Microsoft’s Internet
Explorer 9 browser now supports HTML5 video in both the industry-standard H.264
format and the newer WebM format.
In a March 16 blog post,
Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Internet Explorer,
discussed the HTML5 video format support and encourages users to try out the
new WebM capability at the IE Test Drive site.
“With the WebM Project’s release of WebM Components for IE9 (Preview),
Windows customers running IE9 can play WebM videos in Web pages,” Hachamovitch
said. “IE9 is the only browser today committed to supporting both formats
directly.”
Indeed, Hachamovitch said in
the new Video
Format Support demo at the IE Test
Drive site, users can try out Web pages with both video formats on them in
different browsers. “You can see how Website authors can adjust the experience
on their pages based on the browser and operating system the visitor is using,”
Hachamovitch said. “You can also see the opportunity that HTML5 video offers
publishers to make video an integral part of the Web experience, especially
when it is fully hardware-accelerated.”
Moreover, despite not
providing WebM support bundled into IE9, Microsoft continues to appeal for an
open Web by enabling support via third-party add-ons. Hachamovitch said, “The
people who build and use the Web deserve practical and consistent video support
rather than ideology.
Working through these questions is part of moving the Web forward. The Open Web
is a product of consensus and open dialog.”
According to a description
of the WebM support for IE9 on the WebM site: “Microsoft does not ship IE9 with
WebM codecs built in, so the
codecs must be installed in Windows separately. We worked closely with
Microsoft to seamlessly integrate WebM with IE9, providing a great HTML5 user
experience and seamless integration of our components with IE9.”
WebM is an open media file
format designed for the Web. WebM files consist of video streams compressed
with the VP8 video codec and audio streams compressed with the Vorbis audio codec. The WebM file structure
is based on the Matroska media
container. VP8 is a video-compression
technology that was developed by On2 Technologies. Google acquired On2 in February 2010.
Meanwhile, covering why
Microsoft does not bundle support for WebM into IE9, Hachamovitch said:
As an industry, we still
face many legitimate, unanswered questions about liability, risks and support
for WebM, such as:
- Who bears the liability and risk for consumers, businesses and developers until
the legal system resolves the intellectual-property issues?
- When and how does Google genuinely make room for the Open Web Standards
community to engage?
- What is the plan for restoring consistency across devices, Web services and the
PC?
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