Introduction
HTML5 adds two elements audio and video, which provide a functionality that was previously done with use of add-ons to the browsers. In most of the cases, we find players that are Flash-based but that is lately being changed. Most of the browsers now have a good support for the basic HTML5 media element related functionality.
Customization options for the player were very limited and vendor specific. Most of the sites had and some still have their own custom players that were done in Flash, since it was the best way to do the job.
Flash by itself is not going to disappear all of a sudden, but having alternative that uses open standards always makes a compelling case on why not to use it. The same is happening in the web game industry, HTML5 is taking over Flash-based games market each day.