Digital Media: The Unfulfilled Promise of HTML 5 Video

HTML 5 is widely regarded as the holy-grail of internet video, or at least it’s supposed to be. It allows web-enabled devices (Smart TVs, video game consoles, phones, tablets, PCs. etc) to play video hosted on the internet right from the web browser with the need for any additional software i.e – plugins.  The framework for HTML 5 video was first drafted in 2007 and five years later, it is gathering steam. It hasn’t reached critical mass but it is flourishing. So just what has hampered this wonderful technology from being the massive success it was heralded to be? To understand this, we must consider how we got here in the first place.