Webware

There's a major movement afoot to rebuild the Web as a foundation for interactive applications. But Adobe Systems, whose Flash technology already plays that role as a nearly ubiquitous browser plug-in, believes its technology will stay a step ahead of the game.

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The Web application folks are focused on HTML5, the next version of the Hypertext Markup Language standard used to create Web pages, along with associated standards such as JavaScript for programming. On this agenda is work to let Web applications work while offline, display video without any plug-ins, show accelerated 3D graphics, and churn away at background processing tasks that don't slow down the user interface.

Adobe is fine with that but believes programmers today are better off with Flash. It adopts new technology sooner and with consistency across browsers, said Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch.

"Innovation runs rapidly inside Flash," Lynch said. "A lot of HTML5 is looking to Flash and saying can we do that in HTML. That's great. We're able to be a leading agent in terms of exploring what's possible in the Web."

Lynch will make his case more concretely this week at the Adobe Max conference in Los Angeles, where the company plan to announce Flash Player 10.1. Along with the plug-in comes a related technology for Flash applications outside the browser, version 2 of the Adobe Integrated Runtime, or AIR.

Flash gets the Max spotlight
Flash Player 10.1 comes with support for major smartphone operating systems except the highest profile, Apple's iPhone. AIR 2 gets new abilities to act like a native application that can take advantage of resources on a computer, not just on the network. Adobe plans to release beta versions of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 later this year and in final form in the first half of 2010, Lynch said.

Although the continued work is essential to ensure Flash's relevance, the technology has a position of tremendous power in the browser market. Not only is it installed in almost all browsers, its automatic update abilities ensure the most recent version spreads fast.

"Flash Player 10 has reached 94 percent in less than a year," Lynch said. "That is unprecedented in terms of innovation engine."

To be clear, Adobe isn't opposed to innovation in HTML. Indeed, the company is participating in the World Wide Web Consortium's HTML5 working group, and AIR employs the open-source WebKit browser engine also used in Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome, Lynch said.

"We see renewed innovation happening in HTML," Lynch said. "There hasn't been as much progress in that space in the last few years, and now there is. We think it's terrific."

But even with Web site design tools such as Dreamweaver in its portfolio, the bulk of Adobe's developer relations activities and programming tools are aimed at Flash and, increasingly, AIR. For example, Mozilla Chief Executive John Lilly said he hasn't seen much Adobe involvement in the HTML5 work.

A consistent foundation
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." But there are plenty of times when consistency isn't foolish. Programming can be one of them, and Adobe believes Flash it has a selling point here compared to HTML.

"If you look at the number of browsers and implementations, historically we've seen a lot of variation," Lynch said. "That variation looks like it will continue to happen, especially as innovation increases. The more expression that gets added, the more challenging it get to keep that consistency."

Lynch didn't mention it specifically, but Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer plays a big role in this new Web application era. Even the new version, IE 8, has slower JavaScript than the faster-moving rivals that are moving to embrace richer Web programming technology. Programmers wanting to reach a broad audience are better off counting on Flash than on the latest Web app technologies, and the unified foundation from Adobe means the application will work the same regardless of browser changes.

"We think there's a lot of opportunity to provide a consistent experience across the browser," Lynch said.

One specific example has been video. Although HTML5 specifies a coding method that lets video and audio play directly in the browser with no Flash or other plug-in, the standard under development doesn't specify which video compression engine to use. Apple likes H.264; Firefox and Opera like Ogg Theora; Google likes both; and Microsoft hasn't weighed in at all.

Flash supports three engines, including the popular H.264, and indeed helped enable video on the Web by smoothing over difficulties that came with other technologies such as Apple QuickTime and Real Networks' RealPlayer.

Flash goes mobile
Taking the spotlight at Max will be Flash Player 10.1, which is getting the ability to run on a wide variety of high-end mobile phones, including those using Google Android, Palm's new WebOS, Nokia Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry's OS--most of the important operating systems except Apple's iPhone OS.

"We are working on Flash Player 10 for all the major smartphone OSes and for iPhone, but we need Apples' cooperation to integrate Flash Player with Safari on the iPhone," Lynch said. "In the market, we've seen a lot of interest. We believe it's one of the top requests for the iPhone still. I'm hopeful we'll be able to bring flash to the iPhone over time."

