Support for Video Content

Video on the web is a complicated subject. There are many different video display standards in use on the web but the most widespread method used for displaying content at the present time is via the Adobe Flash Video 'FLV' container format which supports popular video codecs such as ON2 VP6, Sorenson Spark, Sorenson Video and MPEG4/H.264.

The most favoured video codec used for supplying content for download, especially in the professional video market is currently H.264 (including variants such as DivX H.264 and Quicktime H.264). For specialised applications, Windows Media Video, Apple Pixlet and a range of other video codecs may be used.

The Adobe Flash plugin supports a couple of different video codecs of which the preferred is currently H.264 as used by YouTube, Vimeo and a number of others. The advantage of H.264 video is that it can be displayed both in the Flash plugin and in HTML 5 compatible web browsers such as Safari and Google Chrome. Its wide support means that it is the most likely candidate for inclusion in Pixaria Gallery as this will offer the best performance and compatibility for end users going forward.

Unfortunately, there are a number of other logistical complications in supporting any kind video such as the inability to do any editing, trimming or resizing on the server and the large size of the files involved. Even the big players like Google and Vimeo struggle with these issues and because of this, it's unlikely I will be able to add any support for video in the foreseeable future.


Last edited on Thursday February 25 2010 at 08:51:52