The HTML5 <video> Tag

One of the more promising HTML5 tags is the <video> tag. However, in the short term, it complicates things more than it simplifies them. It is not supported by older browsers. In order to be more certain that your video will play in a variety of browsers and platforms, you must provide a plethora of options. Even then, Flash is not supported by iPad and iPhone.

Basic video tag usage is:

<video controls width=450 height=335>
   <source src=demo.mp4 type="video/mp4">
</video>

However, this is simplistic. As of this writing, a wide variety of tags and file formats are required to ensure that a video will play. This includes using the object and embed tags.

© 2014 Dan Hitchcock Vaughan and licensors