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Adobe Pushing For Flash TVs

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the won't-that-be-crash-crash-crash dept.

Drivintin writes "In a move that should make cable companies nervous, Adobe announces they are going to push a Flash that runs directly on TVs. 'Adobe Systems, which owns the technology and sells the tools to create and distribute it, wants to extend Flash's reach even further. On Monday, Adobe's chief executive, Shantanu Narayen, will announce at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas that Adobe is extending Flash to the television screen. He expects TVs and set-top boxes that support the Flash format to start selling later this year.' With the ability to run Hulu, YouTube and others, the question of dropping your cable becomes a little bit more reasonable."

40 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. *sigh* by tygerstripes · · Score: 5, Informative

    Adobe's press release here, BBC's article here

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    Meta will eat itself
  2. No thank you by T-Bone-T · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Flash sucks bad enough on actual computers. I really can't see what it offers that a powerful computer hooked up to your TV can't. I'd also rather not spend a good chunk of change on the processing power necessary to display Flash. It already brings my Pentium 4 to its knees.

    1. Re:No thank you by STEVEOO6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I really can't see what it offers that a powerful computer hooked up to your TV can't"

      That's just the point. I do not want to have to connect my TV to my computer. I want to plug my television in, i want to sit on my couch, and i only want to have to think about what buttons to press on my remote. It's called simplicity.

      "It Just Works..."
      - An extremely powerful and often overlooked notion

    2. Re:No thank you by T-Bone-T · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It may not change very quickly right now due to the economy, but I'm pretty sure most new TVs have PC-In and more PCs are coming with HDMI. All you need is a VGA or HDMI cable and an audio cable. It is amazing how many cool things there are to do that most people don't know about that only require one or two cables and equipment they already have. My wife and I watched a live event streamed over the internet using a wireless router, a laptop, a TV, and a receiver. It beat the hell out of watching it on just the laptop and we didn't even have to buy anything extra.

    3. Re:No thank you by SydShamino · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh, is that all? I can watch a live event with just a tv and cable plugged into its back.

      And how do you do that when the live event isn't being carried on that cable, because you don't pay for service or your provider simply doesn't carry the feed?

      So the wireless router, cables and receiver were all free?

      For someone who already has a computer, a home wireless network, and a big modern television, but who wants to watch streaming video on a bigger screen, yes. Things I already own, when used in a new application, are free for that new application. I bought and paid for the items for a different application, and "got my money's worth" for that other purpose, so anything extra is, well, a free extra.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    4. Re:No thank you by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're probably not the target audience.

      The target audience is Joe Shmoe who knows just enough about his computer to not shove the USB stick into the floppy drive. If that.

      Joe doesn't want to figure out a way how to plug his computer, which is somewhere in his "home office" (aka lumber-room), into the flatscreen he has in the living room that's halfway across his home. He wants a cheap box that he hooks up to the spare internet jack that the friendly guy from his internet provider tacked to his living room wall for the handful of greens he slipped into his pocket, and that puts "the internet" on his TV.

      Whether that's Flash or Shlaf, Joe doesn't care. He wants it to work without tinkering with it.

      I know it's hard to understand, and I barely can myself, but there's a lot of people who don't want to know how their tech toys work, they just want them to be simple and working. They also don't disassemble their TV set-top boxes when they break down to see what's insides. Hard to grasp that idea, I know. But they really are a huge market.

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    5. Re:No thank you by xaxa · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "I really can't see what it offers that a powerful computer hooked up to your TV can't"

      That's just the point. I do not want to have to connect my TV to my computer. I want to plug my television in, i want to sit on my couch, and i only want to have to think about what buttons to press on my remote. It's called simplicity.

      I worked for a large electronics company on an IPTV system a couple of years ago. Everything came from the internet -- the schedule, the video streams, extra information about programmes.
      At no point could you tell it was running Java on a tiny embedded Linux box with some fancy video & audio decoding chips.

      Everything was easily navigated using the four coloured buttons on the remote, plus the arrow keys. It was as simple as normal digital television, although with more information available. (It was also built with completely open standards, except for all the electronics companies patenting everything they could think of, and then getting pissed off with the patent troll companies trying to mess up the standards to get "their" ideas in.)

      I expect Flash would be similar. Back when I was working for the company (2007) there were discussions about having a TV that ran Javascript, with the electronic programme guides in HTML and SVG.

    6. Re:No thank you by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Funny

      It was just a matter of setting the laptop next to them and plugging in cables to the only holes that would fit. It was really easy, most people just don't know that.

      This is definitely NOT good advice for most people.

      --
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    7. Re:No thank you by dswensen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ah yes, the inviolate "it works for ME!" argument.

      Good ol' rock. Nothing beats rock!

