[whatwg] HTML5 video element - default to fallback in cases where UA can't play format

[Gregory Maxwell]

2009/12/3 Kit Grose <kit at iqmultimedia.com.au>:
> On 04/12/2009, at 1:13 AM, Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
>> I'll freely admit that the most important reason I oppose this is
>> because
>> I don't want to implement it
>
> And I'll admit that the main reason I support it is selfish on my part
> too :).
>
> Basically I don't want to be producing OGG files (given that I already
> have many H.264 videos available for use that were previously played
> in Flash or QT Player), and the general feeling I'm getting
> (anecdotally) is that FF users are increasingly opting to install
> NoScript.
>
> In practice, that means I'm actually using the <noscript> tag again,
> which makes me feel incredibly dirty.

If they are running noscript then why on earth would you expect
them to have flash enabled?  :)

(1) Flash presents a greater and less controllable privacy exposure
than Javascript does.

(2) Flash is more frequently blamed for obnoxious ads than JS.

(3) Without javascript support a great many flash sites simply don't
work because the copy-and-paste flash version probing used depends
on Javascript.

(4) Flash (and other plugins) are commonly 'known' to trigger firefox
crashes, not so for JS.


Perhaps I'm all wrong— but I don't think your suspicions pass a sniff
test. Someone should try measuring.