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GNOME 3 videos |
2011-05-19
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Apparently GNOME released a new major version, so I decided to check out what all the fuss was about.
At first my heart sank when I went to the GNOME 3 site and I saw a Youtube video there. Really ? Are we promoting our new release using proprietary technology ?
But fearest you not - it was actually defaulting to the HTML5 player! Neat! I'm guessing it needs a special embed code to default to that. My heart jumped two steps up again. Then I wanted to check what it was using in my case.
I right-clicked, and there was a Save Video option. Huh, that's interesting, never saw that on youtube. Let's try that.
And then I saw Rick Astley dancing.
I never really understood the comic value of rickrolling. 1970 called and they would like you to explain them too.
if you enabled the HTML5 youtube cookie they are embedded as HTML5 video elements
Comment by philn — 2011-05-19 @ 12:53
got the same thing too if I use the youtube save button, with the totem save button works fine. But yay for rickroll
Comment by DriedPlum — 2011-05-19 @ 12:57
I think it’s the more reliable HD than Adobe Flash version of HD.
Comment by d.l — 2011-05-19 @ 13:26
Actually it does not default to HTML5, it is just they use the new embed method which is an iframe and that iframe is capable of checking if you are participating in the html5 test (i.e. joined on youtube.com/html5). Also the video is played as webm in FF so it is not a proprietary technology. Also you ARE capable of saving the video, well not by using the button, I don’t understand it either, but youtube never advertised video saving either!
So what you are not happy about in this case? The sise is as open as it can get. The other possibility is to locally host 3 versions of the videos (mp4, webm and flash), use css and javascript trickery to check browser capabilities and then maybe show something. Still using9in some cases) flash. I don’t see it as more ‘free’.
Comment by PeterStJ — 2011-05-19 @ 14:42
Oh, I am completely happy. I was unhappy before I realized it is actual HTML5.
Comment by Thomas — 2011-05-19 @ 15:52
I still get “please install flash” since Firefox 3 doesn’t support WebM yet. Of course if Youtube just linked to the video files I could play them fine externally.
Comment by foo — 2011-05-20 @ 02:30
Oh, and I’m very unhappy about needing to enable JavaScript.
Comment by foo — 2011-05-20 @ 02:30
Sorry Youtube, I hope I’m not giving anything away ;-) but if you append &html5=1 to any Youtube video which also has a WebM version it will play.
Also, to avoid Rick Rolls, in Firefox’s Page Info -> Media you will see the video in the list which you can download or even play right there.
Comment by Fred — 2011-05-21 @ 09:22
On the Gnome 3 videos, the “save video as” rickrolling is merely a tired joke.
But the joke is site-wide and is SUPER inappropriate on some videos. If you have just watched a brief holocaust documentary on YouTube, and teary-eyed, you go to “save video as” so you can share it with your family or friends, only to discover that this is a joke that YouTube is playing on you… this strikes me as tremendously disrespectful to just about any serious video topic they host there. Just don’t show the option if it’s not available.
Comment by Glyph Lefkowitz — 2011-05-22 @ 03:24