Web/HTML/Element/video

From Get docs


The HTML Video element (<video>) embeds a media player which supports video playback into the document. You can use <video> for audio content as well, but the <audio> element may provide a more appropriate user experience.


The above example shows simple usage of the <video> element. In a similar manner to the <img> element, we include a path to the media we want to display inside the src attribute; we can include other attributes to specify information such as video width and height, whether we want it to autoplay and loop, whether we want to show the browser's default video controls, etc.

The content inside the opening and closing <video></video> tags is shown as a fallback in browsers that don't support the element.

Attributes

Like all other HTML elements, this element supports the global attributes.

autoplay

A Boolean attribute; if specified, the video automatically begins to play back as soon as it can do so without stopping to finish loading the data.

Note: Sites that automatically play audio (or videos with an audio track) can be an unpleasant experience for users, so should be avoided when possible. If you must offer autoplay functionality, you should make it opt-in (requiring a user to specifically enable it). However, this can be useful when creating media elements whose source will be set at a later time, under user control. See our autoplay guide for additional information about how to properly use autoplay.

To disable video autoplay, autoplay="false" will not work; the video will autoplay if the attribute is there in the <video> tag at all. To remove autoplay, the attribute needs to be removed altogether.

In some browsers (e.g. Chrome 70.0) autoplay doesn't work if no muted attribute is present.

autoPictureInPicture '
A Boolean attribute which if true indicates that the element should automatically toggle picture-in-picture mode when the user switches back and forth between this document and another document or application.
buffered
An attribute you can read to determine the time ranges of the buffered media. This attribute contains a TimeRanges object.
controls
If this attribute is present, the browser will offer controls to allow the user to control video playback, including volume, seeking, and pause/resume playback.
controlslist '
The controlslist attribute, when specified, helps the browser select what controls to show on the media element whenever the browser shows its own set of controls (e.g. when the controls attribute is specified).

The allowed values are nodownload, nofullscreen and noremoteplayback.

Use the disablePictureInPicture attribute if you want to disable the Picture-In-Picture mode (and the control).

crossorigin
This enumerated attribute indicates whether to use CORS to fetch the related image. CORS-enabled resources can be reused in the <canvas> element without being tainted. The allowed values are:
anonymous
Sends a cross-origin request without a credential. In other words, it sends the Origin: HTTP header without a cookie, X.509 certificate, or performing HTTP Basic authentication. If the server does not give credentials to the origin site (by not setting the Access-Control-Allow-Origin: HTTP header), the image will be tainted, and its usage restricted.
use-credentials
Sends a cross-origin request with a credential. In other words, it sends the Origin: HTTP header with a cookie, a certificate, or performing HTTP Basic authentication. If the server does not give credentials to the origin site (through Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: HTTP header), the image will be tainted and its usage restricted.
When not present, the resource is fetched without a CORS request (i.e. without sending the Origin: HTTP header), preventing its non-tainted used in <canvas> elements. If invalid, it is handled as if the enumerated keyword anonymous was used. See CORS settings attributes for additional information.
currentTime

Reading currentTime returns a double-precision floating-point value indicating the current playback position of the media specified in seconds. If the media has not started playing yet, the time offset at which it will begin is returned. Setting currentTime sets the current playback position to the given time and seeks the media to that position if the media is currently loaded.

If the media is being streamed, it's possible that the user agent may not be able to obtain some parts of the resource if that data has expired from the media buffer. Other media may have a media timeline that doesn't start at 0 seconds, so setting currentTime to a time before that would fail. The getStartDate() method can be used to determine the beginning point of the media timeline's reference frame.

[1]disablePictureInPicture '
Prevents the browser from suggesting a Picture-in-Picture context menu or to request Picture-in-Picture automatically in some cases.
[2]disableRemotePlayback '

A Boolean attribute used to disable the capability of remote playback in devices that are attached using wired (HDMI, DVI, etc.) and wireless technologies (Miracast, Chromecast, DLNA, AirPlay, etc).

