The latest study published by video search engine MeFeedia shows that 54% of H.264 video content served via Flash is now available in the open HTML5 standard as well. The company has analyzed content from publishers like Youtube, Vimeo, Hulu, MySpace and Ustream, and basing on the data they gathered it really seems like Steve Jobs’ bet on the open video format is starting to pay off.
While it’s true that most of the videos I consume every day from my favorite sources (namely Youtube and Vimeo) is available in iOS-compatible format, I don’t know whether this 54% reported by MeFeedia has to be considered an accurate estimate or an exaggerated report. As All Things D also notices, MeFeedia’s stats include “old archival stuff” and sources of Chinese video. If we consider these stats accurate, however, it would be a 30% increase since MeFeedia’s scan last May. Not bad.
Still, I have to agree with Peter Kafka when he points out that Hulu’s iPad-compatible content requires a subscription and many websites promoted by Apple as “HTML5-ready” keep on publishing Flash-only content. Every day I stumble upon a cool article or tutorial somewhere on the internet from a website that hasn’t re-encoded content for iOS devices yet.
So is it really a huge 54% share? It may be. We’ll just have to see whether the remaining 46% will jump on board in the upcoming months or not.
