The Windows 10 Anniversary Update will be bringing numerous new features and improvements to Microsoft’s operating system. Among those, will be additions and expansions for Edge, including support for Google’s WebM video format.
WebM, and the VP9 and Opus codecs that are part of it, are technologies used to deliver video online in a lightweight and responsive manner. This is the format used by YouTube and by many other sites, so having support may be an essential part of a good user experience when browsing those sites. That’s why numerous users have been anxious for Microsoft to add these features to its Edge browser.
Originally, WebM, VP9 and Opus support were announced last year in September, but they haven’t shown up until now. Thankfully the latest versions of Edge, found in Redstone builds, does support WebM technologies and the two codecs, though this is still hidden behind an experimental flag.
To see if this feature is enabled for you, you must first check that you’re running Edge 14.14291 or newer, with that last number being in line with Windows 10 Insider builds versions. Then you need to type about:flags in the address bar and check under Media Source Extensions.
It’s worth noting that the VP9 video codec is only available on desktop builds of Windows 10, due to concerns surrounding battery usage when the device does video software decoding. And it’s not clear if the team is working to bring VP9 to Windows 10 Mobile builds.
In either case, for the wider public, all of these features will be made available when Windows 10 Anniversary Update gets released for desktop devices.
Source: Windows Blog