Re: [whatwg] Video proposals

On Mar 15, 2007, at 11:40 PM, Laurens Holst wrote:

> Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there is a single reason  
> why the browser couldn’t play back content embedded with an  
> <object> tag, like it’s supposed to. What’s more, that would allow  
> it to work with existing web content, too. Plus it’s backwards  
> compatible.

I'm quite certain that the video element was meant to fight things  
like Flash because it would offer cross-platform video easily through  
an open codec.  Currently, Flash is the closest thing we have to  
cross-platform video.  Flash is a closed, proprietary, expensive  
technology.  Theora is an open, free technology.  The video element  
is an ideological addition that would allow fallback.  It could  
easily fall back to an object element during the transition into  
browser support, which would be backward compatible with HMTL 4.

Video on the web is difficult.  In this day, it shouldn't be.

----------------------------------------------------------
Robert <http://robertdot.org>