14 DAY TRIAL // When Internet Explorer 9 was introduced in mid-March 2010, Microsoft promised that support for HTML5 <video> would be added in a future release. In fact, Dean Hachamovitch, general manager, Internet Explorer, demonstrated an upcoming development Build of IE9 featuring HTML5 <video> support at MIX10, indicating that Microsoft still had some details to iron out. One such detail indicated the video compression standard that IE9 would support in the context of HTML5. On April 29th, 2010, Hachamovitch revealed that IE9 would play nice with the H.264 codec, and only H.264.
“The future of the web is HTML5. Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only,” the IE GM noted.
Multiple aspects of H.264 have contributed to the software giant’s decision. Hachamovitch underlined that this specific codec had been embraced with IE9 because of standardization. As an industry standard, a critical factor that recommends H.264 over other alternatives is support from hardware manufacturers, but not only. Customers need to be able to capture or produce video that they can subsequently seamlessly upload and share online. In Microsoft’s perspective H.264 is the right choice that ensures content from various devices can be put on the web and viewed without problems via software with H.264 support, including Internet Explorer 9.
At the same time, IE9 has an intimate connection with the graphics processing unit. One facet of IE9’s evolution involves hardware-accelerated HTML5 video. IE9 will decode video in the GPU using Windows Media Foundation, delivering a boost in terms of performance and taking a load off the CPU. Focusing HTML5 video support exclusively on H.264 was a choice designed to fall in line with the hardware-accelerated work Microsoft was doing for IE9, Hachamovitch said.
“Other codecs often come up in these discussions. The distinction between the availability of source code and the ownership of the intellectual property in that available source code is critical. Today, intellectual property rights for H.264 are broadly available through a well-defined program managed by MPEG LA. The rights to other codecs are often less clear, as has been described in the press. Of course, developers can rely on the H.264 codec and hardware acceleration support of the underlying operating system, like Windows 7, without paying any additional royalty,” Hachamovitch revealed.
Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview 1.9.7.7.45.6019 doesn’t allow early adopters to test HTML5 <video> content, but this aspect is bound to change in the future. Whether this week’s announcement is a prelude to Microsoft introducing support for HTML5 <video> in Internet Explorer 9 Preview 2 or not still remains to be seen. However, testers won’t have to wait very long. The Redmond company will introduce the second public development preview of Internet Explorer 9 in just a couple of weeks, in mid-May 2010, some eight weeks after the delivery of Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview 1.9.7.7.45.6019, as previously announced.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview is available for download here.