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Here’s a copy of the release that you can find here.
HTML5 has received a tremendous amount of buzz, much of it driven by the potential for plugin-free video. However, the limited browser support for the HTML5 <video> tag has forced web designers to scramble for a solution that would work across platforms as well as browsers. To help customers overcome these challenges, Adobe has released an easy-to-use, totally CSS-customizable solution that shifts gracefully from the HTML5 <video> tag to the Flash Player when the tag is not supported. The shift takes place regardless of the screen—from phone to monitor to TV.
The HTML5 Video Player widget, now available through the Adobe Widget Browser, works with or without Dreamweaver CS5. Code generated from the widget plays video in the best possible player for the requested platform using a range of video codecs. Based on the Kaltura open source library, the HTML5 Video Player widget is fully cross-browser compatible with support for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera. Moreover, the player is completely customizable with industry standard CSS techniques.
You can run the Adobe Widget Browser directly from within Dreamweaver and, once you’ve set it up, insert the generated code and files for the HTML5 Video Player widget with point-and-click simplicity. But if you’re not a Dreamweaver user (shame on you), you can also download the Widget Browser independently. (You’ll need to install Adobe AIR first.)
If you’re new to the Widget Browser, you can get up to speed quickly with this video from Lynda.com.
This allows Flash developers to create an HTML5 compatible player that will work with iDevices, for example, and HTML5 compatible browsers, yet fall back to Flash when necessary. Of course, the Widget is a simple video player only, and still doesn’t resolve issues like DRM support in HTML5 or adaptive streaming. It offers great utility for sites offering simple video playback in a window, but isn’t a panacea.