Flash Player 10.1 also adds support for multitouch user interfaces, which are all the rage for good reason right now because they can enable an intuitive, direct interaction with computing equipment. There have been experiments with multitouch in Firefox, but it's a complicated issue in general since there's some contention about whether the operating system, a browser, or a browser plug-in is in charge of interpreting multitouch commands.

Adobe had a project called Flash Lite for mobile phones with less horsepower, but the future Adobe's focus is on the full version of Flash Player 10.

That poses a challenge for Adobe, because Flash programmers often have assumed the have the full processing power, large screens, and abundant memory of a personal computer. Mobile phones have impressive hardware compared to lower-end phones, but they're feeble compared to PCs, and now programmers must reckon with them, too.

"My view is there is only one Web," Lynch said. Adobe is trying to help, though: Flash Player 10.1 includes a low-power mode that slows video rendering to preserve power; an it's able to use the processor and memory more efficiently in general. For example, graphics are compressed for use on devices with small screens and a more limited colors, Lynch said.

Consequently, one popular AIR application, Tweetdeck, which provides a polished interface to the Twitter service, requires 35 percent less memory, he said.

AIR 2: more desktop integration
For AIR 2, the software foundation is getting closer to reproducing the features that software running natively on a computer's operating system can take employ. Multitouch is one example, since the software has Flash Player 10.1 built in, but another is support for USB mass storage devices--things like digital cameras or external hard drives.

"You can plug in a device like a Flip video camera, and it'll recognize the devices, generate an event, and the AIR application can talk to that devices," Lynch said. "It's further integration with desktop capabilities. That's the soul of AIR."

Also coming with AIR 2 is an ability to hand off files to software installed on a computer. For example, an AIR application that acts as a front end to files stored on Amazon's S3 online storage system could invoke Excel when a person used the AIR application to double-click on the spreadsheet file name.

Adobe plans to follow with broader USB support for other devices such as Webcams, he added. "Mass storage is our foot in the door. That's our start," Lynch said.

AIR 2 also brings the ability to listen to particular network channels called sockets or ports, which means AIR applications can be used for multiplayer games that set up instant-messaging networks among players, he added.

AIR is popular among the active Twitter crowd and boasts a sizable collection of software. And it has potential to spread farther, especially as Net-centric companies in e-commerce, the media, and social networking seek an easy way to bridge across Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Despite some advantages, though, AIR provides is an answer to questions many programmers aren't even asking. Adobe will have more convincing to do before it convinces the world AIR deserves the ubiquitous status of Flash.

Today's Web programmers face a big choice when it comes to fancier aspects of their sites: HTML or Flash? One start-up hopes it can bridge the gap with a technology called FluidHTML.

FluidHTML shows its technology to build Flash applications with HTML-style programming with this Pong demo.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The start-up, FHTML, announced software Monday at the TechCrunch50 conference that's intended to give HTML-style programmers the ability to use Flash features.

FluidHTML's language is an extension of HTML, the company said. "We borrow a lot of the really good ideas from HTML, because why wouldn't we?" said Chief Executive Michael Collette at the conference.

The approach holds some promise--but it also poses some risks. It may be complicated trying to get HTML and Flash programmers to work together, but at least those are established disciplines. FluidHTML requires a language known by neither set of coders right now, and the technology is supported just by a start-up still seeking its own programming staff and $1 million to $2 million in venture funding.

HTML, the traditional language of the Web, got its start showing just text and images with basic layouts. The second, begun by Macromedia and now led by Adobe Systems, is better suited for animations and flashy graphics, video, and increasingly, applications as well.

But a different set of programming skills are required to build Flash-powered sites or applications, so it doesn't always coexist easily on the same Web site. Programming is getting even more complicated as Flash converges with HTML and its companion, JavaScript.

FluidHTML relies on a Flash software module that programmers can embed in their Web pages. It interprets the HTML-esque code to supply Flash features such as vector graphics, sound, and video.

"The markup language supports very powerful commands (tags) and can do remarkable things that take enormous development effort in Flash," the company said. "FluidHTML RIAs (rich Internet applications) can be developed by less expensive programmers and require fewer man-hours to build than Flash."

So what, exactly, is Google planning to do with On2 Technologies' video software?

