Remember the “old” days where you had to struggle with bandwidth selectors, video player choices and codec nightmares before you could watch a video online? I know it’s kind of a bold statement, but Flash really did change all that and the continuously increasing Flash Video market share proves that. I also often hear people complain about the quality of Flash Video. Most of the time, these people don’t know that Flash Player can actually play high definition video up to 1080p using the H.264 industry standard video codec.
But Flash Video is about more than just video. With Flash, you can easily make your video interactive. A piece of video in a Flash project is just like any other visual object. You can animate it, change it’s dimensions, layer it with other videos, make it interactive, … Heck… You can even personalize it. No other web technology currently available on 99% of all Internet-connected PCs is able to do this. And bloggers who claim otherwise should get their facts straight. (Are you reading this TechCrunch?)
Flash Video is everywhere and sites like YouTube, Vimeo and many other like it would not be as popular today without Flash Video! Traditional media companies like the New York Times, CNN, ABC, MSNBC also use Flash for the delivery of their video content. Hollywood studios use it on Hulu and the recently announced Epix site.
But like I said, Flash Video isn’t just about playing on demand video. Lots of people also use it for live video every day. Sites like UStream, Justin.tv, Qik and FlixWagon allow users to quickly setup a live video stream and stream it to hundreds of viewers. Ever sent a recorded video message to someone on FaceBook or Tokbox?
So how about interactive video? There are tons of amazing examples out there! Remember the immensely popular Elf Yourself campaign? Or what about those really cool augmented reality cases? Augmented reality is actually another great example of how Flash changes the web. AR has been around for years now but it wasn’t until the recent availability of the FLARToolkit that the technology was used online and even in campaigns for big brands like Doritos, Jack Link’s and Microsoft.
Flash on!
Hi Serge
Indeed the interactive video space is starting to grow. I have a Google alert on interactive video results and this seems to suggest that interact video, in general is most profilic in the games arena and indeed one would have to say the video conferencing areana may be second in volume. However you are indeed correct, there is an undercurrent of big brands getting into the space and wanting more. This is especially true in the context of interactive video advertising. This is the area we at Coull are involved in, we have seen a significant increase in the uptake of this in the last 7 months. Indeed a significant increase in the number of campaigns we are running and the impressions we serve.
Maybe like social networking, brands are slowly starting to feel their way around this relatively new space. Although we have been involved in interactive video for many years, Flash has made our own interactive video model easy to distribute. There is indeed no other product on the market today that can do what Flash can.
Big brands are waking up to the potential of interactive video, it must be said that actually in this arena they are trendsetting. Others are as well, but brands are part of frontrunners of the interactive video movement. This is one instance where they may be ahead of the crowd. They are implementing it before others and it is the BIG brands. Our client list shows that Nike, UniLever, myspace, Adidas, etc. These are our customers, we are not seeing a groundswell movement here we are seeing the reverse. This is great for the overall concept of interactive video as well, as the more exposure the community has to it, the quicker it will develop. A bit of a plug if you are interested in the type of stuff we are doing in the space – http://coull.com/showcase/adidas/houseparty/
I remember Elf yourself and jib-jab as well, these were novel, fun and successful implementations of the possibilities that surround the interactive video space. I feel we are moving into a new era of video, were videos become entry points themselves, to use an old word, portals. True internet objects with data “inside” them. It has to be said that Flash is a very big proponent in this process. Its penetration in the market has let lots of different companies introduce new ideas and indeed innovation to video that can be taken up instantly in the market (as everyone has Flash installed).
It could be said that most (if not all) of the relatively, recent disruptive vectors in Internet video have been based on Flash. Perhaps we do not given Flash the credit it deserves. Flash is pretty much the visual medium of the Internet, from ads to video, for images and apps. Flash has changed the Internet, perhaps we do not realise that enough. It is an amazing technology. Thanks for making me think about it a bit differently.
Flash on indeed!
Hi,
what really blows me away about video using flash is the massive power coming from the backend. The flash platform makes it really easy for publishers to run a very sophisticated video platform using the tools and technologies Adobe offers. Like the Flash Media Server and all the little tools to get your video straight to your customers (Live video, or just the way to automate the publishing workflow).
Flash can stream video to the client and even change the bandwidth on the fly to manage network hickups…
There is more than just what users are seeing in the browser. It’s the way Adobe supports the entire publishing workflow that makes the Flash platform a really awesome eco-system to work with. In the end, it’s not only the user who decides what technology survives. It’s also the developers/publishers that have to deal with all the technological hurdles that Adobes products just make it so easy to overcome.