Web Wish 15: Transparent Video

Today's wish is pretty simple.

We use plenty of videos on our site that are not traditional youtube-style video. This can for example be infographics or other visualizations.

A common denominator is that the content should be able to be integrated seamlessly into the site. It is possible to embed a background color into the video. Unfortunately, the compressed colors will often stand out like a sore thumb, as they don't match the colors of the page.

Additionally, it should be possible to reuse the video in different sections of the page, and those sections might have different backgrounds.

To address this we need transparent video.

Unfortunately, there's no single codec that supports this across browsers and devices. Jake Archibald has described this issue in detail in Video with alpha transparency on the web.

This Christmas I'm wishing for browser developers to put transparent video on their roadmap.