Those of you who have been using Netflix on your computer instead of a set-top-box or video game console are probably familiar with Microsoft Silverlight as it has been the plugin of choice to be able to stream Netflix videos onto computers for some time now. But it looks as though Netflix’s time with Silverlight will soon be coming to an end as the company is announcing it plans to move on from it to deliver their video content to computer users by way of HTML5.
Netflix has some work to do in order for its service to fully adopt HTML5, primarily support for DRM. The company says it has been collaborating with three W3C initiatives which when combined will offer the kind of functionality Netflix would require for its streaming video services. The combined extensions, dubbed the “HTML 5 Premium Video Extensions,” will allow Netflix to deliver its streams via JavaScript, allow DRM encryption and a third extension that will keep communications secure.
Two of the three extensions are already running on the Chrome OS version of Netflix, specifically the JavaScript and DRM encryption extensions. Once the third extension is built into Google’s browser, that is when Netflix plans to start testing HTML5 to a wider variety of computers.
Filed in . Read more about Html5, Netflix and Streaming Video.