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YouTube offers rentals, turns on HTML5-only switch in TestTube
First they announced their first video rental initiative in cooperation with the Sundance Film Festival. Five films will be offered and you'll need a Google Checkout account (shock of shocks) if you want to get in on the action. Google has also announced that they will "a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate" in the program.
According to the official blog post, the rental program is all about providing an ad-free way to monetize video on YouTube.
Beyond that, they've also rolled out a new TestTube project which you're really going to love if you hate Adobe Flash Player. You guessed it: HTML5-powered YouTube!
Right now there are some limitations: no full screen, incompatibility with other TestTube projects (though it still works with feather), and the HTML5 isn't available on all videos. The upside, of course, is that the rollout has begun and you'll be enjoying Flash-free YouTube once it has completed.
Quality-wise, the HTML5 videos aren't quite up to par with their Flash-powered cousins just yet. The screenshot below is from the same clip as the header but viewed in Firefox with Flash:
One other bonus: ads don't yet work in the HTML5 player. That's a pretty sweet bonus, am I right?
Head on over and flip the switch to try it out -- remember, your browser has to support the HTML5 <video> tag and H.264 encoding or it won't work!
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsJoshJan 21st 2010 9:10AM
Too bad Firefox doesn't support h.264 encoding. Stupid licensing fees.
stopsatgreenJan 21st 2010 9:20AM
Full-screen mode *is* implemented - at least in Safari 4 on Mac.
mahJan 21st 2010 11:08AM
Youtube should go to silverlight instead. I know it's another plugin (and not feasible here), but it works amazingly for video streaming. I checked out bill gates' new page today which has some silverlight streaming and it was so crisp and clear and started playing instantly without waiting for a buffer. I'll take the overhead anyday, it's the viewing experience that matters.
alexdoddJan 21st 2010 11:10AM
Googles up to its usual tricks, the Opera build i'm running supports everything it needs, Opera has supported HTML5 video standards waaaaay before chrome was even released yet i get told by youtube i need a browser that support HTML5. I was a little suprised when they didn't use this chance to push chrome on me! Ha.
DavidJan 21st 2010 11:21AM
HTML 5 on youtube doesn't seem to be working for me on the latest chrome dev build. not sure what i'm doing wrong.
kingabraham3Jan 21st 2010 11:26AM
"unevil" google is pulling a microsoft -- making sure its features only work on its products (they throw in safari cuz they know no-one uses it). so much for the whole china ploy.
TheGMJan 21st 2010 4:50PM
@kingabraham3
@alexdodd
If they wanted to throw in something few people used, they would throw in Opera. It works with FF, Chrome, Safari. IE does not support HTML 5.
sharkbaitJan 21st 2010 4:22PM
"One other bonus: ads don't yet work in the HTML5 player. That's a pretty sweet bonus, am I right?"
No, that means videos with ads will still play in the flash player.
CAPISTRANTOMASApr 12th 2010 10:34PM
It's a disaster.....I can not open videos from youtube working with HTML5....... I don't know what thing to do for fix it....
CAPISTRANTOMAS YOUTUBE