Transitioning from Flash to HTML5 can take several months and may require new skills and software. This guide shows you how to plan for that transition.
Auditing what you have
Before you begin, you'll need to identify the media assets and core use cases of your existing Flash functionality. The following questions can help you prepare:
Media Files
- How many media files do you have on the site?
- What format are the media files in? Some formats (e.g. FLV) are not compatible with HTML and the media files will need to be converted.
- Do you have the original media files? If you need to create new files (e.g. MP4) then transcoding from the original will give you higher quality.
Business Requirements
- Do you currently support video ads, such as pre-rolls or interstitials? What ad networks do you partner with?
- Do you currently authenticate user access?
- Do you currently use digital rights management (DRM), for example Adobe Access?
Distribution
- Do you currently support adaptive streaming (e.g. the Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming format?)
- Do you use a CDN for distribution?
- Do you provide captions or subtitles for your media? If so, what file formats are those in? What languages do you support?
Decision points
Once you've audited your Flash experience, there are a few key decisions you'll want to make about your new HTML experience:
User Requirements
- Will you support the mobile web as well as desktop?
- Will you support offline playback?
- Do you need to support changing network conditions? If so, you will want to use an adaptive streaming format.
Business Requirements
- Will you authenticate users before allowing them to access your media?
- Will you need video (or audio) ads? Which partners will you use?
- Do you need to protect the media files with DRM?