Microsoft Promises HTML5 Video Support in IE9

HTML5 marches ever forward:

The presence of MP3 and AAC audio support in the browser preview, and the promise of MPEG-4 and H.264 video support in the final version of IE9, raise the question of what role Flash and Silverlight, which are commonly used to handle these functions, will play in IE9. Hachamovitch did not comment on this, but pointed out that with IE9’s video, audio and SVG capabilities, “you have an HTML 5 browser that does audio and video without plugins”.

No canvas support in IE9, though. (Yet?) And, if you’re keeping score on codec support in major browsers, IE joins Safari and Chrome in supporting H.264 for video; Firefox, Opera, and Chrome support Ogg Theora.

I wonder whether Adobe expected Microsoft to support HTML5 video in IE9.

★ Wednesday, 17 March 2010