Wikipedia enabled a HTML5 video player to let users add multimedia content to the site’s articles.
Wikipedia has launched a new project enabling registered users to post videos, according to the portal’s press service. The project is a collaboration that’s been in the works since 2008. But it was delayed due to numerous technical problems. The world’s largest online encyclopedia finally supports moving pictures with help from Google and the open-source video start-up Kaltura.
And the new HTML5 player is a result of a combined effort between Wikipedia, Google and Kaltura. The video player also supports WebM format, a flexible multimedia format that changes its quality based on available bandwidth. Contributors will now be able to upload and edit clips and add captions and subtitles. The closed captions are easily translatable into other languages, so they won’t only help hearing-impaired viewers, but also make video content more accessible to an international audience.
Before the launch the videos were added either via the older Ogg Theora player that has been in use since 2007 or as part of testing the new player, based on HTML5. The free encyclopedia, which sees 25 million unique daily visitors to its English section alone, currently hosts only about 15,000 videos.
