YouTube has adopted to HTML5 technology for video streaming. The online video streaming service by Google was using Adobe’s Flash for videos so far. Richard Leider, a YouTube official, has written a blog post that announces this change. The team of developers has developed a HTML5 player to integrate in YouTube.
The web version of YouTube will now run default HTML5 player instead of old Flash. In order to embed the YouTube video, users are advised to use new frame API instead of old Flash object API. Frame API can switch to the technology according to client. The company had showcased HTML5 player for YouTube videos four years ago.
However, HTML5 back in 2011 did not support ABR (Adaptive BitRate). The development team has worked with different browser vendors to enable HTML5video support. Google Chrome, IE11 as well as Safari 8 will by default support HTMLvideo. Firefox is yet to integrate the HTMLvideo support in stable version but it will show YouTube videos with HTML5video in Beta versions.
There are several benefits of switching to the HTML5 for video delivery. It allows YouTube to offer more immersive video viewing experience with ABR by quickly changing the resolution and bitrate, depending upon the network conditions. ABR has helped reduce buffering by over 50 per cent all over the world. It also allows for use of VP9 video codec that allows high-quality video resolution while reducing bandwidth consumption by about 35 per cent.
It means that the 4K videos and 60FPS Full HD videos will be accessible to more people across the world and videos will start a lot faster. Ditching Flash and Silverlight allows content delivery through a single HTML5 video player across very wide range of platforms. This means you don’t have to have Flash or Silverlight installed in order to see YouTube videos. WebRTC allows easier video uploading and live broadcasting.
Users don’t need to have Flash or Silverlight installed to watch YouTube videos. WebRTS let users upload videos in an easy way. They can even live broadcast these videos. Flash has been abandoned by many streaming sites and services a long time ago. With YouTube dropping Flash, there is no reason why you need to have it on your computer.