In Safari, you can use x-webkit-airplay="deny" as a fallback.

duration Read only
A double-precision floating-point value which indicates the duration (total length) of the media in seconds, on the media's timeline. If no media is present on the element, or the media is not valid, the returned value is NaN. If the media has no known end (such as for live streams of unknown duration, web radio, media incoming from WebRTC, and so forth), this value is +Infinity.
height
The height of the video's display area, in CSS pixels (absolute values only; no percentages.)
intrinsicsize '
This attribute tells the browser to ignore the actual intrinsic size of the image and pretend it’s the size specified in the attribute. Specifically, the image would raster at these dimensions and naturalWidth/naturalHeight on images would return the values specified in this attribute. Explainer, examples
loop
A Boolean attribute; if specified, the browser will automatically seek back to the start upon reaching the end of the video.
muted
A Boolean attribute that indicates the default setting of the audio contained in the video. If set, the audio will be initially silenced. Its default value is false, meaning that the audio will be played when the video is played.
playsinline
A Boolean attribute indicating that the video is to be played "inline", that is within the element's playback area. Note that the absence of this attribute does not imply that the video will always be played in fullscreen.
poster
A URL for an image to be shown while the video is downloading. If this attribute isn't specified, nothing is displayed until the first frame is available, then the first frame is shown as the poster frame.
preload

This enumerated attribute is intended to provide a hint to the browser about what the author thinks will lead to the best user experience with regards to what content is loaded before the video is played. It may have one of the following values:

  • none: Indicates that the video should not be preloaded.
  • metadata: Indicates that only video metadata (e.g. length) is fetched.
  • auto: Indicates that the whole video file can be downloaded, even if the user is not expected to use it.
  • empty string: Synonym of the auto value.

The default value is different for each browser. The spec advises it to be set to metadata.

Note:

  • The autoplay attribute has precedence over preload. If autoplay is specified, the browser would obviously need to start downloading the video for playback.
  • The specification does not force the browser to follow the value of this attribute; it is a mere hint.


src
The URL of the video to embed. This is optional; you may instead use the <source> element within the video block to specify the video to embed.
width
The width of the video's display area, in CSS pixels (absolute values only; no percentages).

Events

Event Name Fired When
audioprocess ' The input buffer of a ScriptProcessorNode is ready to be processed.
canplay The browser can play the media, but estimates that not enough data has been loaded to play the media up to its end without having to stop for further buffering of content.
canplaythrough The browser estimates it can play the media up to its end without stopping for content buffering.
complete The rendering of an OfflineAudioContext is terminated.
durationchange The duration attribute has been updated.
emptied The media has become empty; for example, this event is sent if the media has already been loaded (or partially loaded), and the [[../../../../Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM/Reference/Interface/NsIDOMHTMLMediaElement|load()]] method is called to reload it.
ended Playback has stopped because the end of the media was reached.
loadeddata The first frame of the media has finished loading.
loadedmetadata The metadata has been loaded.
pause Playback has been paused.
play Playback has begun.
playing Playback is ready to start after having been paused or delayed due to lack of data.
progress Fired periodically as the browser loads a resource.
ratechange The playback rate has changed.
seeked A seek operation completed.
seeking A seek operation began.
stalled The user agent is trying to fetch media data, but data is unexpectedly not forthcoming.
suspend Media data loading has been suspended.
timeupdate The time indicated by the currentTime attribute has been updated.
volumechange The volume has changed.
waiting Playback has stopped because of a temporary lack of data

Usage notes

Browsers don't all support the same video formats; you can provide multiple sources inside nested <source> elements, and the browser will then use the first one it understands.

<video controls>
  <source src="myVideo.mp4" type="video/mp4">
  <source src="myVideo.webm" type="video/webm">
  <p>Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Here is
     a <a href="myVideo.mp4">link to the video</a> instead.</p>
</video>

We offer a substantive and thorough guide to media file types and the guide to the codecs supported for video. Also available is a guide to audio codecs that can be used with them.

