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Cat videos to load faster thanks to the power of HTML5

Hate online videos that pause every now and then while they buffer? That may soon be a thing of the past, even in South Africa, thanks to YouTube’s decision to axe Flash as its default video player and instead move over to HTML5.

HTML5, in case you’re not familiar with the term, is a web-specific programming language that allows web developers to make better, more interactive websites that are chock-full of pictures and videos more efficiently than they could with Flash, all while using fewer system resources and without the need for a browser plugin. In short, it’s just better.

Play, wait, watch, wait

Videos that buffer have long been the worst part of watching online videos . You click play, you wait, then you wait some more, then the video finally starts playing only to pause a moment later for more buffering, even on connections considered to be “fast” for SA.

That has partly been because South Africa’s average internet speeds are pretty slow compared to more developed parts of the world, and partly because Flash is an ageing standard that contributes to the likelihood of buffering, particularly on low-bandwidth connections.

HTML5, on the other hand, has more than kept up – it has been continually evolving since the Web Hypertext Web Application Working Group started working on it back in 2004, and in 2015 it is mature enough and robust enough to meet the needs of a megasite like YouTube.

ABR ftw

The Verge spoke to YouTube engineer Richard Leider, who said HTML5 brings benefits that “extend beyond web browsers”. He highlighted its use of Adaptive Bitrate, or ABR, a technology that adapts a video’s quality according to the viewer’s network performance with high efficiency.

He said ABR has actually reduced the amount of global buffering by up to 50%, and has proven especially effective at improving web video performance on heavily-congested networks. The second key to HTML5’s success is its support for a video codec called VP9, which delivers high-quality video while using less bandwidth than Flash does.

Better lolcats

So what does this mean for you, the web surfer and lover of cat videos? Firstly, you won’t need to do anything to get the benefits of YouTube’s switch – your browser already supports HTML5 if you use Chrome, Internet Explorer 11 or Firefox. Secondly, you should wait a lot less before your videos play and you shouldn’t notice as much buffering, and that’s not a bad thing at all.

Now you have more time to enjoy your lolcats, fail videos and, my personal favourite, reporter bloopers, even on your crappy less-than-stellar connection.

[Source – The Verge]

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