Why HTML5 Video Won't Replace Flash
I work for a company that makes its money sticking ads in online videos. In the past we've always done this with Flash, integrating our ad system with our custom Flash player or 3rd party Flash players. Now that the iPad is out, and it's more clear then ever that Apple will never support Flash, I've been tasked with building a proof of concept HTML5 player.
Everyone Loves HTML5 Video...Well Almost Everyone...
As a user I love HTML5 video. As a developer I love HTML5 video. You know who doesn't love HTML5 video? Premium content providers. That's a fancy way of saying ABC, NBC, Hulu, Netflix...basically all the people who make and distribute video in a class above "guy getting hit in crouch". You know why?
That's the menu that pops up when you right click on an HTML5 video in Chrome. You see the option "Save video as..."? Two clicks and the original video is downloaded. Firefox has a similar option. As my mentor D. Vader would say: "All too easy".
That's Not What I Get When I Right Click In YouTube
YouTube tries to prevent this by overlaying a div over the video element with the class "video-blocker". When you right click you get the normal browser context menu instead of the HTML5 video context menu. This is like sites that try to block an image from being saved. It's stupid and easy to overcome.
This is also the reason that the YouTube html5 pages states:
This is an opt-in experiment for HTML5 support on YouTube. If you are using a supported browser, you can choose to use the HTML5 player instead of the Flash player for most videos.
The premium videos on YouTube - Flash only. It's just too easy to download the content directly with HTML5. This is why you will NEVER EVER see a Hulu HTML5 player or a Netflix HTML5 player (I know Netflix is Silverlight, but for the purposes of this post it's in the same league as Flash).
This isn't even bringing up how you can't truly disable the scrubber (the progress bar), which makes skipping commercials a breeze. Oh "27 seconds until my show resumes"? Thanks, now I know how far to drag forward.
Why HTML5 Video is Bad for the Internet
Where this really sucks is when companies don't include Flash support because they believe everything will be HTML5 in a few years. Yes, I'm talking about Apple and no I don't actually believe this is why they don't have Flash support, but I've seen enough posts that claim Apple is so forward thinking they wouldn't waste time with a dinosaur like Flash.
More likely Steve Jobs and Joe Adobe were at a bar in the '70s and Joe Adobe picked up some chick over Jobs and he's been bitter ever since. Actually if Apple ever announced this was the real reason for not supporting Flash I think we would all understand and side with Apple.
Apple Is A Big Fucking Deal
Apple is a big fucking deal, so they can say "suck it Flash" and get away with it. The premium content providers will jump through the hoops of making custom players (apps) in the programming languages they're told to use and distribute them only though the all mighty iTunes birth canal. Who get's screwed in this arrangement? Content providers not big enough to build their own apps and content providers who can't get the keys to the iTunes chastity belt. The latter is referring to the porn industry. And frankly Jobs I would stop antagonizing the porn industry. They will wreck you.
We're Screwed Here Too
Who else is screwed (even though they don't know it)? The user (that's you). Now every time you want to watch a video that isn't a sneezing panda you have to download and install an app. In a strange way this is actually a feature, since iPad/iPhone users love their apps. "Look at me. My iPad is 75 apps long". Hell Apple even rolled a whole ad campaign around this. Want to watch an ABC video? There's an app for that. Want to watch a movie on Netflix? There's an app for that. Unfortunately that app isn't "browser".
This also works because there are like 3 premium content providers people give a shit about (Hulu, Netflix, ABC). But now imagine if the video hosting sites get gun shy for HTML5 because of how easy it is to grab the videos. This isn't a stretch - look at the bullshit YouTube is pulling. There are like a million of these sites. Now everytime you want to watch a homemade instructional video on how to wield a lightsaber you have to install another propietary app. Is this really better then Flash? At least you already have that installed.
Really the best case scenario for an HTML5 world is:
| Desktop | Mobile/Tablet | |
| Crotch Slam Videos | HTML5 | HTML5 |
| Quality TV/Movies/Porn | Flash | Proprietary app - if you're lucky |
I don't know about you, but I'm not really excited about that world. What about a world where HTML5 video doesn't exist? Maybe Apple (seers of all that is to come) realize that they have to support Flash and we end up like this:
| Desktop | Mobile/Tablet | |
| Crotch Slam Videos | Flash | Flash |
| Quality TV/Movies/Porn | Flash | Flash (ok, I don't even believe that). Proprietary App. |
I hate Flash banners, Flash landing pages, Flash widgets, Flash photo galleries and all the rest. Flash Video though, yeah, it has issues, but it also kinda works. HTML5 is better, but it's just not gonna kill off flash. HTML5 > Flash > Proprietary App. I wish it was the last one we were killing off, but instead it's growing.
32 Comments
It seems all you go around is some kind of copy protection which goes on in the world since early cassette recorders. And it's silly, because there is always a way to copy. Producers and content providers need start to understand that when I can see it, I have it. Period.
Therefore HTML 5 is far more honest. Content providers are afraid that someone could download the movie to watch it later or somehwere without an internet connection? Screw them.
There's also a big difference in right clicking and getting a mp4 (which will play almost anywhere) and having to install an addon and getting an flv which then has to be converted.
and it's as easy as going to keepvid and typing in the youtube url.
no it doesn't work for netflix and hulu.
Beyond that, what technical measures could flash possibly provide that can't be overcome with a client site extension? Because at that point, the play ground is level.