Other usage notes:

  • If you don't specify the controls attribute, the video won't include the browser's default controls; you can create your own custom controls using JavaScript and the HTMLMediaElement API. See Creating a cross-browser video player for more details.
  • To allow precise control over your video (and audio) content, HTMLMediaElements fire many different events. In addition to providing controllability, these events let you monitor the progress of both download and playback of the media, as well as the playback state and position.
  • You can use the object-position property to adjust the positioning of the video within the element's frame, and the object-fit property to control how the video's size is adjusted to fit within the frame.
  • To show subtitles/captions along with your video, you can use some JavaScript along with the <track> element and the WebVTT format. See Adding captions and subtitles to HTML5 video for more information.
  • You can play audio files using a <video> element. This can be useful if, for example, you need to perform audio with a WebVTT transcript, since the <audio> element doesn't allow captions using WebVTT.
  • To test the fallback content on browsers that support the element, you can replace <video> with a non-existing element like <notavideo>.

A good general source of information on using HTML <video> is the [[../../../../Learn/HTML/Multimedia_and_embedding/Video_and_audio_content|Video and audio content]] beginner's tutorial.

Styling with CSS

The <video> element is a replaced element — its display value is inline by default, but its default width and height in the viewport is defined by the video being embedded.

There are no special considerations for styling <video>; a common strategy is to give it a display value of block to make it easier to position, size, etc., and then provide styling and layout information as required. Video player styling basics provides some useful styling techniques.

Detecting track addition and removal

You can detect when tracks are added to and removed from a <video> element using the addtrack and removetrack events. However, these events aren't sent directly to the <video> element itself. Instead, they're sent to the track list object within the <video> element's HTMLMediaElement that corresponds to the type of track that was added to the element:

HTMLMediaElement.audioTracks
An AudioTrackList containing all of the media element's audio tracks. You can add a listener for addtrack to this object to be alerted when new audio tracks are added to the element.
HTMLMediaElement.videoTracks
Add an addtrack listener to this VideoTrackList object to be informed when video tracks are added to the element.
HTMLMediaElement.textTracks
Add an addtrack event listener to this TextTrackList to be notified when new text tracks are added to the element.

For example, to detect when audio tracks are added to or removed from a <video> element, you can use code like this:

var elem = document.querySelector("video");

elem.audioTrackList.onaddtrack = function(event) {
  trackEditor.addTrack(event.track);
};

elem.audioTrackList.onremovetrack = function(event) {
  trackEditor.removeTrack(event.track);
};

This code watches for audio tracks to be added to and removed from the element, and calls a hypothetical function on a track editor to register and remove the track from the editor's list of available tracks.

You can also use addEventListener() to listen for the addtrack and removetrack events.

Examples

Simple video example

This example plays a video when activated, providing the user with the browser's default video controls to control playback.

<!-- Simple video example -->
<!-- 'Big Buck Bunny' licensed under CC 3.0 by the Blender foundation. Hosted by archive.org -->
<!-- Poster from peach.blender.org -->
<video controls
    src="https://archive.org/download/BigBuckBunny_124/Content/big_buck_bunny_720p_surround.mp4"
    poster="https://peach.blender.org/wp-content/uploads/title_anouncement.jpg?x11217"
    width="620">

Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos, 
but don't worry, you can <a href="https://archive.org/details/BigBuckBunny_124">download it</a> 
and watch it with your favorite video player!

</video>

Until the video starts playing, the image provided in the poster attribute is displayed in its place. If the browser doesn't support video playback, the fallback text is displayed.

Multiple sources example

This example builds on the last one, offering three different sources for the media; this allows the video to be watched regardless of which video codecs are supported by the browser.

