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HTML5 video is all the rage, but if your viewer’s browser isn’t HTML5-compatible, the video won’t play unless you fallback to Flash or similar technology. I’m working on a new book and wanted to determine the percentage of desktop browsers that are HTML5 compatible. So I surfed over to www.netmarketshare.com and checked the stats for browser versions on the desktop.
As you probably know, all versions of Internet Explorer (IE) prior to IE9 are not HTML5 compatible. That includes IE8, with a share of 23.29%, IE6 (6.52%) and IE 7 (not shown), which a table beneath the chart revealed a market share of 2.11%. All told, users of non-HTML5-compatible versions of IE total just under 32%. If you assume that all other browsers are HTML5-compatible, that means that a maximum of 68% of desktop browsers out there use HTML5-compatible browsers.
Let me state the obvious; if you distribute videos from your website using HTML5 without fallback to Flash, 32% of potential desktop viewers couldn’t watch the videos. Beyond this, I tallied stats on the HTML5 browsers in the NetMarketShare table beneath the chart to determine which browsers could play H.264, and which couldn’t. Those currently unable to play H.264 video via HTML5 (Firefox and Opera) totalled about 31% of all HTML5-compatible browsers (20.3% of the total universe of browsers). So, if you go the HTML5 route and don’t support WebM and H.264, you lose another chunk of viewers.
Throwing mobile into the mix, 100% of iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices can play video encoded using H.264 and distributed via HTML5. Overall, the best strategy for single-file streaming to desktop and mobile viewers is HTML5 first using the H.264 codec, with fallback to Flash, also using the H.264 codec.
I say single-file streaming because there is no HTML5-compatible scheme currently in use that enables adaptive streaming; DASH may be coming, but it’s not here yet. Distributing adaptive streams to the universe of desktop and mobile users is a confusing mess, which I attempt to decipher in an upcoming article in the Streaming Media Sourcebook. And, of course, in the upcoming book.
Of course, if you want to stream live or protect your video with DRM, you have a whole other set of issues; there are no HTML5-compatible schemes for these either. Heck, there are no HTML5-compatible schemes for streaming; all HTML5-compatible files are delivered via progessive download, the most inefficient way to deliver video.
In the meantime, if you have internal resources saying that it’s time to drop Flash altogether, send them a link to this article.
