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The two biggest purveyors of web video — first, YouTube and, now, Vimeo — are testing Flash-free delivery with HTML5 wrapped H.264.

Given all of the hype and buzz, you’ve no doubt heard about YouTube’s HTML5 Player. Not to be left out Vimeo has also announced an HTML5 Video Player of their own, which delivers superior video quality and helps rid the web of Adobe’s security, stability and resource black hole, a.k.a. Flash.

Using HTML5 video web playback offers:

• Immediate loading

• Allows the user to instantly jump to any point in a video (no buffering required)!

• Smoother, less jumpy playback

However, because Vimeo’s HTML5 player displays H.264 video, it’s not compatible with Firefox (Camino) or Opera, so you’ll need to be running Safari, Chrome or Internet Explorer with Google Chrome Frame to take part.

Thereupon, Vimeo promises that about 90 percent of the videos uploaded in the last year are compatible.