HTML 5 <video> tag vs Flash video. What are the pros and cons?

Question

IMPORTANT UPDATE

This question was made over 9 years ago. It made sense then, it doesn\'t make it now. Flash is hard on its way out; sup

Answer 1

• The user has control of the UI: they can choose which browser they would like to download and use, and depending on how it works(I'm not sure of the details, but I'm familiar with the concept), even keep their browser and just choose the handler npapi plugin for it. How many times have you been stuck using a shitty actionscript video control interface because the devs of the site you're on were too lazy to do it right (or use flowplayer). Power to the users!, I say.

• Its open source. Now, i'm not RMS or anything, and its nothing to do with ethics or anything else like that, but OSS is just the more efficient, better way to go. It produces better code.

• Better platform support. Right now, Linux + flash = bad. Adobe's the only one who can do anything about it. This sucks.

• like you said, more semantic.