The search giant isn't saying. The planned $106.5 million transaction isn't going to make too much of a dent in Google's coffers, but the transaction comes during a hot debate about which future technologies will power Web video. CNET News' Stephen Shankland and Tom Krazit pondered the implications of the deal, and here's what they thought:

Shankland: When I heard about the acquisition, I immediately wondered if the move could tidy up the mess that is that Web video or clutter it up even more.

On2 offers video compression technology that's used, among other notable places, in Adobe's Flash software and the Hulu video site. The company licenses various "codecs"--the software used to encode video so it's compact enough to squeeze down a narrow Internet pipe, then to expand it at the other end. It's a major technical challenge--one that's getting more important people to spend more time watching online video and more companies to attempt to profit from that.

Krazit: Well, it all depends on what they do with it, right? Google's being coy about this particular acquisition, but there really are only two reasons to do this: open-source the codec and throw a third wrench into the HTML 5 video tag standards debate, or bake it into existing technologies like YouTube--in hopes of getting that business to start making money--or mobile software.

At the moment, my bet is on the YouTube-mobile option: does Google really want to risk holding up HTML 5 adoption any further, regardless of the hint they dropped in the press release that "video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform"?

Shankland: Those alternatives aren't mutually exclusive. Google might just be buying trying to lower its costs by sidestepping YouTube's current streaming technology, which uses Adobe Systems' Flash software. Dan Rayburn, executive vice president at StreamingMedia.com, says Google doesn't have to pay Adobe fees to use Flash at YouTube. But Laura Martin, an analyst with Soleil-Media Metrics, believes that using On2 technology could trim YouTube's network bandwidth costs.

In the long run, though, getting On2's technology accepted as a built-in Web video standard could help both YouTube and Google's grander ambitions for the Web.

Google controls Chrome, of course, but getting the other 97 percent of the browser world to move will be harder. When it comes to building support for Web video straight into the Web, rather than using a plug-in such as Flash or Microsoft's Silverlight, Apple's Safari uses H.264 while Mozilla and Opera use a license-free alternative called Ogg Theora. Chrome will support both, but Internet Explorer doesn't have any support at all.

Right now, that video variety has been a thorny issue for the effort to hammer out HTML 5, the next incarnation of the Hypertext Markup Language that's used to describe Web pages. Even though the video tag looks like a big part of HTML 5, specification author (and Google employee) Ian Hickson so far isn't naming a codec.

Krazit: "Thorny issue" seems like an understatement. Why would injecting a third standard (that not everyone believes is necessarily a superior option) make sense, at this point? I suppose that there's a Clintonian "third way" argument to be applied here, in that if Apple and Mozilla are lining up on opposite sides of the debate over H.264 versus Ogg Theora, a freely available version that has clear patent ownership collected in one place might solve some of the sticking points on either side. Still, we'd be once again dependent on Google's "Dude, you can totally trust us. We're Google!" argument that it won't later subvert the standard with patent claims.

Not to mention the fact that Microsoft and its Internet Explorer are still unlikely to play ball, no matter what Google proposes.

Shankland: Well, one way Google could win over Mozilla at least is by releasing the codec as open-source software. That may or may not be possible, depending on what On2 has had to license, but Google apparently isn't happy enough with Ogg Theora's quality to bring it to YouTube, according to Hickson.

But I wouldn't rule out Microsoft quite so fast, even though I'm sure that it would like to get as much royalty revenue as possible through Silverlight video streaming and its own video codecs. Google has an affinity for open-source licenses such as Apache that permit use of code in proprietary software. That could reduce the philosophical barriers to Microsoft. And if Google can offer a high-quality codec in the HTML 5 standardization effort, maybe making On2's codec into open-source software could help coax the Internet Explorer team on board.

Let's not forget that HTML 5 is under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and they don't like standards encumbered by royalty constraints.

Also, if I were writing standards, I'd favor codecs such as On2's that also work on mobile devices. The iPhone doesn't support Flash, and I'm sure that Google wants YouTube on as many handsets as possible.

Krazit: Google's trying to pull off a lot these days, when it comes to making the Web the future platform for developers. It's a huge proponent of the HTML 5 push, devoting an entire day of Google I/O in May to explaining why this move is so important, and preaching to developers about how open standards and browser-based development are the wave of the future.

But you'd think that at some point, the company would start thinking of ways to differentiate its own products against the rest. Chrome and the forthcoming Chrome OS are ostensibly being developed with the hope that they will gain traction in the market. How will they do that, however, if they are just cookie-cutter versions of the same standards-based technologies on which everybody else jumps?

