Flash far superior video quality compared to HTML5

[TB2XSBW]

Am I the only one who has noticed this? If I view the exact same YouTube video using Flash and then HTML5, Flash will give much better results in terms of video quality. This is true in all browsers. I've tried it with hardware acceleration on and off, and Flash still performs better.

I've heard that HTML5 is suppose to be more efficient and provide better video quality, but that certainly isn't my experience.

Anyone else?

[sneaker]

HTML5 isn't a video format. Depending on the browser used HTML5 will serve the very same H.264 video that is used for the Flash player. Right click on the video and click on "stats for nerds" (or similar) and if it shows "mp4" it is the same data as for Flash. Only "webm" is different.

Is webm better than mp4/avc? According to Google marketing: yes. In reality: very doubtful. But it also comes down to encoding settings/bitrate.

[TB2XSBW]

HTML5 isn't a video format. Depending on the browser used HTML5 will serve the very same H.264 video that is used for the Flash player. Right click on the video and click on "stats for nerds" (or similar) and if it shows "mp4" it is the same data as for Flash. Only "webm" is different.

Is webm better than mp4/avc? According to Google marketing: yes. In reality: very doubtful. But it also comes down to encoding settings/bitrate.

That doesn't seem to be the case for me. This video, for example, says it is mp4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e73J71RZRn8

But the video quality using Flash is still superior to HTML5.

[newpball]

Am I the only one who has noticed this? If I view the exact same YouTube video using Flash and then HTML5, Flash will give much better results in terms of video quality. This is true in all browsers. I've tried it with hardware acceleration on and off, and Flash still performs better.

I've heard that HTML5 is suppose to be more efficient and provide better video quality, but that certainly isn't my experience.

Anyone else?

How about showing some examples with at least screen shots so we can see what you are talking about.

'noticing' that things are better can be very deceiving. I mean certainly 10 years from now there will still be people who stick with Flash because they 'feel' it is better but it would be nice to have a bit of objectivity.

However there may be differences like TV/PC levels, expansion to PC levels, color management, color matrix used, etc between the two players. It won't be the first time that gems of software engineering blatantly ignore flags and other indicators.

[sneaker]

That doesn't seem to be the case for me. This video, for example, says it is mp4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e73J71RZRn8

But the video quality using Flash is still superior to HTML5.

Check the nerd stats to see the actually used resolution. It can switch a bit between them automatically when attempting to match your connection speed.

And like newpball said: don't get deceived by the colors. They can differ between players.

[TB2XSBW]

First one is HTML5, second one is Flash.

[newpball]

The second one looks 'sharper' because it is edge 'enhanced'.

Colors do look overall better in the second one.

But of course there is no reference picture.

[poisondeathray]

If you want to examine them in more detail you can download the different versions with youtube-dl and examine them locally.

I did this a while back and in general, the AVC versions have about 35-45% more bitrate . I tested a few random videos and some frames look better on one, some look better on the other. Overall they were fairly close. However, webm versions almost always playback worse in browser(decoder issues, dropped frames) regardless of browser . Still pretty amazing that webm looked close at 35-45% less bitrate (or YT just uses too many servers/distributed encoding and/or poor encoding settings for AVC)

[TB2XSBW]

The second one looks 'sharper' because it is edge 'enhanced'.

Colors do look overall better in the second one.

But of course there is no reference picture.

So I guess the second one looks better because my laptop graphics settings are applied to flash player (which is the default player)?

How do you adjust the settings for HTML5?