Exploring HTML 5’s Audio/Video Multimedia Support

“Many years ago, when I was first getting started as a
programmer, much of the work that I did was focused on the
development of multimedia applications (programs that combined
video, audio, animation, and text) in order to build presentations
and computer games. I did most of this work using Macromedia
Director in the early 1990s. The idea of developing even
audio—let alone video—apps on the web was pretty much a
pipe-dream until the debut of RealNetworks, which provided the
first major streaming technology that enabled developers to send
buffered media content over the Internet. Later, RealNetworks
allowed embedding media content within web pages.

“The idea of specific video and audio tags within HTML would
have been technically impossible in HTML 3 and even somewhat
infeasible in HTML 4. Because HTML 4.0 essentially was a “frozen”
version, the specific mechanism for displaying content has been
very much format dependent (e.g., Apple QuickTime Movies and Flash
video) and usually relies upon tags with varying parameters for
passing the relevant information to the server. As a result, video
and audio embedding on web pages has become something of a black
art.”

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