To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
It's been there for years. That's what the OBJECT tag is for. It's always been (or embed but it's unofficial). There is absolutely *no* reason to use flash to play a video. Except braindeadness.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html
im guessing there problem with those is that they dont define a set codec. as in, you can toss in any kind of object, but unless the browser, or a plugin, understands the kind of object its dealing with, its useless.
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#video
this is whats being suggested for html5.
hell, isnt flash just another use of the object tag?
Edited 2007-08-21 13:56
If the coding was referred to as HMML (HyperMedia), I'd be inclined to agree with you.
Unfortunately it's HTML, and the point of XHTML was to reinforce the point that HTML is a document language, not an interactive multimedia engine. The entire point of deprecating all rectangular nontextual elements (even IMAGE) in favor of OBJECT was to keep HTML from being needlessly corrupted by technology-based elements whose purpose and definitions were likely to be corporately controlled and highly mutable over time.
The consequences of this austerity measure are as follows:
1. The W3C is not in the position of mandating minimum codec requirements as the situation is not directly comparable to mandating alpha-enabled PNG support.
2. Content providers recognize that codecs tether users to players, providers to expensive server software, and OSS solutions like OGG offer no content protection which like it or not is a dealbreaker.
3. Macromedia provided a platform-neutral VM with its own server technology, affordable authoring tools, and noncomplex content protection (albeit crackable).
I work in this field for a university. I'd prefer everyone stuck with Real, myself, but Macromedia's solution was the least painful for end users, and they drive standards adoption as much as we try to push it.
0.8.0 seems to be able to do so now.
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/release-0.8.0.txt






Member since:
2005-07-06
does it work? as in, can one watch youtube and similar using gnash?
thats about the only real use for flash that i can see right now, and if they put native ogg support into the next HTML spec, even that will be a waste.