Overview of HTML5 Multimedia
The ability to add multimedia to web pages has always been a popular feature of the web, both for businesses and for personal use. With the ability to create multimedia becoming much simpler through smartphones and the like, web multimedia has only increased in popularity.
This article gives you a brief overview of some of the differences between adding multimedia to a web page before and now with HTML5. It will also briefly introduce some of the more exciting capabilities and functionality that HTML5 multimedia brings.
In the Past
The techniques used in adding multimedia to a web page usually relied on using third-party plugins such as Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime, or Microsoft's Windows Media Player. Whichever method was chosen, one would have to rely on the fact that the viewer's device had the intended plugin installed; otherwise, the viewer wouldn’t be able to view or hear the multimedia. This all changed with the introduction of native multimedia, which has come via HTML5.
HTML5 multimedia puts the onus on the browser to natively support the playing of media such as audio and video files, doing away with the reliance on the third-party plugins.