This article was published on July 23, 2010

YouTube’s new embedding option takes another step toward HTML5.


YouTube’s new embedding option takes another step toward HTML5.

A few months ago, when HTML5 first became all the rage, we told you about the HTML5 version of YouTube. While there are still some inherent issues with HTML5 video (namely the lack of a full screen option), it’s quickly taking off.

According to the YouTube API blog:

An enhancement to our video embed capability is now available through a new embed code style. This new style uses <iframe> and looks like this:

<iframe type=”text/html” width=”640″ height=”385″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID” frameborder=”0″>
</iframe>

The new video embeds look great, but beyond that, they give the added ability to watch videos in HTML5. In using the iframe embed, your viewers will default to watching the video in HTML5 if possible, and then move to the Flash version if they’re not on a compatible system.

Though the new player version isn’t standard yet, it should be soon. YouTube says that it wants to give the developer community ample chance to test it and break it first, before taking it live.

We’d love to show you, but our column width is limited to 500 pixels. Apparently, if you move away from the standard 640 pixel width, it breaks the player.

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