Google have just announced that they are dropping support for the H.264 video codec from the Chrome browser. This means that anyone using HTML5 video tags will need to ensure that embedded video needs to use either VP8 or Theora video codecs for the content to be viewable in the next version of Chrome.

This may cause a lot of headaches, since 66% of online video uses the H.264 codec, and H.264 is the preferred video codec to non flash iPhones and iPads. To make matters worse, Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager of the Internet Explorer team has blogged that "In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only" - although it is still comitted to supporting Flash.

If you thought video content delivery would become easier with HTML5, think again!