Community Support Blog
Safari & Quicktime are Not Web Standards
To call HTML5 Video a hype would be an understatement. Every week, major tech companies announce improved support or new breakthroughs. Literally hundreds of new blogposts a day pop up on Google's blog search. In this debate, no company is as vocal as Apple.
The company's latest move is the release of an HTML5 showcase that includes a video demo featuring the capabilities of web standards such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. This effort, while exciting, is misleading and potentially detrimental to the landscape of web development and browser compatibilities. The demo is definitely inspiring and helps to move HTML5 Video along at a fast clip. At the same time though, none of the cool gizmos on this page are actually web standards. Instead, they are specific functionalities found in Apple's Safari/Quicktime product stack (which is why access is restricted to Safari). A breakdown:
The Video
Although the video codec debate has heated up with Google's release of WebM, Apple firmly stands by H.264. The demo offers no OGG or WebM version of the video, just an image fallback:
<video id="videoShowcase" width="848" height="352" src=".../demos/apple-html5-demo-tron_legacy-us-20100601_r848-2cie.mov" poster="... /images/tron_legacy.jpg" loop="loop" autoplay="autoplay" autobuffer="autobuffer"> <img src="... /images/tron_legacy.jpg"> </video>
The loaded video is actually not an MP4 but a MOV. MOV, 99% similar to MP4, is the container format of Apple's Quicktime technology. This video only works on Safari, and in order to play this video in Safari on Windows, a user must have the Quicktime plugin installed. No other browser is able to play the video.
A more standards-based approach would be to use an MP4 video instead of a MOV one, while simultaneously also offering an OGG video. That will work on all HTML5 browsers.
The Controls
The scale, mask and perspective video controls are very slick, but unfortunately still browser-specific features. Here's how the CSS of the video looks with these options enabled:
-webkit-mask-image: url(... /images/tron_mask.png); -webkit-mask-repeat: no-repeat; -webkit-mask-size: 100% 100%; -webkit-transform: matrix3d(0.64,0,0.64,0,0,0.83,0,0,-0.53,0,0.76,0,0,0,0,1); -webkit-transform-style: preserve-3d; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.5s; -webkit-transition-timing-function: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 0.58, 1);
This chunk of CSS3 will only render on Webkit-based browsers: Safari and Chrome. Firefox and Opera will not recognize these proprietary style rules.
A more standards-based approach would be to use mask, transform and transition CSS rules using both -webkit-, -moz- and -o- prefixes. Apple could be frank about the draft status of these functionalities and the current differences in browser implementations.
The Description
The description below the video mostly talks about Safari's proprietary HTTP streaming technology:
The HTML5 video tag allows you to integrate video within your website’s code. And Safari offers HTTP streaming, so playback quality dynamically adjusts to the available speed of wired or wireless networks — perfect for viewing on mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
Unfortunately, HTTP Live Streaming only works on the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Mac OSX 10.6 (with Quicktime X). Additionally, the technology requires one to encode videos into an obscure format: hundreds of small MPEG-TS fragments, glued together using M3U8 playlists. These video files are completely useless for any other browser or media player.
A more standards-based approach would be to explain that seeking to non-downloaded parts of the video (like YouTube) is possible. This functionality, using HTTP Range-Requests, is supported by all HTML5 browsers. HTML5 video at large has no capabilities in the area of bandwidth detection and on-the-fly bitrate switching.
HTML5 is About Standards
Undoubtedly, no one has done as much for HTML5 Video as Apple has to date. However, we must be sure to not overlook the progress Flash made when they started supporting video a couple of years ago. Suddenly it was possible to easily display videos on a page, regardless of browser or operating system. Only one chunk of code and only one video file were needed; plugin daisychains and forced installations were a thing of the past. Due to its ubiquity, Flash effectively enabled the online video surge of the last few years.
Similarly, the big promise of HTML5 Video is of it being a widely adopted and highly standardized technology. While Apple may see it as a means to reach feature parity with Flash, most web developers see it as a simple solution for including video in a webpage without worrying about plugin support. Web standards are about removing incompatibility barriers altogether. They are not about replacing plugins with proprietary browser addons, which is exactly what Apple has done here.
