For the most part, Adobe's Flash Player is a thing of the past. What was once at the forefront of online video technology is now a clunky, CPU-heavy relic. Just about every major online video platform has shifted over to the faster, more efficient HTML5 ... though there have been a few stragglers.
The biggest among them is Twitch: for whatever reason, gaming's biggest online streaming service has yet to make the switch from Flash to HTML5. It's one of the reasons why YouTube Gaming has been so successful: while Twitch still has millions of viewers visiting every day, Google's streaming service is far faster and easier to use. If there's anything that's been holding Twitch back, it's the lack of HTML5 support.
Thankfully, that's all about to change: in a post over on the site's official blog, Twitch announced that it would begin rolling out its new HTML5 player as part of an extended beta test. In fact, the update should be live now — though the option to switch from Flash to HTML5 won't be available for everyone just yet.
For the time being, the only users with access to the beta are Twitch Turbo subscribers — everyone else, on the other hand, will just have to wait until the beta expands over the coming months.
While the beta may have a limited user base (for now), the site's various improvements should be immediately apparent. Twitch is promising both faster loading and connection times, along with more consistent frame-rates and CPU performance. Basically, the switch over to HTML5 is a universal upgrade for everyone in terms of both speed and ease-of-use.
It may not sound like that big of a deal to the casual user, but the switch to HTML5 is a big one. Not only will Twitch be easier to use, but it should be easier for event-holders to broadcast: conventions like RTX, the Games Done Quick marathons and the EVO 2016 Championship Series should all be easier to watch when the update goes live.
On top of that, it doesn't sound like the beta will be exclusive to Twitch Turbo members for long: the announcement states that the beta will continue to expand to more and more users over the summer months before the feature launches in full later this year. Sadly, there's still no specific date for Twitch's HTML5 launch — but considering the fact that Google Chrome is set to phase Flash Players out entirely by the end of the year, the wait probably won't be all that long.
For more on Twitch's upgrade to HTML5, make sure to check out the site's official blog.