<!-- Using multiple sources as fallbacks for a video tag -->
<!-- 'Elephants Dream' by Orange Open Movie Project Studio, licensed under CC-3.0, hosted by archive.org -->
<!-- Poster hosted by Wikimedia -->
<video width="620" controls
  poster="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Elephants_Dream_s5_both.jpg" >
  <source
    src="https://archive.org/download/ElephantsDream/ed_1024_512kb.mp4"
    type="video/mp4">
  <source
    src="https://archive.org/download/ElephantsDream/ed_hd.ogv"
    type="video/ogg">
  <source
    src="https://archive.org/download/ElephantsDream/ed_hd.avi"
    type="video/avi">
  Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video tag.
</video>

First WebM is tried. If that can't be played, then MP4 is tried. Finally, Ogg is tried. A fallback message is displayed if the video element isn't supported, but not if all sources fail.

Some media file types let you provide more specific information using the codecs parameter as part of the file's type string. A relatively simple example is video/webm; codecs="vp8, vorbis", which says that the file is a WebM video using VP8 for its video and Vorbis for audio.

Server support for video

If the MIME type for the video is not set correctly on the server, the video may not show or show a gray box containing an X (if JavaScript is enabled).

If you use Apache Web Server to serve Ogg Theora videos, you can fix this problem by adding the video file type extensions to "video/ogg" MIME type. The most common video file type extensions are ".ogm", ".ogv", or ".ogg". To do this, edit the "mime.types" file in "/etc/apache" or use the "AddType" configuration directive in httpd.conf.

AddType video/ogg .ogm
AddType video/ogg .ogv
AddType video/ogg .ogg

If you serve your videos as WebM, you can fix this problem for the Apache Web Server by adding the extension used by your video files (".webm" is the most common one) to the MIME type "video/webm" via the "mime.types" file in "/etc/apache" or via the "AddType" configuration directive in httpd.conf.

AddType video/webm .webm

Your web host may provide an easy interface to MIME type configuration changes for new technologies until a global update naturally occurs.

Accessibility concerns

Videos should provide both captions and transcripts that accurately describe its content (see Adding captions and subtitles to HTML5 video for more information on how to implement these). Captions allow people who are experiencing hearing loss to understand a video's audio content as the video is being played, while transcripts allow people who need additional time to be able to review audio content at a pace and format that is comfortable for them.

It's worth noting that while you can caption audio-only media, you can only do so when playing audio in a <video> element, since the video region of the element is used to present the captions. This is one of the special scenarios in which it's useful to play audio in a video element.

If automatic captioning services are used, it is important to review the generated content to ensure it accurately represents the source video.

In addition to spoken dialog, subtitles and transcripts should also identify music and sound effects that communicate important information. This includes emotion and tone:

14
00:03:14 --> 00:03:18
[Dramatic rock music]

15 
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21
[whispering] What's that off in the distance?

16
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24
It's… it's a…

16 00:03:25 --> 00:03:32
[Loud thumping]
[Dishes clattering]

Captions should not obstruct the main subject of the video. They can be positioned using the align VTT cue setting.

Technical summary

Content categories Flow content, phrasing content, embedded content. If it has a controls attribute: interactive content and palpable content.
Permitted content

If the element has a src attribute: zero or more <track> elements, followed by transparent content that contains no media elements–that is no <audio> or <video>

Else: zero or more <source> elements, followed by zero or more <track> elements, followed by transparent content that contains no media elements–that is no <audio> or <video>.

Tag omission None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents Any element that accepts embedded content.
Implicit ARIA role No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles application
DOM interface HTMLVideoElement

Specifications

Specification Feedback
HTML Living StandardThe definition of '<video>' in that specification. WHATWG HTML GitHub issues

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari Android webview Chrome for Android Firefox for Android Opera for Android Safari on iOS Samsung Internet
video Chrome

Full support 3

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 3.5

IE

Full support 9

Opera

Full support 10.5

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

Full support Yes

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

autoplay Chrome

Full support 3

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 3.5

IE

Full support 9

Opera

Full support 10.5

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS Full support 10

Notes'

Full support 10

Notes'

Notes' Only available for videos that have no sound or have the audio track disabled.

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

buffered Chrome

?

Edge

Full support ≤18

Firefox

Full support 4

IE

?

Opera

Full support Yes

Safari

?

WebView Android

?

Chrome Android

?

