Flash Über Alles
By - May 22, 2005
A few years ago, the battered industry of Internet video was dominated by the "big three" - Windows, Real, with Apple's QuickTime trailing a distant third. But in 2002 Macromedia, now part of Adobe, came out with its MX series, equipping Flash with the Spark codec, a simple codec based on H.263.
The Spark codec was nothing to write home about in terms of performance - it lagged the other major vendors in raw compression capability - but that didn't matter. What was important was that it worked well, and, notably, allowed the blending of natural video (i.e. from a video camera) and Flash animation into one seamless presentation (a feature that was supposed to be part of MPEG-4 but which never really materialized.) While it took a few years for Flash video to take hold, it has certainly done that now. The "buzz" I am hearing is that more and more video web projects are switching to Flash for their video.
Real has retreated from the Internet codec wars, morphing from a technology company into a sort of subscription services and server infrastructure vendor. Microsoft and Apple are pursuing the broadband/HD route, i.e. "Who has the best high-definition codec?"
Yet in the US and Europe, tens of millions of today's Internet viewers have low-speed "broadband" in the 128-384 kbps range, or use modems. Flash has always been the low-bandwidth leader, by focusing on what kind of good experience you could create on a modem, instead of trying force a depressingly sad excuse for video down the narrow throat of a dialup connection.
I think Macromedia will win the Web video war, for the following reasons:
1) Macromedia has style. Instead of sticking an obnoxious rectangle in the middle of a web page, Flash video blends with its web page surroundings.
2) Macromedia players work. Macromedia puts Flash through a much slower quality test procedure than other products, and only incorporates features when they are very mature. Case in point: The company didn't add any video capabilities until a majority of viewers would be able to enjoy them.
3) Macromedia understands that content creators want to push their brand, not the Flash brand. Flash doesn't pop up and ask you to go Pro (QuickTime), ask you to subscribe (Real) or even worse, minimize to the bottom corner of Internet Explorer (Windows Media) or pop out into its own browser.
4) Macromedia (now Adobe) is not threatening - people aren't worried about the consequences of using Macromedia technology as they are with technology from Apple, Real, or Microsoft. People are less concerned that by using Flash, they'll somehow violate some alliance their parent company has made with the other technology giants. This Switzerland-like neutrality serves Macromedia well on the Web, and hopefully will get the company into more industries as well.
Having worked extensively with Flash at my own company, I know many of its limitations. But they don't really matter, because Flash has just enough power to take over Internet video - and perhaps, if the company is clever, mobile phone video as well.
By - May 22, 2005 | Permalink | Comment
| Category: Digital Video
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Comments (2)
What would be really interesting and nice for the developer communities, is to see flash and xul marry. The Gecko engine is soon to provide full svg support, with it's next major release. This will really make it nice for application developers as they'll be able to create fully flash like apps, just as easy as they can now create xul based apps. Admitely flash has a wider audenice and more tools for development. That is why if we could somehow marry the two together microsoft would then really have something to be scared about.
Posted: May 23, 2005 10:44 AM
"What would be really interesting and nice for the developer communities, is to see flash and xul marry."
Hi Todd, I think you may be able to achieve what you wish today...?
The key websearch term would be "xul liveconnect". The Netscape browser and its descendents have offered a way to have JavaScript listen to and speak with Netscape Plugins. This has been problematic for general web use (IE/Win and Firefox support it; others don't; a new method is on the horizon as well), but if you'll be creating a standalone XUL-based application today then it seems that you can include that architecture's LiveConnect methods for two-way communication with Netscape Plugins such as the Macromedia Flash Player.
Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support
Posted: May 23, 2005 12:07 PM