Flash vs HTML 5

There has been lots of wild comments bounding around blogworld of late with the arrival of HTML5, a potential ‘spear of destiny’ to rid browsers of the Flash plug-in.

According to the Millward Brown survey, currently the Flash platform is sitting on some 99% of ‘Internet enabled computers‘  compared to the meager 44.5% HTML5 enabled browsers that comprised of Firefox v.3.6 (2.2%), Firefox v.3.5 (34.3%) Chrome 4.0 (2.8%), Safari 4 (3.4%), Opera10 (1.8%) which support the vast majority of  HTML5 features.

You might be thinking to yourself; ‘where is IE in all of this?’ Well, there is practically no support for HTML 5 in IE 8 beta 2 (bar 2 properties not including the canvas, video or audio tag). Yet, according to Microsoft, IE 8 has ‘strong HTML 5 support‘ whatever that means?  Vic Gundotra ( VP of Engineering at Google) has commented on Microsoft’s commitment to the HTML 5 standards ‘We (Google) are very excited and eagerly await to see evidence of that.

One of the most exciting features of HTML 5 is the <canvas></canvas> allowing pixel level control over display objects and is the counterpart to Flash’s stage property. It supports Vector graphics and most multimedia, as well as the ability to manipulate them with a little JavaScript. Have a look at the following demo, you can now doodle on a website (without flash). W00t! (but if it doesnt work it irreterates the point about lack of support currently for HTML 5)

This is by far one of the most simple applications of the canvas tag and does nothing but scratch the surface of the potential of HTML 5 and Javascript in unison.  ‘Mr Doob’ has created a slightly more technical version of this principle. However, the former example does illustrate the simplicity and speed of Flash/Flex when it comes to creating and developing applications. This could be a potential deterrent for a developer being tasked with creating a complex RIA to a deadline/budget.  The Actionscript3 used to create this example is far more succinct and lightweight than the Javascript and for the time being will reach larger proportion of the community. There are some very impressive demos out there, its also nice to see a non-Flash site on the FWA.

Flash has firmly established market dominance in the web video arena with the FLV & F4V (Flash Video) codec. When combined with a Swf, (Shockwave-flash) this is what makes up the largest percentage of the videos being viewed on the web.

Having also acquired the H.264 video codec, Flash video has enabled users to experience stream HD quality video via progressive download and FMS (Flash Media Sever) services. The HTML 5 <video> is currently supported by the Ogg Theroa video codec, which is argued to deliver diminished performance and quality over the FLV/F4V. This is due to the codec’s reliance on outdated technology and lack of hardware acceleration.

HTML 5 browsers will eventually support H.264, but the open source lot (Firefox and Opera) are reluctant to pay the license fee attached to H.264 owned by MPEG LA. Google & Apple have already invested in H.264 for their browsers, as the cost of licensing is insignificant. YouTube have opted to conduct tests in HTML 5 Video (including H.264) sign up and give it a go.  Visually it is hard to tell the difference of the video quality or the player skin.

HTML 5 has many features that are better suited to an open, cross browser W3C standards compliant platform (when fully supported), especially the video and audio tags. You will not hear many Flash devs complaining about not having to create yet another video/audio application, or encoding several videos at variable bitrates. The canvas tag is great way to display SVGs, multimedia and the animation potential with Javascript is supercool, but to deliver rich and interactive functionality for the time being flash/flex will remain mainstream choice of application.

While HTML 5 may gobble up some of the core uses of the flash player, Flash will continue to push the boundaries of what is capable in a modern and developing web browser, some of which is being developed for Flash CS5 (Native Inverse Kinematics / Timeline Physics animations, is one that I am looking forward to seeing used!) and third party ActionScript pluggins; Papervision3D, Unity3D, GoogleMaps3D, to name but a few.

~Jono (Flashdev)