Flash Player now supports H.264 video codec | The Coffeehouse

Sourcecode
Whatever it is, I didn't do it.

Ubiquitous HD video across all platforms. Video on the web just changed big time.

Real tech details:

http://www.kaourantin.net/2007/08/what-just-happened-to-video-on-web_20.html

Other thoughts:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=501

http://www.techbizmedia.com/industry-news/2007/08/20/adobe-flash-supports-h264-video-codec/

cool!! Cool

Rossj

So, I am (nearly) back from holiday, and thought I'd trawl the first 10 pages see what happened whilst I was away - and not on person responded to a potential Silverlight killer and I find this on page 8? Wow!

The one thing I thought might give Silverlight a chance over Flash was HD video, which now pretty much everyone is going to get (given current number of flash deployments) with a minor update to the runtime.

So, my contention - after a brief break I just have to be controversial - Silverlight is DOA. Any takers?

AndyC

We live in interesting times.

Flash already had a major head start and this can only keep it ahead. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Rossj

AndyC wrote:
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

I guess I needn't point out that H.264/AAC are the codecs used by iPods/iPhones. Will be interesting to see how easy it is to start getting youtube on my iPod - hmm maybe not.

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

Rossj wrote:

So, my contention - after a brief break I just have to be controversial - Silverlight is DOA. Any takers?

I see Microsoft deployment of Silverlight to be very clever. You have wave # 1, with support for hi-def video. I see few takers for this, even before Flash announced support for H.264.

Because most people who have video distribution is already using Flash, and they're not going change their workflow just so they could have the user download another 2MB plugin.

But the Silverlight 1.0 beta allows MS to debug/test their new video distribution platform. And to say that they have one.

I think the real value to Silverlight is in the 1.1 release. Flash ActionScript is OK, and there are some amazing Flash games/applications out there, but Flash's been at it for quite some time.

I haven't investigated Flex, but the ability to drive Silverlight from a proper .Net assembly, I think, will cause Silverlight to bloom even faster than Flash's pace.

5 years from now, we all might be asking what the acronym HTML stood for.

PS.
I don't really think H.264 will have all that significant of an impact yet -- even within 3 years. I hate to admit it, but the Senator from Alaska is technically right. The Internets is a series of pipes. I have yet able to watch a Hi-def movie trailer on line without significant frustration because of sputtering. And I have cable broadband.

dentaku

I've been experimenting with Flash video lately and I'm not terribly impressed by VP6 or at least the quality of VP6 most video sharing sites use. Hopefully H.264 support will help improve the quality of online video.

If Soapbox supported .WMV and let you embed them into blogs like they do now with Flash, that would also be nice because .WMV is great for streaming online.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

dentaku wrote:
I've been experimenting with Flash video lately and I'm not terribly impressed by VP6 or at least the quality of VP6 most video sharing sites use. Hopefully H.264 support will help improve the quality of online video.

If Soapbox supported .WMV and let you embed them into blogs like they do now with Flash, that would also be nice because .WMV is great for streaming online.

WMV is actually perfect for streaming online, but absolutely noone has Microsoft Streaming Media Servers, so it's moot.

My issue is with the browser plugins. Quicktime's plugin gives me a much better UX than WMP's. Especially with the active scrubber, with WMP's it's guesswork.

dentaku

W3bbo wrote:

dentaku wrote: I've been experimenting with Flash video lately and I'm not terribly impressed by VP6 or at least the quality of VP6 most video sharing sites use. Hopefully H.264 support will help improve the quality of online video.

If Soapbox supported .WMV and let you embed them into blogs like they do now with Flash, that would also be nice because .WMV is great for streaming online.

WMV is actually perfect for streaming online, but absolutely noone has Microsoft Streaming Media Servers, so it's moot.

My issue is with the browser plugins. Quicktime's plugin gives me a much better UX than WMP's. Especially with the active scrubber, with WMP's it's guesswork.

Well, I DID say I wished Soapbox did it and considering Soapbox is part of MSN I'm guessing they can handle it Wink