What's the status of the HTML 5 <video>

Question

Even though it seems to be in some kind of jeopardy, the open video standard is a great idea. I saw some demos on motion tracking with it - just proofs-of-concept, but interesting nonetheless. Now, I'd say that concepts like these would really be a gain, if there would be access to the user's webcam... Just imagine browsing through Flickr with your hands in mid-air.

I have Googled a little, but I can't find any detailed discussion on the subject. It is mentioned in some places, but that doesn't get me very far. Does anybody know whether support for this is planned? If yes, any prognosis on the 'when'? ;-)

Of course, I guess they'd have to dream up a pretty good security model for it..

Answer 1

We're working on a project like this..

About the Ericsson's demo that people mentioned; It only works with a patched webkit which isn't released (yet).

We haven't seen any other working projects so this is how we plan to do this:

• Implement the HTML Media Capture draft (available here) in order to access the raw data.
• Using websockets for sending local data and receiving remote data at the same time.
• Clients "register" on the websocket server with a callerID.
• Server has an "invite" API where caller1 "invites" caller2.
• The browser will play this using the HTML5 audio- and HTML5 video tag.

Answer 2

have a look at this WebRTC project which is an open source project and gives us the chance to access webcam, microphone without installing any plugings. which i guess Google uses for their developments. so worth trying.

Answer 3

Updated!: HTMl5Rocks has a very good working demo of this now. Check it out here!

Here is a very interesting article with a demo, however the source has not been released yet: (Read the comments for more information on codecs used, socket server tech, etc)

https://labs.ericsson.com/developer-community/blog/beyond-html5-conversational-voice-and-video-implemented-webkit-gtk

Answer 4

html5 is with us for good, the flash vs silverlight vs html5 question has been around for a while now, but it seems that the trends are pointing towards a merger between our desktop world and our online world. If you've taken a sneak peak at Mac's Lion OS, it is basically app centric, which rides that line between OS level and Online.

The Device API has been drafted and will come to all major browsers with time (WebKit is always the early adopter), but as we all know the w3c takes longer to officially approve additions to the HTML5 specification. Erikson Labs has released their camera/sound capture API (https://labs.ericsson.com/developer-community/blog/beyond-html5-audio-capture-web-browsers) so you can get started today with HTML5 and peripheral support.

Answer 5

You can now access video / audio hardware directly from the browser (hooray HTML5) but there is no good way to record the stream. To accomplish this you still need to utilize a Flash Media Server (or clone). There are a few good services out there that make this turn-key instead of a giant headache:

http://cameratag.com

http://framebase.io

http://framey.com

Answer 6

Ok, still no clear, definitive answers, so I went on and took a little action. The WHATWG would probably have an answer for me, so I decided to contact someone there. Didn't really know who it had to be, but fellow Dutchman Anne van Kesteren usually seems to know the Web's future pretty well - plus, he provides an e-mail address.

Translating his response probably won't do any good, so in short: there are some rough ideas on how to make it all work, but there's nothing tangible at the moment. The Device APIs and Policy Working Group is supposed to continue work on this.

Reading through their page makes me realize something else too - why only webcam access? If Google intends to move the OS to the browser, we'll need more than just webcams. Why not manage your iPod through a webapp too? Anything should be possible. I guess a whole new concept of 'trusted website' will have to evolve if functionality like this would come available, but well, there's a solution to pretty much anything, isn't there? ;-)