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Very good idea!

I think that audio and video playback should be part of a next HTML specification. streaming audio and video are becoming a larger and larger part of the web experience.
Currently there are too many ways to watch streaming video: Windows Media, Quicktime, Real player and DivX all have their own web plugin. Flash video is also everywhere.
1 video format would be very welcome and allow for more easy browser switching by users and so improve innovation

because opera has been so forthcoming about putting version 9 on the tablets :P

You mean Nokia as it is them that has to pay Opera to do the work of porting to the N800 or to license it for the N800.

Unfortunately I can't see any new web technology gaining wide spread acceptance if it's supported only by Opera - they have such a tiny percentage of the available browser market that most developers don't even bother to support their browser. Opera should colloborate with Mozilla and attempt to gain traction that way by building on W3C standards. It's possible Opera could see some success by focusing their new technology on the mobile segment but longer term the boundaries between the desktop web and the mobile web will become less obvious, as recognised by Ari Jaaksi in his last blog post.

I'd rather there be more support for the Minimo browser by Nokia than to begin to entertain the idea of "yet another web/video tech standard" that's less likely to make its way to the NITs than it is that Elvis is actually still alive. I agree that Flash is "tough meat to chew", but it still works in most cases. As a web video standard there really needs to be some major optimization for mobile devices for sure, but the hardware also needs to catch up to the power of larger computing solutions to make it right.

I'm all for something better than Flash to come along and change the web as we know it, but I think it's more realistic to work with what's already established and improve on that first. The tech world has always been about "new new new!". It's about time we start to "fix fix fix!" what we already "have have have!".

The news is on Arstechnica as well.

what would be the advantage, if opera plays videos? that opera is used instead of mplayer? by enlarging opera and not eliminating the need of mplayer, since opera might not play all kinds of videos that mplayer is able to. or is there another benefit, iam curious, please tell me

If the browser can handle a particular format natively, without a plugin, and especially if it proposes to do so more efficiently (using less CPU cycles), you've got to figure that that is an advance.

True, this may only make a difference for browsers in phones (Opera for devices is where Opera Software must make its money). But if that leads sites that focus on small screens to use a simpler structure that is more easily processed by the browser in our Nokia Internet Tablets, then it's a plus for us too.

And who knows. It may apply pressure on Adobe to

• make Flash cheaper
• make Flash more efficient

so as not to undermine its base. I mean, whatever Opera has will eventually make its way into Firefox because those developers need new challenges, and that could lead IE to add it too.

How could built-in video "replace" Flash? Video is but a small part of what Flash is about. Flash is an interactive presentation format, video is a passive moving-pictures display.