Tag Archives: player

8 misconceptions about Flash video

by Serge Jespers on 23. Dec, 2008 in flash video

I recently came across a couple of serious misconceptions about Flash Video and I thought it was a good idea to set the record straight.

#1 – Flash Video is progressive download only.
While progressive download is an option, streaming live or pre-recorded content is also possible using a Flash media streaming server or service provider. Obviously Adobe has it’s own offering in this space but third party and open source alternatives are also available.

#2 – Streaming Flash Video is expensive.
With an open source alternative available, streaming Flash Video can cost as little as $0 (obviously not counting hardware or bandwidth costs).

#3 – Flash Video quality is terrible. Just look at YouTube.
With Flash Video, you can publish video to any quality ranging from a stamp-size video in a banner to 1080p full HD video. The publisher has complete control over the quality of the video.

#4 – Flash Video streams can’t be protected.
There are a couple of ways of protecting your Flash Video stream. Adobe’s Flash Media Server provides RTMP-based streaming directly into Flash Player, avoiding the browser cache. SSL encryption and additional authentication mechanisms can also be added to more directly target the client player (Whitepaper PDF). With the recently released Flash Media Rights Management Server, publishers can further protect their streams with DRM.

#5 – Flash is a closed format that works with proprietary video codecs.
Both the SWF file format specification and the FLV/F4V specification are available to the public as part of the Open Screen Project. Flash Video can be published with 3 different codecs which are part of the Flash Player (so no additional installs are required). The Sorenson Spark codec and On2′s VP6 codec are the oldest codecs. The industry standard H.264 video codec was added in Flash Player 9 and allows you to publish video to the Flash Player up to 1080p full HD video.

#6 – I can only use Flash Video in a browser.
Adobe AIR (available for Mac, Windows and Linux) allows you to build real desktop applications with web technologies including JavaScript, HTML and Flash. Since the Flash Player is at the heart of the AIR runtime, it is obvious that you can also use all of the Flash Player features including Flash Video. Adobe AIR 1.5 also supports the DRM capabilities provided by the Flash Media Rights Management Server.

#7 – Flash Video is difficult to use.
For developers: Adding Flash Video to a Flash project (made with Flash Professional or Flex and targeted for Flash Player or Adobe AIR) is as easy as adding any other asset to your project. If you can add an image to your project, you can also add Flash Video.
For end-users: The majority of internet users won’t need to install anything extra. 98.3% of all internet connected PCs have Flash Player 8 or higher installed, meaning they can instantly view Flash Video encoded with either the Sorenson Spark or On2 VP6 codec. 89.4% have Flash Player 9.0.115 installed. That version of the Flash Player has H.264 video and HE-AAC audio playback, multi-core support and hardware scaling of HD quality full-screen video. This means that most users can play your HD H.264 video from the instant the page is loaded.

#8 – Only YouTube uses Flash Video.
According to comScore, 80% (up from 72%) of online videos are viewed Worldwide using Adobe Flash technology. This makes Flash Video the #1 video format on the web. Renowned broadcasters like CNN, BBC, NBC, FOX and many others use Flash Video as their main video format.

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My favorite Flash Player 10 apps and examples

by Serge Jespers on 22. Oct, 2008 in Cool stuff, Flash Player

Last week, we launched Flash Player 10. It’s amazing to see that people pick up on all it’s new capabilities so fast and there are already some really cool applications and examples floating around. Here are some of my favorites:

Please let me know if you’re working on something cool or already have a Flash Player 10 application/demo out there!

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The weekly blend – Flash Player 10 examples

by Serge Jespers on 26. May, 2008 in Flash, Weekly blend, onAIR Tour

UPDATE: Please note that some of these demos were created for a beta version of Flash Player 10. For updated examples, please check http://www.webkitchen.be/2008/10/22/my-favorite-flash-player-10-apps-and-examples/

This week a collection of remarkable Flash Player 10 examples. Some of these I showed at Flash Forum Konferenz in Koln and Multi-Mania in Kortrijk. Obviously, you need Flash Player 10 installed to view these examples. Can’t wait to see what else the Flash community will come up with! If you found a cool example, don’t hesitate to leave a comment with the URL.

