Audio and video - HTML5 and CSS3 - page 121

video relatively complex. Compare the markup required to add an
image to a web page with that typically required to add a video.

Image Video

<img
width="320"
height="240"
id="myimage"
src="myimage.png">

<object
classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/
pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/
swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"
width="320" height="240"
id="myvideoname">
<param name="movie"
value="myvideo.swf">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<param name="bgcolor" value=#ffffff>
<embed href="myvideo.swf"
quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff"
width="320" height="240"
name="myvideoname"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/
go/getflashplayer">
</embed>
</object>

Because there's no native support for audio and video, web authors
have had to resort to browser plug-ins. The web has largely settled on
Adobe Flash as a de facto standard, but as the previous code shows,
this is still a good deal more complex than putting an image on a page.
And that's not all the code that's required: to add controls such as Play
and Pause, there must be code written inside Flash, and even more
code if the player needs to be integrated into other page content.

One of the reasons for YouTube's popularity is that it reduces the
complexity of displaying video on the web—instead of doing all the
work yourself, you upload the video to YouTube and then copy and
paste some code. But HTML should make it that simple without the need
for a third — party site. This is a problem remedied in HTML5 with the
introduction of the <audio> and <video> elements.