Introduced in HTML5,[1] it is designed to partially replace the object element and the previous de facto standard of using the proprietary Adobe Flash plugin, though early adoption was hampered by lack of agreement as to which video coding formats and audio coding formats should be supported in web browsers.
[3] Opera also released a preview build that was showcased the same day,[4][5] and a manifesto that called for video to become a first-class citizen of the web.
Alternatively, playback can be controlled with JavaScript, which the web designer can use to create a custom user interface.
The optional "poster" attribute specifies an image to show in the video's place before playback is started.
The HTML5 Working Group considered it desirable to specify at least one video format which all user agents (browsers) should support.
[12][13] Formats like H.264 might also be subject to unknown patents in principle, but they have been deployed much more widely and so it is presumed that any patent-holders would have already made themselves known.
[17][18] The adaptive bitrate streaming standard MPEG-DASH can be used in Web browsers via the Media Source Extensions (MSE)[19] and JavaScript-based DASH players.
[21] Google also started WebM, which combines the standardized open source VP8 video codec with Vorbis audio in a Matroska based container.
[22] When Google announced in January 2011 that it would end native support of H.264 in Chrome,[23] criticism came from many quarters including Peter Bright of Ars Technica[24] and Microsoft web evangelist Tim Sneath, who compared Google's move to declaring Esperanto the official language of the United States.
[25] However, Haavard Moen of Opera Software strongly criticized the Ars Technica article[26] and Google responded to the reaction by clarifying its intent to promote WebM in its products on the basis of openness.
[32] H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is widely used, and has good speed, compression, hardware decoders, and video quality, but is patent-encumbered.
Cisco will pay the costs of patent licensing for those binary modules when downloaded by the using software while it is being installed, making H.264 free to use in that specific case.
Also on 30 October 2013, Mozilla's Brendan Eich announced that Firefox would automatically download Cisco's H.264 module when needed by default.
He also noted that the binary module is not a perfect solution, since users do not have full free software rights to "modify, recompile, and redistribute without license agreements or fees".
Most of the browsers listed here use a multimedia framework for decoding and display of video, instead of incorporating such software components.
It is not generally possible to tell the set of formats supported by a multimedia framework without querying it, because that depends on the operating system and third party codecs.
In practice, Internet Explorer and Safari can also guarantee certain format support, because their manufacturers also make their multimedia frameworks.
[118] A main argument in W3C's approval of EME was that the video content would otherwise be delivered in plugins and apps, and not in the web browser.
[119] In 2013 Netflix added support for HTML video using EME, beside their old delivery method using a Silverlight plugin (also with DRM).
[120] In 2010, in the wake of Apple iPad launch and after Steve Jobs announced that Apple mobile devices would not support Flash, a number of high-profile sites began to serve H.264 HTML video instead of Adobe Flash for user-agents identifying as iPad.