Both YouTube and Vimeo recently gave an option to watch videos in HTML5. I switched right away knowing that every time I try to play an HD video on YouTube, my Macbook fan spins up because of the heat caused from flash processing. On the Dell Mini I just bought, I couldn’t even watch HD videos on youtube because HD video in flash was too much for the atom processor.

When I saw that YouTube and Vimeo were offering HTML5 instead of flash video, I immediately tested both of the above mentioned issues. The fan in the macbook stayed quiet and the Dell Mini didn’t have any problems when I watched HD content with HTML5 video instead of flash. This is an example of the power of HTML5 video and why Apple decided to skip flash on the iPad.

The other thing that I really like about this is the fact that it pushes the HTML5 spec forward that much more. Obviously Google is involved in developing HTML5, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to see this on YouTube. Vimeo, however, is not involved — at least that i know of — in developing the HTML5 specification and just wants clean, efficient code. HTML5 is a good way to do that.

Finally, Adam Curry recently explained on “The Cranky Geeks” that it’s going to take a long time to derail flash video because of all the money invested in technologies used for ad agencies such as pre-rolls, but I think it would be pretty easy to develop a similar system that work in HTML5.

All in all, this is good for everyone except Adobe and flash developers. I’m not so worried about the flash developers though, the good ones have the skills to be useful in more than just flash video.