Vimeo launches major web player redesign

Vimeo, one of the most popular video-sharing websites out there excluding YouTube, has launched a major redesign of its web player. The redesign greatly improves the performance of the web player and establishes HTML5 as the default format across all platforms. Browsers that are incompatible with HTML5 will use Flash instead.

Streaming video site Vimeo has launched a major redesign of its web player. The new one is said to start playback faster, resize smoothly, and sync preferences across multiple players within the same browser. People using Vimeo on Demand can choose to buy or rent videos from with the player, regardless of where the clip is currently playing. Another shift is the establishment of HTML5 as the default format across all platforms. Vimeo has actually been using HTML5 for some time, but in some instances videos would still be loaded using Flash. Videos will now only play in Flash if a browser is incompatible with the HTML5 option.