How to check for html5 video support?

Question

Is there any JavaScript or any other way of checking for html5 video support?

Answer 1

I use a slight variation of @sweets-BlingBling's answer, which is:

var hasVideo = !!document.createElement('video').canPlayType &&
               !!document.createElement('video').canPlayType('video/mp4')

This also checks whether the media type 'video/mp4' is actually playable (change this if your video has another media type, like 'video/webm' or 'video/ogg'). The method returns an empty String if the video definitely cannot be played and 'probably' or 'maybe' (actually, both results mean yes in most instances) otherwise. I had to add this for Chrome 41 (seemingly used in google crawler), which has canPlayType, but cannot play mp4 videos.

Answer 2

use:

<script>
alert(!!document.createElement('video').canPlayType);
</script>

if it alerts true implies that your browser supports HTML5 video tag

Here is the url to check HTML5 Browser compatibility http://www.html5test.com/ Open the url in your browser to test how well your browser supports html5

Answer 3

Just a little refinement of sweets-BlingBling's answer : sorry - I can't comment yet :(

var isHTML5Video = (typeof(document.createElement('video').canPlayType) != 'undefined') ? true : false;

or even simpler (thanks digitalBath - as always I can't see the wood for the trees :) )

var isHTML5Video = (typeof(document.createElement('video').canPlayType) != 'undefined');