    8. Re:No thank you by Nyeerrmm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm guessing you're a Windows user. Flash Player for OS X or Linux tends to be much slower. I can be running on modern processors with plenty of memory, and while it doesn't usually stutter or skip (which is usually attributable to bad internet), it does use a lot of processor, heating the machine incredibly.

      Of course, if you're designing a machine specifically to run flash, I'm guessing you can optimize it for Flash and not have the same issues.

    9. Re:No thank you by tygerstripes · · Score: 4, Funny

      Rule 34. Forget it at your peril.

      --
      Meta will eat itself
  3. Silverlight by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like that's another nail in Silverlight's coffin.

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    Summation 2
    1. Re:Silverlight by rumith · · Score: 5, Informative

      another proprietary piece of crap

      Wake up, it's 2009 already. Adobe has published the SWF specification (version 10, no less) almost a year ago.

    2. Re:Silverlight by Bazer · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think Rob Savoye of Gnash, the GPL Flash project would beg to differ on it's relevance. I recommend viewing the whole interview as he touches on the subject of legal traps in Adobe's agreements which you need to sign if you want to get the specification.

    3. Re:Silverlight by jomiolto · · Score: 4, Informative

      From that video: "If you've ever installed the Flash Plugin, you can't work on Gnash."

      Seriously, WTF? That can't be true, can it? If you've installed Adobe Flash even once, you can never work on Gnash again? (or other Flash projects, I guess).

      Sheesh, talk about restrictive licensing...

    4. Re:Silverlight by nick1000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The agreement being talked about used to exist some years back. Now it does not. The Flash 10 specification is completely open and you are free to create your own versions of Flash Player compatible software.

  4. Um no... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Watching the Low quality youtube on my 42" is a painful experience. I deleted my XBMC plugin that does youtube because of that.

    Why not simply make the freaking interface in the TV 100% open and let people do what they want? Or better yet, leave the TV to be a dumb monitor and use an external box? OMG is it so bad to have a 8"X8"X2" box hidden behind it?

    The only thing I need in the TV is an rs232 interface with discreet on,off, all settings and feedback. (Yes my panasonic has this and I use it)

    What is it with the fetish to put everything inside the TV? My old RCA Scenium had the built in WEB system and that never worked right.

    --
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    1. Re:Um no... by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why not simply make the freaking interface in the TV 100% open and let people do what they want? Or better yet, leave the TV to be a dumb monitor and use an external box?

      For one thing, people already have too many external boxes plugged into the TV, to the point where they need more external boxes to switch among several inputs. Some people chose the PlayStation 2 over the GameCube and the PLAYSTATION 3 over the Wii because owners of Nintendo consoles would "need another box" to play movie discs.

    2. Re:Um no... by silver007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      An animated gif can reach near-hi-def quality if enough resources are allocated to its 'improvement'. That doesn't make it feasible. We have these cool things called video formats that I prefer my, um, video to be in.

    3. Re:Um no... by thedonger · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For one thing, people already have too many external boxes plugged into the TV...

      The answer isn't to add more things to the TV. The answer is to consolidate the boxes outside the TV.

      Historically, bundling peripherals into the TV rarely captures more than a niche market. And whatever they put in there will need to be firmware or software update-capable, lest your TV outlive your Flash capabilities.

      --
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    4. Re:Um no... by denis-The-menace · · Score: 3, Insightful

      [quote]What is it with the fetish to put everything inside the TV? [/quote]

      -For the consumer: The illusion that it will be easy to use for technophobes (50+).
      -For the corps: The illusion that people will tolerate commercials on it like a TV.

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    5. Re:Um no... by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 4, Informative

      My Samsung A650 52" LCD has a network jack, and can do firmware upgrades. Samsung is building the ability to watch Netflix Watch It Now *directly into their new LCD TVs*.

    6. Re:Um no... by master811 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not everything in flash is low/poor quality. Just because YouTube's quality is crap, doesn't mean it has to be.

      The high quality version of iPlayer looks surprisingly good on my 42".

    7. Re:Um no... by SydShamino · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Think of your standard stereo unit. Nobody plugs things directly into the speakers. They plug it into the central box, and that central box has a selector mechanism that allows you to choose which audio signal gets to the speakers.

      No offense, but the "standard stereo unit" is about 3 inches long, two inches wide, a quarter inch thick, and boots with a fruit-shaped logo on the screen. Many, many people, myself included, find a "home electronics system" as you describe to be very much a product of the 1990s - and very much out of date.

      I'm much happier to have as few boxes as possible, and just plug them directly into the TV.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
  5. Only 1 problem with that by Fortunato_NC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Content providers don't want Hulu on your TV. The Boxee debacle proves that. Right now, they can't monetize the eyeballs delivered via Hulu as well as they can as the ones delivered via broadcast and cable. Until they figure out a way to do that, they're going to make it as painful as they can for you to get "TV" over the Internet. Look at how the amount of content on Hulu has actually shrunk lately (fewer full runs or full seasons of shows available, more "preview" and last three broadcast episodes shows).

