I actually had this post written right before my vacation this summer (the reason for not posting here for 6 weeks!), but somehow managed to lose it. But oh well, the topic is just as hot as ever, as witnessed by several blogposts recently from the likes of the BBC and YouTube. My favorite quote from the YouTube article is “Today, Adobe Flash provides the best platform for YouTube’s video distribution requirements, which is why our primary video player is built with it.” I think that basically sums it up.

For all the excitement surrounding HTML5, it seems that the idea of “replacing Flash” for video delivery is the one that gets everyone going. But, as is pointed out in those two articles (and numerous others), it’s just not that simple – especially as long as there is a hefty majority of users on Internet Explorer 8 and below. If history is any indication, it will be many, many years before those browsers will disappear. I was recently speaking with some attendees at An Event Apart in Minneapolis who informed me that their IT department had just decided to move the entire organization (a large one, but one who I will not name for obvious reasons) to Internet Explorer… 7!!! Yes, S E V E N! I asked why on earth they weren’t moving to 8 and was told that they had begun testing internal apps on 7 “just before 8 was announced” – and they’d put too much work into it, and would have to start all over on 8. Sheez… but that is the reality in a large part of the corporate world.

Adding to that continued need for Flash are also concerns about DRM, multi-bandwidth delivery, as well as the simple fact that it is far easier for the average web designer/developer to customize a video experience in Flash. Oh, and if the client wants subtitles, cue points, video synchronized with our content it all becomes even more difficult. Not necessarily impossible, just difficult. And at the moment, there’s not even any tooling to help ease the pain. I’m sure it’ll come, and I’m also sure that every single point that I could ever dream up will be addressed – eventually.

For now, we live in a world that requires a multifaceted video approach, and thanks to the HTML5 Pack for Dreamweaver CS5, we can not only build pages using HTML5 elements and style them with CSS3, we also can add HTML5 video. But there are a few things that you need to be aware of in order to deliver a seamless video experience in HTML5, as well as provide a Flash alternative for IE. Let’s take a quick look…

Are you using HTML5 video today? Still using Flash? Join the conversation – I’d love to hear your thoughts…