it supports webm since 1.2.3). Some friends who have tested both solutions recommend the perian option (it seems perian is very common in the Mac world and google plugin gives some problems right now, sorry but I am not a mac guy).
• Others: If you are using any other browser you are a geek, so I hope that you know what you are doing and how to see an HTML5 video with WEBM format.

As a summary, in most cases if you cannot see the videos you only need to upgrade your browser to the last version. Besides if you are using Windows integrated IE9 or Mac OS integrated Safari you need to manually install a WEBM codec plugin (see previous links). Finally if you are using IE8 (or previous) in a Windows XP box I strongly advise you to change your browser for another one (please do not get stuck).

HTML5 is here! At least for my videos.

PS: Thanks to Luis who made some changes in the blog system installation to make this work (adding webm mimetype and IE9 compatibility meta tag). Thanks also to Jaime, Mariano, Nacho, Ramón and Victor (both) who tested the options in Mac OS / Safari.