By Christian Heilmann CHAPTER 3First, this sentence is not fallback content for browsers that cannot play
HTML5 video: this is making your problem the user’s problem, which
is especially frustrating if they are not tech savvy. Imagine trying to do
something and people keep telling you, “Your phleems cannot work with
boodiloo.” OK, what does that mean? A much better way is to give the user
a link to the video as the fallback:
That way, users of old browsers can watch the video in the media play-
er of their operating systems simply by following the link. You can make
that even better by adding a screenshot. Not only does this provide a visual
aid but it allows social media sites like Facebook to show a thumbnail pre-
view — everybody wins. Well, almost.
Browsers that understand the HTML5 video element but do not un-
derstand the MP4 file format (as it is not an open format) will not show
the fallback content. Instead, they show a gray box with a message about a
video not being able to be played, and do not offer a link to follow.
This is annoying, but accords with the standards definitions. Reading
up on those, there is a way to check if a video can be played.
Say we have this HTML: