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Playing Videos in HTML

Videos can be played in HTML by many different methods.

Playing Videos in HTML

Example

<video width="320" height="240" controls="controls">
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
  <source src="movie.ogg" type="video/ogg" />
  <source src="movie.webm" type="video/webm" />
<object data="movie.mp4" width="320" height="240">
  <embed src="movie.swf" width="320" height="240" />
</object>
</video>

Try it yourself »

Problems, Problems, and Solutions

Displaying videos in HTML is not easy!
You must add a lot of tricks to make sure your video will play in all browsers (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera) and on all hardware (PC, Mac , iPad, iPhone).
In this chapter W3Schools summarizes the problems and the solutions.

The <embed> Tag

The purpose of the <embed> tag is to embed multimedia elements in HTML pages.
The following HTML fragment displays a Flash video embedded in a web page:

Example

<embed src="intro.swf" height="200" width="200"/>

Try it yourself »
Problems
  • The <embed> tag is unknown to HTML 4. Your page will not validate correctly.
  • If the browser does not support Flash, your video will not play.
  • iPad and iPhone cannot display Flash videos.
  • If you convert the video to another format, it will still not play in all browsers.

Using The <object> Tag

The purpose of the <object> tag is to embed multimedia elements in HTML pages.
The following HTML fragment displays a Flash video embedded in a web page:

Example

<object data="intro.swf" height="200" width="200"/>

Try it yourself »
Problems:
  • If the browser does not support Flash, your video will not play.
  • iPad and iPhone cannot display Flash videos.
  • If you convert the video to another format, it will still not play in all browsers.

Using the <video> Tag

The <video> element is new in HTML 5.
The purpose of the <video> tag is to embed video elements in HTML pages.
The following HTML fragment displays a video in ogg, mp4, or webm format embedded in a web page:

Example

<video width="320" height="240" controls="controls">
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
  <source src="movie.ogg" type="video/ogg" />
  <source src="movie.webm" type="video/webm" />
Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>

Try it yourself »
Problems:
  • You must convert your videos to many different formats.
  • The <video> element does not work in older browsers.
  • The <video> element does not validate in HTML 4 and XHTML.

The Best HTML Solution

HTML 5 + <object> + <embed>

<video width="320" height="240" controls="controls">
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
  <source src="movie.ogg" type="video/ogg" />
  <source src="movie.webm" type="video/webm" />
<object data="movie.mp4" width="320" height="240">
<embed src="movie.swf" width="320" height="240">
Your browser does not support video
</object>
</video>

Try it yourself »
The example above uses 4 different video formats. The HTML 5 <video> element tries to play the video either in mp4, ogg, or webm formats. If this fails, the code "falls back" to try the <object> element. If this also fails, it "falls back" to the <embed> element.
Problems:
  • You must convert your videos to many different formats.
  • The <video> element does not validate in HTML 4 and XHTML.
  • The <embed> element does not validate in HTML 4 and XHTML.
NOTE: Using <!DOCTYPE html> solves the validation problem.

The YouTube Solution

The easiest way to display videos in HTML is to use YouTube (see next chapter).

Using A Hyperlink

If a web page includes a hyperlink to a media file, most browsers will use a "helper application" to play the file.
The following code fragment displays a link to a Flash video. If a user clicks on the link, the browser will launch a helper application, like Windows Media Player to play the AVI file:

Example

<a href="intro.swf">Play a video file</a>

Try it yourself »

A Note About Inline Videos

When a video is included in a web page it is called inline video.
If you plan to use inline videos in your web applications, be aware that many people find inline videos annoying. Also note that some users might have turned off the inline video option in their browser.
Our best advice is to include inline videos only in web pages where the user expects to see a video. An example of this is a page which opens after the user has clicked on a link to see the video.

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