It would be awesome for Apple to start advocating the use of cross-browser HTML5 Video, being honest about what the technology can and cannot do today. Alternatively, it would be great for Apple to tell developers what its demo actually is: an excellent showcase of the video capabilities of its Safari / Quicktime product stack. Regardless, Apple should stop labelling vendor-specific implementations as web standards. It confuses web developers and it will lead to a new era of browser incompatibility that will slow down the overall adoption of HTML5 - and the conveniences it brings to web developers around the world.
Jeroen Wijering and Zachary Ozer
Comments
Dear Long Tail:
Don't enter the pissing contest.
Thanks.
Submitted by Seth Rubenstein on Tue, 2010-06-08 09:57.
I agree with you guys, Apple's attempt to push Safari/Quicktime as standards has an eerie resemblance to what Microsoft did with IE6 before CSS2 was standardized. Don't get me wrong, Apple has done amazing things pushing the envelope of HTML5 and innovation in the mobile space, but it's dangerous to represent a proprietary solution as an industry standard and could result in headaches for developers down the road with cross-browser compatibility if the web community decides to standardize other open standards like WebM, Vorbis, Ogg, etc. The HTML5 showcase is a great example of what can be done through the browser on the iPhone and iPad but should be represented as such -- not as industry standards
Trackback:
http://www.projectrethink.org/2010/06/08/safari-quicktime-are-not-web-standards/
Submitted by Shawn on Tue, 2010-06-08 12:02.
"To call HTML5 Video a hype would be an understatement. Every week, major tech companies announce improved support or new breakthroughs."
You just torpedoed your own opening sentence. If it's hype, real progress and announcements would not be occurring. The word for that is "progress". What you meant to say is calling it "hype" is erroneous.
"plugin daisychains and forced installations were a thing of the past"
What? You are forced to install Flash and use plugins to use Flash. What past is this? The part after you've downloaded install and regularly forced to update Flash or before you downloaded install and regularly forced to update Flash?
Submitted by His Shadow on Wed, 2010-06-09 17:54.
What part of this don't you understand?
Copied from Apple's HTML5 Showcase page:
"The demos below show how the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser, new Macs, and new Apple mobile devices all support the capabilities of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards — and the amazing things they enable web designers to do."
Just curious if you actually did some research before you wrote this article. Or would that be asking to much?
Submitted by Macsen Wledig on Wed, 2010-06-09 17:59.
It's comforting to know that there will be soon 100 million mobile devices that support HTML5 etc. because that's where, at least I am, heading: a desktop computer at work with dual 24" displays and iPhone/iPad for everything else and a MacMini in the living room. Something has to change first, the web pages to support the capabilities of the mobile devices or vice versa. Since the 3-4h battery life is not acceptable anymore. It's great that Apple is pushing HTML5 so hard, the same they did with USB/Floppy Disc.
Submitted by Toby W on Thu, 2010-06-10 01:31.
@His shadow: With "HTML5 is hype", we refer to the amount of talk compared to real-world usage. Everybody makes announces, but we yet have to see the first website actually ditching it's Flash video player for an HTML5 one. Sure, we see a couple of sites (such as Youtube or Vimeo) offer a preview. We also see media properties building HML5 fallbacks with iPad sniffing. However, real-world adoption of HTML5 is not there yet. The technology is still in its early stages.
Don't get us wrong; it's good to have Flash replace by HTML5 eventually (native support is always better than plugins), but at present Flash still offers a superior user experience on all browsers. There's no livestreaming, fullscreen, single-codec or bitrate switching support in HTML5. Let's first build that in, before declaring Flash deprecated.
As to your second point: Flash is preinstalled on both Mac and PC. Upgrades are indeed done manually on MAC (you should have done one in the last three years, from 9 to 10), but the process is a lot less painful than, say, installing Real Player and Quicktime on Windows (if you could even find the installers ;). From a developer's point of view, Flash is convenient because it offers the same environment on all clients. HTML5, it its current state, requires browser sniffing, multiple versions of a video and "if}{else" logic much like in the Netscape 4 / IE4 era.
