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Flash Player 9 Gets H.264 Support
ReadWriteWeb alerts us to the release later today of Flash Player 9 Update 3 Beta 2, codenamed Moviestar, which will support H.264 standard video as well as High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) and other improvements. Adobe engineer Tinic Uro, who works on the Flash Player, has more technical detail on his blog.
So is this the corresponding software support behind YouTube's earlier announcement that they'll be serving H.264?
Now let's just hope it doesn't take an additional 6 months for this to make its way into the Linux version. Flash Player 9 for Linux came out some months after Flash Player 9 for Windows/Mac did.
Various choices I've recently made (like using amd64, and dumping Firefox for Konqueror) mean that I've not been using a Flash player at all. So far, I've missed out on things like:
* The BMW website
* Countless links to clips on Youtube
* Advertising banners
* Homestar runner
Some of these things might have been mildly useful, but I can't say I really miss any of it. I'm not sure having the Flash player installed is worth the annoyance and distraction it usually ends up driving me to. If I'm honest, Flash player has seen the most use when I've been bored, depressed, procrastinating or similar.
I'm quite enjoying being Flash-free.
Due to a design flaw in ActionScript 3 socket handling, compiled Flash movies are able to scan for open TCP ports on any host reachable from the host running the SWF, bypassing the Flash Player Security Sandbox Model and without the need to rebind DNS.
You can see a proof of concept at the site, and it's quite interesting to watch. This happens inside your firewalled network, just by browsing the internet.
http://hackersblog.itproportal.com/?p=720
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The major confusion is that H264 is not just one standard but a loose collection of features bound up in "profiles". A player might support the H264 "main" profile, but not the "high" profile and so on. Then you've got MPEG-4 part 2 which is an earlier but unrelated stanard that DIVX / XVID are implementations of.
It's all quite confusing before even considering DRM and other implementation details. Still, the format is starting to see widespread adoption so the sooner all devices support it the better for everyone.
It will be a pain for people with lots of DIVX content, but this appears to be the way industry is going and no doubt we'll see DVD players with HD H264 support before long. I wonder if there is a mostly lossless way to convert DIVX content into H264, since they may differ but they must share similarities too.
Right... because we have to put up with viruses on every web page we go to...
If you're going to make an analogy, you should come up with a better one. Sure, viruses may use C, but (if you're smart) you'll never run into one. Annoying Flash ads, on the other hand, are commonplace on many legitimate sites. Now before somebody screams "Adblock!", just remember that ads should be useful and relevant, not resource-intensive and obtrusive.
Has anyone found the download link?
The version of Flash from this page: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9 seems to be a beta version from June 11.
comparing Flash to C is like comparing MSN Messenger Protocol to XMPP.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
The article claims that that Adobe said it will use hardware acceleration for H.264.. Are there any more details on this?
Is it Windows-only? Probably.
Does it use DirectX video acceleration APIs (do they handle H.264) or maybe OpenGL shader (GLSL) offload? If it's the second, it would have a chance for Mac and Linux support too.
Speaking not as a developer/producer/streamer but just as someone who sometimes needs to visit a website using Flash:
I resent the lack of control over how individual objects on the page (or "under" the page for that matter) are rendered or not rendered. I grit my teeth every time I right click on a page and get that utterly useless Flash menu.
I don't really care about whether I should have the right to alter the way a page is presented or if the producer should have the right preserve his or her intentions. Bottom line is I don't want my Internet connection to continue devolving into cable tv. I just hate having a single option, "take it they way we want to give it to you". I really do wish that Flash would just die, without Flash SVG would already be mature and well supported everywhere.
So, yeah, every improvement in Flash that promises more Flash websites is "Bad News".
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
I didn't say DHTML could do everything Flash did. I said "Little of what Flash is used for even requires Flash...". Read my comment again.
Most sites using Flash are using it for such mundane purposes as doing mouseover/expanding menus and other simple interface mechanics that not only can be done with DHTML, but can be done simpler with broader browser compatibility and faster page-load times (less bytes on the wire). In fact, a site's basic interface and navigation should never require a plugin. Plugins should only offer added content.
Uh, power consumption is significant for media PC's, more heat means the fans have to spin faster = more noise. Also there are plenty of people who might be potential consumers of HD content that don't want to buy a new PC, as this article points out an Athlon 3000+ can barely handle 480p content, let alone 720p or 1080p using H.264 but has no problem with VC1@1080p.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
but can be done simpler with broader browser compatibility and faster page-load times (less bytes on the wire)
I'll agree with you on the first point, but for simple interface stuff, I've actually produced many Flash solutions that required a less bytes than the canned "multibrowserconfigurableexpandingmenus.js" stuff people use.