It’s important to note that HTML5 video is not replacing Flash video on the web, but augmenting it; most HTML5 videos today are available through a universal embed code that auto-detects the device requesting the video and serves up the appropriate version. That means for most of these videos, there are at least two versions — one Flash and one HTML5 – stored online.

It’s not only HTML5-ready web browsers that are pushing the envelope; it’s a multitude of mobile devices, which have caused publishers to rethink the formats for delivering online videos. The biggest proponent in the move to HTML5 video has been Apple, which refused to support Adobe’s Flash on its iOS devices — including the iPhone and iPad — meaning that publishers that wanted to have videos on those devices would have to turn to standards-based, in-browser delivery.

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This small table, by molly.com shows some of the HTML 5 feature supports with Browser put against one another. A quick look tells that Safari is leading if it comes followed by Firefox (beloved). The third place has been grabbed by Chrome. Internet Explorer needless to say, comes last.

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One of the biggest developments in HTML 5 is how it affects multimedia presentations on the Internet. Most notably, the clumsy, encumbered, ‘Object’ tag has now been replaced with specific, orientated tags, such as ‘video’ and ‘audio’. These changes seem minor, but they allow the developer to add specific attributes for browser based multimedia processing. The vector processing, using the tag ‘canvas’, allows a developer to section off an area of the webpage in which pictures, animation, chart, games, and interactive elements can be directly coded, with no plug-ins required.

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The manner in which most videos are currently played through browsers these days is through a Flash plugin. This works pretty well but Flash unfortunately requires a lot of computing power. A new web standard HTML5 is trying to change that.

HTML5 has been designed with audio and video codecs which should take less processing power than an equivalent Flash player. Independent tests have shown that this is generally so although not entirely across the board. As with most new technologies, things are not always clearcut.

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In a few years, HTML 5 will enable viewing multimedia content without downloading extra software and checking e-mail offline and offer many other conveniences, The New York Times reported Sunday.

“It’s going to change everything about the Internet and the way we use it today,” said software developer James Cox.

But the improved hypertext markup language also will expose many more details about computer users’ online activities.

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When the W3C started working on HTML again in 2007, they posted a set of guiding principles for the new version, emphasizing compatibility, utility and interoperability. I’d like to highlight four of these principles that I think are especially important.

1. Support existing content
2. Degrade gracefully
3. Pave the cowpaths
4. Priority of Constituencies

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