Twitch.tv is a popular streaming site on the Internet with a strong focus on gaming related content. You can tune in and watch various people play games, talk about games, or watch gaming related events streamed live like the Dota 2 International Tournament.
One thing that is holding Twitch back currently is that it only supports Adobe Flash Player when it comes to streams.
While the company has been working on HTML5 streaming technologies for some time, it has not yet made that option available on its site for users.
This puts it as a disadvantage, as competing services such as YouTube support Flash and HTML5 streams.
How to force HTML5 video on Twitch.tv
While HTML5 streams are not yet supported officially on Twitch.tv, there is a tweak that you may make use of to enforce the use of HTML5 video for streams on the site.
This is a workaround that switches the streaming technology. The downside to it is that streams are displayed fullscreen in the browser which means that things like chat and other page elements are not shown.
Here is what you need to do
The regular URL for Twitch channels uses the format https://www.twitch.tv/CHANNELNAME.
When you open a channel using the default format, Adobe Flash Player is required to play the stream.
To force the channel to use HMTL5 video streaming instead of Flash streaming, change the URL in the following way:
- Default URL: https://www.twitch.tv/CHANNELNAME
- HTML5 Video URL: https://player.twitch.tv/?channel=CHANNELNAME&html5
HTML5 is used for the stream when you use the second URL listed above. As mentioned before, this turns the stream to fullscreen. There is no chat, no site navigation, no subscribe option, and no comment, follow or share functionality.
Simply switch back to the default format on Twitch if you want to make use of that functionality. Please note that some is linked to Adobe Flash and won’t be available if Flash is not enabled or installed.
Twitch.tv is expected to launch official HTML5 video support this year. It is unclear when this is going to happen. What seems a given is that the service will offer HTML5 as an alternative at first, so that users may use Flash or HTML5 to stream content using the service.