Google’s YouTube begins HTML5 Video Player beta

Google’s YouTube has launched an opt-in experiment for HTML5 support on YouTube.

If you are using a supported browser, you can choose to use the HTML5 player instead of the Flash player for most videos.

Supported Browsers:
• Apple Safari (version 4+)
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame installed (Get Chrome Frame)

More info and link to joint the HTML5 beta (your YouTube videos will be played via YouTube’s new HTML5 player) here.

MacDailyNews Take: We’ve joined and you should, too. Support HTML5 (and die, Flash, die!)

18 Comments

  1. Can’t save .flv video files from the Activity window in Safari anymore with html5 Youtube. hmpf.
    Anyone know a way around that without an extra app?
    But it’s nice to see my CPU usage at reasonable levels instead of the flash-benchmark level that it was.

  2. @zero,

    Good point. Someone may come up with a fix eventually, but…

    Another alternative is using ClicktoFlash on the flash version of the site to try to force Youtube to grab the h.264 version by default. That way it’s fully QT-ready!

    BTW, is Safari in iPhone 3.1 HTML5 ready?

  3. Switched to Html5 beta… Aw nuts: “Videos with ads are not supported (they will play in the Flash player)” Well that craps on the whole experience. I really do love those ads.

    On a side note, YouTube’s new beta site design is beautiful… you can search while watching a video. Very neat.

  4. for full screen—

    what seems to work is to play the video, click the diagonal arrow on the upper right that would typically open the video in a new window, and then when it does, maximize that window. ta-da!! full screen!!

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