On the heels of a study that shows that 80 percent of all web video is now available in HTML5 players for the benefit of mobile users, one of the world’s largest news-gathering operations, the BBC, has formally adopted the standard for videos on the regular and mobile versions of its news website, ensuring that videos on the site play on both iOS and Android devices as well as modern browsers across all platforms.
The full rollout of HTML5 video across the BBC News site follows a test program that employed HTML5 video delivery for only the Health section of the site. The BBC had come in for some criticism in being slow to adopt HTML5 as a video delivery mechanism, but said that it was concerned about how to protect its videos from being unduly re-distributed without Flash’s DRM controls. The site still uses Flash video when possible on desktop and notebook systems.
The broadcaster has been working with HTML5 delivery systems throughout 2011, offering iPlayer apps for iPhone and iPad originally in the UK only, but now available in a number of Commonwealth countries for a monthly fee. A US version is expected soon.
