Vimeo Goes Mobile and Adds HTML5 and 1080p

High-quality video site Vimeo has made a few upgrades that show they’re keeping an eye on changes in the web. They’ve added support for mobile phones and also optional support for 1080p. More interesting is their beta support for HTML5, which could result in us no longer needing Flash to view streaming video.

Mobile Support

Video on a mobile device is always awesome and now you can convert your current Vimeo videos for viewing on any mobile device. Users will be able to watch, like, and comment on any of your videos right from their smartphone. Vimeo has made the process quite simple, just a click of a button.

• Click Settings in the top right corner of any of your videos
• Go to the Videos tab
• Check the Generate mobile versions of all my videos box

If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, or Palm Pre, you can simply visit vimeo.com/m and create your mobile versions there. Just navigate to My Videos and hit the Generate Mobile Videos button. Keep in mind that these features are only available for Vimeo Plus members.

Vimeo originally posted this feature on their blog on 1/11/2010, but is only now announcing it via email. That being the case, it may take quite a while for all of your videos to get converted due to demand. Once you’ve made the above changes, all videos you upload in the future will automatically have mobile versions created and all the videos already uploaded will get converted.

New HTML5 Player

Vimeo recently launched a beta of their new HTML5 player and is inviting more users to test it. You may recall that Google is testing an HTML5 version of YouTube. It’s very exciting to see the web moving forward. Even if HTML5 doesn’t officially become a standard any time soon, we can all still benefit. Some of the improvements that you will see on Vimeo as compared to the standard Flash player:

• The player loads right away — no more spinning butterfly thingy
• You can jump anywhere in the video, without having to wait for it to buffer
• Smoother, less jumpy playback (hopefully)

There are some caveats, including the fact that this only works on Safari or Chrome. Also, you can’t go fullscreen due to browser limitations and 35% of all videos will still require the standard Flash player. On the plus side Vimeo will figure out which player to use, so you won’t have to worry about it. To enable the HTML5 player, click the Switch to HTML5 player below any video.

About the Author
Rahsheen has been a certified geek since before it was the thing to do. He started programming and tinkering in the 4th grade. Now, Rahsheen mostly writes on various sites about technology trends in social media and mobile. . He is also a musician, singer, rapper, writer, and producer. @rahsheen - +Rahsheen Porter - coachrah.com
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