Where to download Chrome, Firefox, and Opera with WebM support -- and where to try it out!

Now that the VP8 video codec has been open sourced and we've been told numerous apps (including four of the top-5 web browsers) will support Google's WebM, maybe you'd like to test it out? You're in luck: Google, Mozilla, and Opera have preview builds ready to go!

Bear in mind that this is the first cut at implementing WebM, and it's not perfect. While the standard-def trailers I watched on YouTube streamed well and looked every bit as good as their Flash + H.264 counterparts, high-def playback was another story. It was a bit jittery at times on the first pass, though much better on subsequent views and it feels like a definite improvement over Google's first HTML5 player -- which used H.264.

So, where can you download a WebM compatible browser?

Google Chrome -- Currently only available in Chromium

Firefox -- Grab a Firefox WebM nightly build

Opera -- Opera 10.54 has WebM support

Now that you've got a browser, head over to the HTML5 beta page on YouTube and make sure you've joined. If you have, click on this link to check out a boatload of trailers (like Zombieland, 9, and Prince of Persia) using WebM. If you've done things correctly, YouTube's HTML5 player will display WEBM just to the left of your resolution choice.

Once you've given WebM a go, share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Tags: codec, google, H.264, html5, streamin, video, webm, youtube