This section of the guide gives a simple introdution to subject of video players and which video formats to use when self-hosting. Ideally web technology should be based on open standards and use free open source software solutions.Why? Open formats and standards are future-proof and widely compatible and they are often a cheaper solution
The more complex our work becomes, the more important questions of interoperability: as long as media is stored in an open format, there will be a way to access it.
The good news is that the rapid development of HTML5 web browser has made it much easier to host your own video in a low-cost, compatibie way.
In this guide we take a minimalistic approach to documenting the functionality of the players. However this section shows the visually appeal some of the new generation of players and the ways they can be integrated into your site.
Some Eye Candy Screen shots
Some Eye Candy Screen shots
HTML5 is more of a series of accepted techniques for a variety of interacting web technologies. Now browsers widely accept the <VIDEO> tag, delivering video in open formats can be as simple as adding the following line of code to your page.
<video src="myvideo.mp4" width="320" height="240"></video>| Web Browser | Ogg | WebM | Mp4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internet Explorer | No | No | Yes |
| Chrome | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Firefox | Yes | Yes | No |
| Safari | No | No | Yes |
| Opera | Yes | Yes | No |
Our best solution may be to use a custom video player which deal with the situations flexibly.
Which Video Player?: When choosing a video player there are several factors that may influence our decision on which one to choose. One important one is how wide a variety of devices we want our video to be viewable on.
We will get into the technical details of which formats work with which players and browsers in the Hand On sections.
H264(mp4) vs WebM: Even if we support free and open formats, practically we may use more restrictive formats like h264 to reach users on closed platforms like iOS. For more info on this debate:
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