Sticking a couple big ones up Adobe's way, Vimeo's embeddable Universal Player allows for playback of Vimeo videos on iPads and other non-Flash-supporting devices, using HTML5—but also detects other supported video formats, playing in Flash or native too.
Vimeo's been busy in the kitchen, as they've also cooked up a Watch Later feature, for marking videos to catch up on when you've got more time. Full details below in the press release, but in the meantime keep your eyes peeled for signs of the new Universal Player, which should be debuting later today.
NEW YORK, Aug. 17, 2010 – Online video sharing site Vimeo®, an operating business of IAC [NASDAQ: IACI], will release later today a Universal Player that allows people to watch embedded Vimeo videos on mobile devices such as iPhone or iPad using HTML5. The site has also added a new Watch Later feature into all versions of its player that allows viewers to mark a video for future viewing.
Universal Player:
"With the latest generation of browsers and devices, we've had huge demand for an embeddable player that works with HTML5 and on devices like iPad and iPhone," said Andrew Pile, Vice President of Product and Development for Vimeo.Vimeo's new embeddable player detects the capabilities of the browser and will deliver the optimum player version (Flash, HTML5, or native) with the appropriate video definition (HD, SD, mobile) and playback codec (h.264, webm) – all while maintaining set customization and privacy features.
Pile added, "The new embeddable code is highly scalable and allows us to continue to add support as new browsers and devices are released, for example serving HTML5 to IE9 and our Flash mobile player to Android phones running Flash 10.1."
Watch Later:
Watch Later is a one button solution that lets people save videos for later viewing. Vimeo built the Watch Later button into every version of the Vimeo player. Now, people can access their Watch Later videos by going to the Watch Later album on Vimeo.com, the Vimeo channel on their Roku box or the Vimeo mobile site. It's an easy way to queue up a high-quality playlist to enjoy when people have more time. The Watch Later feature will also be added to Vimeo's API.
Image Credit: Tequila Kitty on Vimeo