  • Alternativa3D: 3D platform created in Eastern Europe Russia. Mind you, this is not even using the GPU acceleration yet! [link]
  • Pixel Bender: Eric Dolecki shows off the performance of Pixel Bender [link]
  • Flanger effect: Joa Ebert experiments with audio effects in FP10 [link]
  • 8Bit audio: FP10 now does 8-bit audio. Again from Joa Ebert. No MP3s playing! This is all generated on runtime [link]
  • 3-band EQ: Flash Player 10 can do live equalizing [link]
  • Dynamic sound: Keith Peters making some noise [link]
  • Cut and edit MP3: Benjamin Dobler also got bitten by the FP10 virus. This example allows you to edit MP3 files in the browser [link]
  • Mix WAV files: Another example from Benjamin. [link]
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Use Flex SDK to create Flash Player 10 content

by Serge Jespers on 16. May, 2008 in Flash, How-to

Fellow platform evangelist Lee Brimelow has published a great tutorial on how to use the daily build of the Flex SDK and its command-line compiler to create Flash Player 10 content.
Go check it out.

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Flash Player 10 now in public beta

by Serge Jespers on 15. May, 2008 in Flash, News

The pre-release version of Flash Player 10 (code-named ’Astro’) is now available on Adobe Labs. We’ve already shown Flash Player 10 at a number of events so most of you have a good idea about its new features like rich text layout including right-to-left language support, 3d effects, custom filters and effects with Pixel Bender and more hardware acceleration for bitmaps, filters, video and blend modes.

Unfortunately, there’s currently no tooling available to let you play with all these new features. This pre-release version is mainly there for you to test your current projects and to provide feedback on its performance. To allow you to test the new effects and capabilities, the Flash Player team has put together some demo projects for you. Additionally you can also start building your own Pixel Bender effects.

More information and download links on Adobe Labs.

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Adobe Media Player and Adobe TV launched

by Serge Jespers on 09. Apr, 2008 in Video

Adobe Media PlayerIt’s been in public and private beta for quite some time now but today version 1 of the Adobe Media Player is live. I think AMP is a really good idea especially for “road-warriors” like myself. AMP allows broadcasters to easily push out ad-supported content to whoever is subscribed to it. Broadcasters can also easily skin the player and add commercials by using simple RSS-feeds and SMIL.

Once you subscribe to a feed, AMP (running on AIR) automatically downloads new episodes when they are available. Once downloaded, you can watch it wherever you want be it on the train, airplane or basically anywhere where you don’t have an internet connection. This really is what I want from online tv. I really think online tv right now is failing because of crappy internet in hotel rooms and public places. Having the ability to download your favorite shows over night would partly solve this since I would be able to watch it the next day.

I’ve actually built something like this myself. I have a MacMini at home that records my favorite shows (although not a lot of them) and then uploads them to my server. A little PHP script automatically makes an RSS feeds from whatever files are new in the video folder. In the morning I download my new shows and can then watch them whenever, wherever I want. That’s basically the idea behind AMP except in this case it’s the broadcasters publishing the new video content.

Together with AMP, we also just launched Adobe TV which has some really good tutorials on how to use Adobe products and you can also subscribe to the Adobe TV channel in AMP.

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Heads up: Prepare for the Flash Player 9 security update

by Serge Jespers on 27. Mar, 2008 in Flash

Adobe is preparing a security update for Flash Player 9 that will be released next month (April 2008) to fix previously disclosed (see Security Bulletin ABSP07-20 and Security Advisory APSA07-06) vulnerabilities and to further strengthen the security of the Flash Player.

These are the main things you have to watch out for:

  • A socket policy file will always be required for all socket connections
    Important when you use sockets or XMLSockets, regardless of the domain to which you are connecting
  • A policy file will be required to send headers across domains
    Important when you use addRequestHeader or URLRequest.requestHeaders in any network API call when sending or loading data cross-domain or you provide access to content on remote domains as a web service provide. This applies to all methods of loading data including solutions like AMF-PHP (see Wade Arnold’s blog for an example crossdomain policy file for AMF-PHP)
  • The allowScriptAccess default will always be “sameDomain”
    Important when you have SWFs that are exported for Flash Player 7 (SWF7) or earlier that communicate with the hosting HTML by any means
  • “javascript:” URLs will be prohibited in networking APIs, except getURL(), navigateToURL(), and HTML-enabled text fields
    Important when you use “javascript:” through network APIs to communicate outside a SWF

Check out Adobe Devnet for more in-depth information.

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