Well, as I see it, the moodle community has one ace up its sleeves.
The emerging millenial generation (see the latest cover of TIME magazine"ME,ME,ME generation" for some enlightening reading) might just be the ones who save us form the corporate fate of domination and control. Or then again, maybe they don't care..
But in any case, since moodle's architecture allows it to serve up lots of different sources of media, with the capability to morph as needed (because its open-sourced), there is nothing that mandates that we HAVE to use html5! That's just a construct that has been built by the corporate world with the intent of "standardizing" a way that corporations can control the flow of information.
As Visvanath rightly pointed out, suits on committees are going along with the corporate line to preserve their own positions. There is very little standardization that is aimed at truly giving the web community MORE freedom. Just the opposite actually. Corporations fear standards that take away their control, so they are secretly keeping things hush-hush and hoping we won't notice.
What then can we do? My simple question will eventually have an answer, because technology will provide one - eventually. In the meantime, early adopters have to figure out how to work within the framework of an almost established "standard" It looks like that standard is HTML5.
Currently, I can continue making FLV videos, and just let those who have tablets and phones suffer. But that is going to eventually make the moodle platform seem antiquated to users who want video when they want it where they want it. I teach in a public school, and I am already receiving requests from students to let the course videos play on the student's devices. I can do it by making two versions of a video, and then providing two links. But that is stupid and unnecessary.
So, I ask the question again. Is there anyone who has successfully implemented a one-click universal play video serving method within Moodle? I know I can use outside servers, but the results there are spotty, and there are numerous access, student privacy, and licensing issues going that route.
This is an important issue that won't go away. If we do nothing, then the costs of media streaming from moodle will eventually become something we can't control anymore. Paying for playing will become the rule, not the exception.