    --
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  6. Oh, good by Oxy+the+moron · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now I can be Rickrolled via my TV for the whole family to enjoy!

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  7. Hear's my strongly worded opinion! by Dystopian+Rebel · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think that Flash [buffering...]

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    Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
    1. Re:Hear's my strongly worded opinion! by AndrewNeo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, no, you're thinking of RealPl[buffering...]

  8. ultimately its by nimbius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    peanuts and circuses. both are directed in a very metered and concerted manner, so if flash benefits all parties in the P&C industry it will become standard...

    this gives also adobe content managers a medium by which their flash cannot be blocked. Flash means rendering and encoding the fast motion graphics the human eye pays the most attention to is now offloaded to the consumer instead of a rendering division at the television station. expect it to pop up during the superbowl and offer pizzas, cars, music and other items you'd enjoy at the circus.. it serves to enhance the circus, not supplant and overtake it.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  9. MHP by bickerdyke · · Score: 3, Funny

    Another proposal:

    Base it on Java instead, call it MHP and let it painfully die..... again.

    OTOH, the time may be right for a standard for "interactive" TV

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    bickerdyke
  10. Blame the summary by tygerstripes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most of the companies to sign up to the Flash platform are, as far as I can tell, chip-fabs and set-top manufacturers, NOT TV-makers. Sony and Samsung, for example, have not signed up.

    The fact that the summary and the linked article don't make this clear is very annoying. We're seeing a steady shift in /. articles away from facts and direct-source links (hence my FP), and towards rhetoric and spin. I'd harp on about how much this pisses me off and skews the whole discussion, but I've already strayed off-topic.

    I agree with your position, but it's basically moot. This will primarily emerge in set-top boxes - at least until it's had chance to become mainstream.

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    Meta will eat itself
  11. JAVA by ionix5891 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    seems to me that Flash is becoming everything Java wanted to be back in the 90s

  12. This will probably get heavily flamed... by hbean · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...but this is why were seeing TimeWarner lead the charge towards total GB/month bandwidth limits. Between Netflix, XBox Live movie downloads, iTunes, Hulu, etc etc, they're seeing their business model being slowly put to the wayside for more and more content delivered over the internet.

    Not necessarily saying it's a bad thing, it's great. It's long past time for the government sanctioned monopolies that are your local cable company to come to an end, but they're certainly not going to go w/out a fight. Hard download caps are the first volley in a war that's probably going to get rather unpleasant before its over.

    --
    "Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
  13. Just what I always wanted.. by British · · Score: 3, Funny

    ..a tv with a glaring large "Press ESC to exit full screen mode". Okay, I'm willing to swing this if we make a promise to use less flash content on the web.

  14. YouTube uses video formats by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    We have these cool things called video formats that I prefer my, um, video to be in.

    YouTube uses video formats: FLV by Sorenson for viewers on Flash 7 set-top boxes, and H.264 for viewers on PCs and phones that can do H.264. But video formats like H.264 aren't optimal for cel or sprite animations like those seen on Newgrounds; a vector animation format like SWF can handle those more efficiently.

  15. Re:NO by its_schwim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "A little more open" doesn't cut it, in my humble opinion. Open is open. Offering certain aspects up for grabs is called marketing, not open. The day I buy a television with flash capability is the day I record the event on my Betamax.

  16. Re:NO by oldspewey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How open is your current cable feed?

    --
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  17. Can't Wait by residieu · · Score: 3, Funny

    If I get to use the larger TV screen, I bet next time I can punch the monkey for sure!

  18. Re:NO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The specs are open (without restrictions), the VM is even open source. I don't know how much more open they could be other than open-sourcing the renderer part of their player (which they can't do due to third-party licenses) or submitting it to a standards body.

  19. Re:NO by datapharmer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Digital cable is actually is pretty open... most cable boxes are MPEG-2 based just like DVD. That is also the preferred format of the government for digital archiving. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/content/video_preferences.shtml That said the companies do all sorts of funky stuff to mess with the MPEG-2 standard, but that is the cable company's fault. My problem with flash isn't it being more open (though that would be nice), it is that if I have anything flash open on my computer it eats up memory and runs the heat through the roof. I don't know what is messed up in their code, but it can be sitting idle int he background and it will eventually bring my computer to a crawl. I've tried on dell desktop, acer laptops - one xp one vista, and on both a powerbook and a macbook and the results are the same: open a flash movie, animation, etc. minimize it, forget about it. realize that computer starts to get REALLY slow after a few hours and the fan runs full blast. Close flash, fan stops, computer returns to normal operation.

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