Basic Video

Video is hard, because there are many formats, but no one format is supported on all browsers. There are different ways to include multi-media with a web page:

1. Using YouTube:

   Embeding a video from YouTube.com is the easiest way. If you find the video on YouTube.com, you can just include a link to it. Most YouTube videos are available in multiple formats, and will send one to your browser, that your browser can display:

   
   (Source: http://www.youtube.com/embed/PN2HAroA12w.)

2. Using your own video:

   Using the new HTML5 VIDEO tag, you can display video on your computer, and offer it in multiple formats. The first one a browser understands will be used. If the browser doesn't understand the HTML5 video tag, then the OBJECT tag will be used instead, with the EMBED tag as a final fall-back:

   
   (Video downloaded from camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody/test.html.)

   Of course, this solution required you to have your video available in several formats.

3. Using Flash:

   Flash is easy, just use the EMBED tag. But won't play on Apple devices such as Macintosh or iPad (You can't usually control if it auto-plays or not, either):

   
   (This Flash demo was found at www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/mobile_demos_fp10_1.html.)