Regarding flash...I don't mean to harp on this, but with the Hulu/ABC level sites - point me to an extension or program that can download their programs. I don't think one currently exists. I'd love to be proven wrong.
Once we can effectively demonstrate that, the choice to go with HTML5 would hopefully be obvious (coupled with Felix's points about the possibilities of obfuscation... even running on the client side, there's a lot you can do there).
I'm not well-educated on the state of art in protecting streaming flash content, but the bottom line is: All the information necessary to decrypt & display the video stream is being send to the client. Getting those streams decoded is possible, and if it has not been done so far, than probably out of a lack of interest.
But you are right, the big content producers will prefer proprietary over open technology. Even if it is to their disadvantage. So your case for HTML5 facing some serious trouble in that regard are very legit.
I'm not sure how that battle will go down. I agree with you on the outlook for mobile (not much chance for html5 video), but in the browser it might just come down to user experience. Flash video (especially high quality flash video), performs horribly on what I usually think of as a freaking fast mac laptop. If HTML5 performs better, users will prefer sites that offer, causing content providers to consider it more closely.
We shall see.
--fg
I run 1080p videos on my nvidia ion netbook and guess what it freaking runs great and im sure my netbook is far more underpowered then your mac.
Flash has been performing terribly on the Mac since the "classic" days. Flash for the Mac was sucking before we had dedicated graphics hardware to accelerate it.
For that matter, does Flash on the Mac crash 3 times a days because Apple doesn't provide Adobe with APIs that let you write software that doesn't crash?
It's pretty clear that the makers of Flash have never cared about making Flash on the Mac a good experience -- just a barely passable one.
Through the years there have been so many attempts to prevent people from copying cassettes, ripping CDs, ripping DVDs, downloading images, copying software, printing web pages, downloading videos... I wonder what would happen if those companies put the same effort in finding ways to earn money without frustrating their users.
The third one down gives me this tool: http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=save+hulu+video
I have not tried it, but it claims to be able to save Hulu streams with little to no effort involved. Comes in OS X (Intel & PPC) and Windows flavours.
Don't underestimate the amount of effort that will go into getting past obfuscated/protected content.
1) People asking how.
2) Methods that stopped working around the beginning of 2009, which is when Hulu/ABC/the rest all changed their format.
The mp4kits stuff all seems kinda old - pre switch over.
Apple creates their own video wrapper technology, and/or Silverlight spreads across the market, infiltrating the Flash market and taking control (I've heard Silverlight has a better chance of making it to Apple mobile products before Flash does).
There seems to be more thought and effort being put behind killing flash than killing IE these days. It's rather disturbing, tbh.
I haven't tested it, though.
Sure, it's a dream for most people (so we don't have to screw around with a 3rd party downloader), but why would the developers of HTML5 even put that option so blatantly there, knowing all these companies hate that?
I mean, it's almost like creating a DVD with an option in the DVD menu to "Rip this DVD to hard disk". Sounds too good to be true.
I work for a real huge content provider.
We are using HTML5 for a new key site.
-Matt
matt@pseudocoder.com
Most of the people arguing in favor of rapid HTML5 video adoption almost universally fall into one of four camps:
Mac users who insist Flash plays badly with their computer/iDevice, or simply heard Steve Jobs trashing Flash and jumped on the bandwagon. As an avid mac user myself, I find their position ridiculous. If Flash doesn't work well with macs, and Apple is "all about the user experience," then why havent they actively worked with Adobe to improve the Flash experience on their devices? Flash is a mostly pleasant experience on Windows, so at least some of the performance blame lies with Apple, but you'll never hear Apple fans admit this.
The tech enthusiasts who seem to think that "new" always equals "better." they love HtML5 because it's new and cool, but care little about the actual issue of implementation. They just want what they want, and now.
Advocates of the "open web" insist that Flash is a closed platform and therefore shouldn't be so widely used. But with HTML5 video, all of the power is merely shifted, not removed. Delivery (i.e. The playback component) will be purely on the shoulders of browser developers who will have few incentives to drive online video beyond a "good enough" state. Third party devs, including open source projects, will have no place at the table because the foundation of HTML5 video is native playback without add-ons or plugins. My opinion, web video will stagnate. Open web proponents also need to closely examine the power they are willfullly handing over to the MPEG-LA patent pool - sure there will be a few alternatives like WebM, but the natural order of things suggests that h.264 will come to totally dominate web video, and we're right back at the core of Open Web advocates' complaint - a single patented technology dominating the web.
The third group seems to be those who expect everything for free or, at the very least, are unwilling to even consider the needs of content providers. Many of the posts in this very thread typify that attitude. Needless to say this attitude is so short sighted and simplistic that it doesn't even warrant a seat at the adult table. Content providers hold all of the power here, and are not likely to adopt a standard that erodes (or eliminates) their ability to make a return on investment.
In short, as a video provider I've looked very closely at these debates and the options before us, and there is no question that HTML5 video will not be an option for most content providers. Over time the spec may be expanded to include better protection, or third party options may emerge. But even with adequate protections we are right back to 1999 - a dozen browsers with as many different implementations of so-called standards, all of whom are moving at a snail's pace toward any progress. Pugins mitigated this, hence the rise of Flash. Many of the HTML5 proponents are either ignoring this, are too young to remember the early web days or simply never have paid enough attention to the issue to understand its complexities.
And another copy protection mechanism Flash currently has is that you can store the video file above the web root, so there's literally no way to directly access the video file - the *only* way is to get it from the cache.
I wonder how/if HTML5 would be able to offer similar copy protection.