One way would be through offering excellent video performance that isn't widely available to the rest of the world, i.e., keeping VP8 and future On2 codec derivatives either in-house or available for a fee. Is Google going to open-source everything it ever develops under the strategy that anything that gets people on the Web ultimately comes back to its bottom line? Surely, that can't scale.

Shankland: No, Google won't open-source everything--and stop calling me Shirley. The company loves improving the Web as a foundation for applications, an effort that needles companies such as Microsoft or Apple that have their own developer ecosystems to nuture. But when it comes to the applications themselves--Gmail and Google Docs, for example--Google isn't so into sharing.

So I guess that some of this On2 situation comes down to the extent to which the video codec work is an end or merely a means to an end, like Chrome.

Krazit: Google isn't saying, at least for now. There's little doubt that online video is a crucial component of the future Web (CBS' David Poltrack is telling television critics this week that big money is coming to online video), and something will need to assume a role as the future technology enabler of Web video.

In the end, however, it must be nice to be able to make $100 million bets with relative ease. Nothing could come of On2's technology, and Google would hardly be worse off than it was a day ago.

Updated 1:24 p.m. PDT with new information about Flash licensing and YouTube expenses.

Double time, Molly.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

There are some videos that drone on--business presentations, product demos, and online driving school--and others that rush by too quickly. MySpeed is a fun, free-to-try bit of software that serves as a playback remote so you can watch Flash videos at your own pace.

The simple app consists of a sliding bar that's set to 1.0, regular time, when a video plays. Slide it to the left to slow the sound and picture, or to the right to speed both elements to two or three times the original speed. You can also use shortcut keys to quicken or slow the video. Crtl+Alt+F makes it faster; Crtl+Alt+S drags it down.

The audio and video largely remained in sync when tampered with, but original trip-ups in streaming and buffering were more noticeable with the video accelerated. If you don't set MySpeed to start on boot-up, you'll need to open it each session. After that, it'll run in the background from the system tray.

MySpeed is an amusing, sometimes time-saving utility for YouTube and sources of Flash video. However, for the $30 post-trial asking price for the Windows app, it's clearly aimed at very frequent video watchers, especially e-learners who may want to breeze by some sections of a module and stroll through other, more technical segments.

Web developers should appreciate two of Adobe's latest open-source initiatives announced Tuesday, both designed to help media companies and other publishers build richer Flash applications.

The first project, Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), lets designers create more sophisticated media players to run Adobe Flash presentations. The second, Text Layout Framework (TLF), helps developers add more advanced typography and font layouts to their Flash apps.

Both OSMF and TLF are available for free as open-source applications.

OSMF is the open source piece of the Adobe project formerly known by the codename Strobe, a framework for Flash media players. Using OSMF, developers can create Flash players with not only advanced playback and navigation controls but also plug-ins for advertising and tracking, a key benefit for media companies. OSMF can work with any kind of Flash content, including video, audio, and images.

Developers can learn more about OSMF and download the source code and components at the OSMF Web site.

TLF lets developers add sleeker and higher-quality typographic layouts and effects to Flash presentations. In conjunction with the new text engine in Flash Player 10, TLF offers support for vertical and bidirectional text, flowing text around images and across columns, and multiple languages.

More information and a demo of TLF can be found at the Adobe Labs TLF site.

These latest two initiatives are part of Adobe's strategy to provide more robust programming tools for Flash. For the first time, Adobe is facing potential competition for Flash from other Web technologies, notably Microsoft's Silverlight.

The HTC Hero phone will have Flash support built in.

(Credit: HTC)

Marking a departure from the world of iPhone, HTC's new Android-based Hero phone will also come with the ability to handle Flash elements that adorn many Web sites and power YouTube video.

Adobe Systems announced on Wednesday that its Flash Player will be built into the HTC phone, an important step in the company's efforts to spread Flash to mobile phones. The phone, one of several from HTC to use Google's open-source operating system, is scheduled to ship in Europe starting in July and in Asia and North America later in the year.

However, the initial version won't match Flash Player 10, the current version for PCs, which can run programs written with ActionScript 3. Instead, the Android version will handle ActionScript 2 applications written for Flash Player 9 chores, Adobe said. HTC is participating in the Open Screen Project to bring Flash Player 10 to mobile phones through over-the-air updates, though, so Adobe expects fuller Flash support eventually.

