HTML 5 ditches native video support

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 6 Jul 2009 at 09:34

HTML 5 will not specify a video and audio codec within its specification, meaning the current raft of competing plug-ins could be with us for some time to come.

The original draft for HTML 5 recommended two new audio and video tags that would allow browsers to run this content natively, without needing to install separate plug-ins.

However, it appears the major browser makers have been unable to agree on which codecs should be natively supported within HTML 5 - forcing the World Wide Web Consortium, the coalition of companies working on the spec, to drop the feature.

"There is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship," [a href="http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html" title="W3C blog" target="_blank"]wrote Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML 5 specification for W3C.

"I have therefore removed the two subsections in the HTML 5 spec in which codecs would have been required, and have instead left the matter undefined, as has in the past been done with other features like IMG and image formats, embed and plugin APIs, or web fonts and font formats," he adds.

At the heart of the squabble is a disagreement on the use of the open-source Ogg Vorbis for audio and Ogg Theora for video, both of which can be implemented without paying royalties, unlike the H.264 format, which was also under consideration.

According to Hickson, Apple backed H.264 but not Ogg due to a "lack of hardware support and an uncertain patent landscape." Opera and Mozilla backed Ogg, but not H.264 due to the "obscene cost of the relevant patent licenses," while Google wasn't happy with either format, claiming the quality of Ogg wasn't good enough, while H.264 was too expensive.

Simplifying matters considerably was Microsoft, which would "not comment on its intent to support