There ar a goodness figure of websites that ar now run HTML5 video players that will tally flow embedded videos to the iPad without kicking you out to the YouTube app. Facebook is not unity of this websites. Well, we should clarify by saying that Facebook is not exploitation the HTML5 video recording player, but it is now iPad-compatible when it comes to playing in-web browser videos. All new videos uploaded to the social networking site can now be viewed on the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) tablet. That’s goodness news for vane-understanding sociable butterflies with a newly acquired iPad addiction.
What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, let us remind you that the iPad does not support Adobe’s Flash engineering. That agency any website exploitation a Flash-based video actor is departure to take a big ‘ole dump on your iPad when you hit that little “play” button. That’s just how it is. If you don’t like it, you mightiness wish to try writing an electronic mail to Steve Jobs (we hear he’s real number receptive to such emails).
Facebook is getting around this problem by serving up specially-coded videos that the iPad tin play in the Safari web browser. When Facebook detects an iPad perusal it’s website, it knows to push to you this special savour of video, which uses the iPad’s Quicktime video actor. To get all technical foul, Facebook transcodes the videos into Quicktime-friendly versions based on the h.264 codec.
It’s not all goodness news though. Only new video recording uploads ar encoded in h.264. If you try observation an old video on the iPad, you’ll find you’re still out of fortune.
What’s interesting here is that Facebook is not falling in occupation with many other websites that ar adopting the HTML5 video actor. Whether this is a deliberate breaking from the crowd or an lag solution until Facebook can go fully HTML5, we’re not sure.
Either means, score one for the iPad!
[Via: ReadWriteWeb