Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonist
From the Hulu Blog:
Our player doesn’t just simply stream video, it must also secure the content, handle reporting for our advertisers, render the video using a high performance codec to ensure premium visual quality, communicate back with the server to determine how long to buffer and what bitrate to stream, and dozens of other things that aren’t necessarily visible to the end user. Not all video sites have these needs, but for our business these are all important and often contractual requirements. ... |
I saw this earlier - I'd like to see someone explain why you couldn't meet every requirement on that list with HTML5 + an appropriate server-side backend like IIS Media Services. The Netflix app on the iPad is essentially just an embedded instance of Safari, and it certainly handles DRM, adaptive bitrate, H264 rendering, etc - the Netflix backend just spits out a native H264 stream if an iPad hits it, and Silverlight-wrapped H264 for everything else.
EDIT: actually I think the iPad app just authorizes to the user's Netflix account; in Hulu's case it sounds like they're actually wrapping the streaming content with DRM. Without a dedicated client on the receiving end, I guess that is a case where HTML5 solutions wouldn't work. Yay for the content providers and their insistence on DRM!
Doesn't really matter anyway - for Hulu on mobile devices, the Flash vs. HTML5 debate is moot. Hulu is going to block access regardless. They want people to start ponying up for subscription plans.