YouTube Now Defaults to HTML5 Video Player
On January 28, YouTube announced that the site now defaults to its HTML5 video player in Google's Chrome, Microsoft's IEII, Apple's Safari 8 and in beta versions of Mozilla's Firefox. Four years ago, the site announced a test version of an HTML5 video player, but held it back from becoming the preferred platform for video delivery due to limitations.
YouTube highlighted five key technologies that enabled the step forward: MediaSource Extensions, VP9 video codec, Encrypted Media Extensions, WebRTC and Fullscreen. Within MediaSource Extensions, the site highlighted Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) streaming as critical to provide a quality video experience for viewers. A right-click on a YouTube video and selection of "Statistics for Nerds" will reveal that the ABR technology that has been rolled out is MPEG DASH.
Alex Giladi, Senior Manager, Video Software Architect at InterDigital, states that this is a huge win for the standards-based approach to adaptive streaming, for W3C and for MPEG. Giladi is involved in projects related to MPEG Systems in MPEG, DASH Industry Forum and SCTE. For the last several years, InterDigital has been active in the development of MPEG DASH and MPEG Common Encryption.
For more information on InterDigital's role in adaptive streaming technology, visit the InterDigital Vault.
