In Part One of the State of HTML5 and Flash, we explored some of the common misconceptions of HTML5 and gave a brief overview of this emerging standard. In Part Two, I cover some important areas of browser support for HTML5 and discuss how Flash fits in with the competing technologies.

Current HTML5 Family Browser Support
Many parts of the HTML5 family are almost fully adopted, while some areas have major holes in certain browsers. Additionally, there are areas of disagreement as to the best methods for the standards. For now, let’s talk about the ones that are currently behind the curve.

Web Database
This is a new specification that would allow data to be available client-side, stored in a database, and accessible offline. This spec is currently based on SQL-lite, but is only being followed by certain browsers. The W3C is waiting on further definition of this standard until a different database implementation is determined.

GeoLocation
For getting the current location of a user on your website. Not all browsers have adopted this feature. I believe this is because of possible security issues.

3D Transforms
This is only possible in Chrome and Safari right now. Flash is way ahead of the curve in 3D, since CS4 has native 3D support.

Audio and Video
HTML5 allows you to natively embed audio and video using new HTML tags. This is a major part of HTML5. We could see a lot of Flash video websites replaced with this new tag in the future. Unfortunately, no one can decide on the best codecs for audio and video.

For instance, on the audio side, MP3 is only adopted by Safari and Win Opera. All the other browsers are using some form of codec such as WAV, OGG, or AAC.

Also, video does not have a winning codec. There are three or four frontrunners out there, so if you’re using the video tag right now, you’ll need to publish your video to three or four different formats. This is a large hassle compared to using a Flash video player. It’s why you don’t see many of the video-serving websites out there using the <video> HTML element.

What about Flash?
Many of the applications we currently build in Flash are impossible or extremely hard to build with HTML5, especially when it comes to complicated animations and definitely when it comes to 3D. Go to thefwa.com and you’ll see that large corporations are still producing high-quality Flash content on a daily basis, particularly in the marketing realm. You just can’t do what these websites do in HTML5. Not yet, and not for years to come. An Adobe MAX conference is coming up soon and there have been rumors that Adobe will beef up the 3D side of Flash way beyond what you currently see in many of Flash games. This is a big win for all the Flash-based games, including many of the top games on Facebook.

The battle still wages over which video codec to standardize, so we can safely keep creating Flash video players when it comes to playback on Laptops and PCs. Even though the H.264 video codec seems to be ahead of other codecs, you can still build a Flash video player that will play content across all platforms but the iDevice.

Flash is on 98% of the major systems. Web traffic on major sites is still mainly Mac and Windows computers. In the end, when deciding which technology to use for the task at hand, it comes down to the client’s needs and the best tool for the job.

In Part Three, I will talk about Mobile and where we see HTML5 and Flash fitting into this ever-expanding market.