"Flash Player 10 for mobile platforms that include Android is expected to be available in the first half of 2010. We are working on delivering a beta of Flash Player 10 in the fourth quarter of 2009," the company said in a statement.

The Flash support will be built into the phone and not available as a download for other Android phone users, Adobe said.

Just having a check mark in a feature list isn't enough to outflank a competitor, but Flash is a significant feature on the Web. It powers many games, streaming videos, and dynamic stock charts, and other elaborate features on Web pages. And Flash is also used for many more dynamic advertisements.

Adobe demonstrated Flash on Android in an online video Wednesday, showing off the technology for watching a trailer at Yahoo Movies, playing the Penguin Swing game, and selecting a region on travel site Expedia. Double-clicking on the Flash element on the Web page runs it full screen.

Apple's iPhone doesn't run Flash, though Adobe would like to see it there and has been developing a version.

"We are developing Flash player for the iPhone. To release software on the iPhone requires Apple's agreement. We have to make it work great, and need to get their agreement to have it released," said Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch in a 2008 interview. "We would love to see Flash on the iPhone."

Flash gaming site Kongregate has a new service launching on Wednesday called the Collabs that lets musicians and artists share their work in the hopes of getting it used in upcoming Flash games. Content creators upload their works directly to Kongregate where it goes into a directory that's curated by several of the site's power users.

The Collabs are not just for developers though. Kongregate users can listen to music and view animations, as well as rate them the same way they're able to do with the service's games. In a phone interview, Kongregate's CEO Jim Greer told me that he wants it to be a place for users to explore and discover new designers and musical artists before they go mainstream. Their input also has the power to get some of the ideas turned into games that they can later play, or sound creations that can go into their favorite games, since the highest rated submissions win cash and the chance to get free home game studio tools.

The new sounds section lets music creators share their work with potential developer clients who can preview a track and maybe license it, or hire them to work on game music.

(Credit: CNET)

Casual users who have a game design idea will also soon be able to publish it directly to the art Collabs using built-in tools from Aviary. Using special versions of Raven and Phoenix (Aviary's vector and image editors), which run right on the page, users will be able to create new art that can be sent directly to the Collabs. This functionality won't be live on Wednesday, but Greer says it will be there in a week or two.

To handle all the licensing, each item can be set to one of three creative commons licenses--both for acceptable use and acceptable modification. There is no integrated purchasing system though. Instead, each submitter can be directly contacted by those who are interested in their creations or services. There's also Kongregate's "hook up" forum for developers to hire talent or find testers, or for people looking for work to match up with their skills.

Kongregate continues to grow since launching three years ago. Greer says the site is now adding around 1,000 new games a month, which are entertaining more than 7.5 million monthly unique users. That audience is doubling every six months. The site is still driven by ad revenues, although has recently built in a micropayments system which developers can include in their games. This new system will hopefully generate more Flash game development, which should augment those numbers even more.

User created art, as shown off in Kongregate's Collabos.

(Credit: CNET)

Adobe Systems released on Monday beta versions of three programming projects for producing online applications that run in its Flash Player, software that's widely used but also under competitive threat from other Web technologies.

First is a beta version of Flash Catalyst, a programming tool that's meant for the designer crowd rather than the coding crowd. Catalyst lets designers create a Flash application's user interface in Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator applications, import the files, attach a variety of actions to user interface elements, then produce the Flash application for production or for handing off to more serious programmers.

Second is the beta of Flash Builder 4, the harder-core programming tool previously called Flex Builder. This tool, based on the Eclipse programming software, employs Adobe's open-source Flex framework for building advanced Flash applications and is for the serious programming set who works in an integrated development environment (IDE). For example, it can be used to link Flash applications with a variety of back-end data sources for advanced features.

Third is the beta of Flex 4 framework that provides underpinnings for Flash applications, including everything from user interface components to animation technology. Flex 4, code-named Gumbo, is an open-source project.

Flash got its start as a way to produce animations on Web sites, leading to gripes that its timeline-based view of the world was alien to programmers. For the animation-oriented set, Adobe still offers its Flash Professional software, but for others, Adobe has the Flex-based approach for producing Flash applications.

Adobe offers a variety of tools in an attempt to appeal to a variety of programming styles. A single project can bounce among different people using the different tools, said Steven Heintz, principal product manager of the Adobe Platform business.

"We've really made all these tools work together," Heintz said. "For pieces of the same project, you can use the tools best for the job. We believe this is better than jamming all this together into one massive tool that's totally inappropriate."

Flash faces a number of challengers. Most directly is Microsoft's Silverlight, version 3 of which is set to be launched July 10. But Google, Yahoo, and browser makers also are advancing what can be done directly in Web browsers without relying on plug-ins such as Flash or Silverlight.

And HTML 5, an still-in-progress revision of the Hypertext Markup Language used to describe Web pages, comes with a variety of features such as the ability to run multiple tasks at the same time and to play video and audio as easily as browsers can display images today, and Google, Apple, Opera, and Firefox developer Mozilla are pushing what can be done with the JavaScript language for programming Web pages.

Adobe argues that it's got consistency on its side with Flash, though. Web users tend to upgrade to the newest Flash player relatively rapidly, and Flash works consistently regardless of which browser it's plugged into or which operating system it's running on. For programmers in the HTML camp, Adobe offers its DreamWeaver development software.

In contrast HTML and JavaScript--including advanced JavaScript applications built with technology called Ajax--varies from browser to browser, said Shafath Syed, a product marketing manager with the Adobe Platform group.

"We've come full circle" in the browser market to the mid-1990s browser wars, with different interpretations of standards and new features and differing support for that technology, Syed said. "That's always a challenge."

Another challenge both camps face is spreading to the increasingly important realm of mobile phones. Flash, for example, doesn't run on Apple's iPhone and is still under development for phones based on Google's Android operating system. Those devices support JavaScript and some HTML 5 features, though, they, of course, lack much of the processing power and memory to make full use of it.

The Adobe programming tools also can be used in the production of applications that run on AIR, the Adobe Integrated Runtime that lets Flash applications run on their own outside a browser.

Google's Matthew Papakipos touted HTML 5 features including the video tag at the Google I/O conference Wednesday.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google has begun supporting a new HTML feature to show video in its Chrome browser as an alternative to Adobe Systems' much more widely used Flash, but the technology overall remains rough around the edges.

The support comes in Chrome 3.0.182.2, a developer preview version that on Wednesday inaugurated work on the 3.0 generation of the Google browser. HTML video is one of a handful of technologies in the still unfinalized HTML 5 standard that Google hopes will transform the Web from a collection of relatively static sites to a foundation for full-blown applications that rival those on PCs.

The "video" tag in HTML already is available in various versions of Apple's Safari, Firefox, and Opera, which at least in theory makes handling video on the Web as easy as handling images. But the HTML 5 standard that includes video isn't finalized yet, so don't expect a coding revolution yet.

The video tag can be used to show video that today would show up in a conventional box, just as with Flash or Microsoft's competing Silverlight plug-in. But it also enables deeper integration with a Web site. For a good example, watch Paul Rouget's demonstration of HTML video in which images, text boxes, and videos are overlaid on another video, with a JavaScript program dynamically changing the appearance.

In a talk Wednesday at the Google I/O conference, Matthew Papakipos, a Google engineering director, said HTML 5 video will permit close integration with the Web site's programming, so for example various actions on the Web site can trigger different videos to start or stop.

The video tag tucked in Daily Motion's Web site could be a harbinger of significant changes on the Web.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

HTML 5 video still faces many hurdles to adoption, and browser support being just the first. Next come resolution of browser compatibility problems, upgrades by browser users to support the feature, and real-world use of the technology on Web sites.

The challenge is illustrated by video entertainment site DailyMotion, which on Wednesday announced plans to make 300,000 videos available through the HTML 5 video technology by the third quarter of 2009. DailyMotion recommends the Firefox 3.5 beta version to watch videos, which indeed worked for me, but the newest Chrome developer version and the Safari 4 beta reverted to Flash.

DailyMotion touts its use of HTML 5's video tag to show videos encoded with Ogg Theora technology--but the feature doesn't work with the Safari 4 beta or the latest version of Chrome.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

One issue is the technology used to encode and decode video. Firefox supports the Ogg Theora format for video (and the Ogg Vorbis format for the related HTML 5 audio tag), for example, and that's the format that DailyMotion is using.

More common in the real world, though, is the H.264 standard. Papakipos said Chrome will support H.264 video and AAC audio as well as Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio format.