What Is The HTML <video> Tag?

Date First Published: 24th February 2023

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: Web Development

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 5/10

CONTENTS

Example Of The <video> Tag
Attributes

Learn more about what the HTML <video> tag is in this article.

In HTML, the <video> tag is used to embed a video file in a HTML document, such as a film or a song. This HTML5 tag supports videos in the MP4, WebM, and OGG format, includes built-in functionality to customise how the video works on the webpage, and is supported by modern web browsers.

The <video> tag contains one or more source tags with multiple video sources. The browser will choose the first source it supports. When adding this tag to a webpage, it creates a video player with media controls, such as start, stop, volume, full screen, and more. The width and height attributes can be added to instruct the browser on how to display the video.

The HTML5 <video> tag is now one of the most commonly used ways of including video content. It allows videos to be displayed without having to rely on a plugin or browser extension. Before HTML5 was released, videos were most commonly embedded using the Adobe Flash plugin. Flash became less necessary and Adobe dropped support for Flash on 31st December 2020.

Note:

Even though the <video> tag can play audio files, the audio tag is more suitable.

Note:

The text between the <video> and </video> tags only displays in browsers that do not support the video element.

Example Of The <video> Tag

An example of the <video> tag can be seen below:

Your browser does not support the <video> tag.

</video>

Attributes

Below are the attributes for the <video> tag.

Attribute	Description
autoplay	Specifies that the video will start playing as soon as it loads.
controls	Specifies that video controls, such as a play/pause button should be displayed.
height	Sets the height of the video player.
loop	Specifies that the video should play again every time it is finished.
muted	Specifies that the audio output of the video should be muted.
poster	Sets an image to use until the user clicks on the play button or whilst the video is downloading.
preload	Specifies how and when the video should be loaded when the page loads.
src	Specifies the URL of the video file.
width	Sets the width of the video player.