-
@Macsen Wledig: Rest assured, we completely get the fact that this TRON video shows off what Safari can do, not Firefox or Chrome. However, the point we are making is that this demo does not show off Safari's support for just HTML5/CSS3. It's mostly showing Safari's support for some cool, but in-house technologies. Granted, the "-webkit-" style rules will soon get there, but Quicktime videos and HTTP Live Streaming will not.
Again, Apple's moves around HTML5 are awesome, but there is a downside. While Apple has increased awareness around HTML5 more than any other company, it is also using its impressive marketing resources to imply that parts of its proprietary technology stack also are web standards. When it says that "Safari supports HTML5" and "soon other browsers will support this", one would think that soon the full TRON demo works on all browsers. However, that will never be the case. We're all for e.g. adding Apple's HTTP Live Streaming to e.g. HTML5 (or IETF's) standards, but that's not Apple's to decide. It's a collaborative effort.
-
@Toby W: You make a very important point when stating 100 MLN mobiles will support HTML5 soon. It's likely that HTML5 will get widely used on mobile before gaining traction on the desktop. In our own video platform too, we use Flash for the desktop and HTML5 for mobile devices, today.
Submitted by JeroenW on Thu, 2010-06-10 03:34.
Submitted by JeroenW on Thu, 2010-06-10 05:12.
"but at present Flash still offers a superior user experience on all browsers. "
I have to assume that you are stuck in a PC windows world here. Flash sucks big time on a Mac with pretty much any browser. It sticks, freezes, resists controls like pause, going back in the video, etc. Now I use both Mac and PC, but the PC is limited in that I dare not surf the web with it, to many chances for viruses out there so its inter company only.
And keep in mind that there is NO released FLASH for mobile yet, its still beta for release later this summer,,,, if at all. I see a future for FLASH, but its mostly in advertisements. OMG... what a horrible idea. Dancing girls and guys trying to sell me stuff. :-(
Just a thought,
en
Submitted by Elder Norm on Thu, 2010-06-10 09:07.
On the contrary, every single person in our office is using a MAC (for years now). I love it - it's a breeze to use compared to Windows' constant nagging about updates and security issues. Please do not assume that, because we don not agree with everything Apple does, that we are MAC haters ;)
I do not share your experience of freezing, resisting Flash video interfaces (2008 MacBook 12"). I'd say that HTML5 video results in more issues than Flash, even on Safari (the best browser in the pack for video). I think the big issue with Flash are the annoying advertisements with rotating images and badly written actionscript.
As a video playback example, here's a little demo page that contains exactly the same video in Flash and HTML5. You can test both (I'm on Safari 5) by enabling / disabling the Enable plugins preference and reloading the page. Some remarks:
*) In HTML5, the video metadata will get preloaded (stalling Safari for a few seconds), while Flash does not preload anything.
*) In HTML5, the video takes about 10 seconds to load after I click "play". With Flash, it takes about 2 seconds.
*) Seeking to not-yet-downloaded parts of the video is equally fast in both Flash and HTML5 (~2 seconds).
*) The new fullscreen button on Safari 5 is a lot cooler than Flash's. It smoothly fades in the video, while Flash always stalls for ~2 seconds and displays an ugly hit ESC message. Unfortunately, as you can see in this demo, Safari 5 cannot handle the aspect ratio of the video correctly in fullscreen.
I do completely share your reservations regarding Flash on mobile devices. It's an entirely different play than the desktop. On mobile devices, HTML5 has leapfrogged Flash for video, mostly because of Apple's hard work.
Submitted by JeroenW on Thu, 2010-06-10 10:07.
I agree with the poster who says don't get "into it". There is no reason to; use what works for you.
Submitted by Angela on Fri, 2010-06-11 23:46.
Firstly, most posts above in support of Apple are from self confessed Apple Mac 'Fanboys', so we can ignore them.
Having looked at the pages on the Apple website, it's quite clear they are trying to deceive the reader/visitor into thinking it is all Open/Web Standards based technologies and formats being used. Read how many times the word 'Standards' is used? Totally misleading and shameful.
