Everyone who has visited YouTube.com in the past four years knows that you can embed video in a web page. But prior to HTML5, there was no standards-based way to do this.  Every video you've watched on the web has been funneled through a third party plugin (QuickTime, RealPlayer, Flash). 

HTML5 defines a standard way to embed video in a web page, using a <video> element. Support for the <video> element is still evolving, which is a polite way of saying it doesn’t work yet. At least, it doesn’t work everywhere. But don’t despair! There are alternatives and fallbacks and options.

Video Codecs:

There are tons of video codecs. The three most relevant codecs are H.264, Theora, and VP8.

i H.264 is also known as “MPEG-4 part 10,” a.k.a. “MPEG-4 AVC,” a.k.a. “MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding.” H.264 was also devel.... read more.