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

?

Samsung Internet Android

?

controls Chrome

Full support 3

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 3.5

IE

Full support 9

Opera

Full support 10.5

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

Full support Yes

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

crossorigin Chrome

?

Edge

Full support ≤18

Firefox

Full support 12

IE

?

Opera

?

Safari

?

WebView Android

?

Chrome Android

?

Firefox Android

Full support 14

Opera Android

?

Safari iOS

?

Samsung Internet Android

?

height Chrome

Full support 3

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 3.5

IE

Full support 9

Opera

Full support 10.5

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

Full support Yes

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

intrinsicsize

Deprecated'Non-standard'

Chrome No support 71 — 78

Disabled'

No support 71 — 78

Disabled'

Disabled' From version 71 until version 78 (exclusive): this feature is behind the #enable-experimental-productivity-features preference. To change preferences in Chrome, visit chrome://flags.

Edge

No support No

Firefox

No support No

IE

No support No

Opera No support 58 — 65

Disabled'

No support 58 — 65

Disabled'

Disabled' From version 58 until version 65 (exclusive): this feature is behind the #enable-experimental-productivity-features preference.

Safari

No support No

WebView Android

No support No

Chrome Android No support 71 — 78

Disabled'

No support 71 — 78

Disabled'

Disabled' From version 71 until version 78 (exclusive): this feature is behind the #enable-experimental-productivity-features preference. To change preferences in Chrome, visit chrome://flags.

Firefox Android

No support No

Opera Android No support 50 — 56

Disabled'

No support 50 — 56

Disabled'

Disabled' From version 50 until version 56 (exclusive): this feature is behind the #enable-experimental-productivity-features preference.

Safari iOS

No support No

Samsung Internet Android

No support No

loop Chrome

Full support 3

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 11

IE

Full support 9

Opera

Full support 10.5

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 14

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

Full support 6

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

muted Chrome

Full support 30

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 11

IE

Full support 10

Opera

Full support Yes

Safari

Full support 5

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 14

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

?

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

played Chrome

?

Edge

Full support ≤18

Firefox

Full support 15

IE

?

Opera

Full support Yes

Safari

?

WebView Android

?

Chrome Android

?

Firefox Android

Full support 15

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

?

Samsung Internet Android

?

poster Chrome

Full support 3

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 3.6

IE

Full support 9

Opera

Full support 10.5

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

Full support Yes

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

preload

Chrome Full support 3

Notes'

Full support 3

Notes'

Notes' Defaults to metadata in Chrome 64.

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 4

IE

Full support 9

Opera Full support Yes

Notes'

Full support Yes

Notes'

Notes' Defaults to metadata in Opera 51.

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android Full support Yes

Notes'

Full support Yes

Notes'

Notes' Defaults to metadata in Chrome 64.

Chrome Android Full support Yes

Notes'

Full support Yes

Notes'

Notes' Defaults to metadata in Chrome 64.

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android Full support Yes

Notes'

Full support Yes

Notes'

Notes' Defaults to metadata in Opera 51.

Safari iOS

Full support Yes

Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Notes'

Full support Yes

Notes'

Notes' Defaults to metadata in Samsung Internet 9.0.

src Chrome

Full support 3

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 3.5

IE

Full support 9

Opera

Full support 10.5

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

Full support Yes

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

width Chrome

Full support 3

Edge

Full support 12

Firefox

Full support 3.5

IE

Full support 9

Opera

Full support 10.5

Safari

Full support 3.1

WebView Android

Full support Yes

Chrome Android

Full support Yes

Firefox Android

Full support 4

Opera Android

Full support Yes

Safari iOS

Full support Yes

Samsung Internet Android

Full support Yes

Legend

Full support  
Full support
No support  
No support
Compatibility unknown  
Compatibility unknown
Non-standard. Expect poor cross-browser support.'
Non-standard. Expect poor cross-browser support.
Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.'
Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.
See implementation notes.'
See implementation notes.
User must explicitly enable this feature.'
User must explicitly enable this feature.


See also