Lastly, it should be remembered that some of us still like using computers (PC - Personal Computer). Apple Mac products are not computers, they are closed systems (software/hardware), similar to many other 'household' appliances that happen to use computer technologies.
Submitted by rpr on Tue, 2010-06-15 14:37.
RPR,
While I'll agree that Apple iOS Products (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) are closed systems, I would disagree that Apple Mac OSX is any more a closed system than say, a Dell running Windows 7. You can write and sell software, freeware, shareware on it and, unlike iOS Products, there is no one way to distribute products like the App Store. Put software on your site, download it, unzip it, install it. Uninstall it. Do what you like. In that respect, Apple MAC products, as you call them, are very much personal computers.
I say this as a PC user, a Mac user and an iOS product user.
Submitted by Little Bill on Wed, 2010-06-16 12:26.
@LITTLE BILL,
I agree that Apple Mac OSX is certainly closer to a proper 'computer', especially now they've moved over to Intel. But there's still quite a difference. Microsoft don't make computers, they are software developers, and Dell are hardware manufacturers. PC users can choose who makes their Motherboard, graphics card, RAM, etc .. from companies all over the world. The same holds true for software, including choosing an operating system.
The most often quoted reason people say they like Apple 'computers' is because they're easy to use and stable. This is true and a perfectly valid point. But the reason for this is Apple Mac users are, 90% of the time, using software and hardware made by the same company. Now I'd say that's pretty close to a closed system?
Submitted by RPR on Sat, 2010-06-19 11:04.
@RPR,
While we're drifting far away off the topic of the original post, I'll say this: First, people can build PCs and run Hackintosh. Second, If you've ever purchased a MacPro, or know anything about them, you're perfectly capable of upgrading your hard drives, RAM, video cards and whatnot. Maybe you can't update your motherboard and processor on your own, but it does not rule out the term "computer" for any Apple system. FYI, you can also update RAM, HDs on your iMac or MacBook or whathaveyou. Hell, you can even overclock them, if you know what you're doing. How's that different, then?
Secondly, aside from Apple being both the hardware and software manufacturer, a MAC OS X operating system -- regardless of the hardware configuration -- when it comes to end-use, is simply that: just an operating system. It is no more open or closed than say, Windows 7. You can install software, uninstall it, there's no App Store limiting you to what you can get. You can even *gasp* install Flash!
So yes to your point about the iPhone or iPad being closed. As an end-user (and designer/developer) I'm okay with that. I know their reasons for it, and I'm okay with it. Why? Because it works. And it's fast. And it does what I need it to do.
But no to your point about Apple Computers being closed. And if you want to upgrade your hardware, upgrade it. I guarantee you your used Apple product will fetch far more than your own Dell or home-built (I've home-built many a PC in my day, let me tell you) system ever will. The cost of upgrading will be... comparable.
Submitted by Little Bill on Mon, 2010-06-21 14:38.
@LITTLE BILL,
okay, the Mac is equally flexible and customisable (if not more so) as a PC.
And people don't buy overpriced pretty-looking boxes, and sit there using iTunes, Safari, iWork, Quicktime, Final Cut, Logic ... etc.
You can you install other software, things like Adobe's Creative Suite, wow I didn't realise that?
Think I'll go and buy one!!
Submitted by rpr on Tue, 2010-06-22 03:35.
Yeah, quicktime is okay but Adobe is the proprietary, monstrous presence which HTML5 will save us all from. Alongside open-source Theora of course.
Submitted by publica on Mon, 2010-07-05 20:25.
I'm wondering if anyone other than myself remembers Apple's Patent for an invisible camera behind the flatscreen LCD monitor. Or the fact that AT&T is the NSA's whipping boy when it comes to opening customer records and surveillance.
Does anyone wonder why Mac left RISC chip technology for INtel running the Mac? Does INTEL come from INTELLIGENCE? as in agency?
Anyone use Little Snitch on a Mac and notice that iChat turns on and off all day long?
HMMMMM... How about that eyePhone..er I mean iPhone camera turning on and off at any time.
Apple just can not be trusted any longer. But what global interest can be at this stage?
Submitted by Christopsapien on Thu, 2010-08-05 17:11.
Post new comment