Posted by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] on 08/21/07 18:41

On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:56:08 +0100, Spex <No.spam@ta.com> wrote:

>> Flash does progressive download, as does Silverlight 1.0
>> Silverlight 1.1 will do streaming, which Fash doesn't offer.
>
>Flash is a mature solution that is highly regarded by developers and end
>users alike. Silverlight is developed by Microsoft. Which means when
>they get bored with it you get dumped up shit creek without a paddle.
>Nuff said...


Well, sweeping statements aside, streaming is important if your users
need to scrub (random access) within the video.Try jumping forward
with chapters at 20 minutes into a 1 hour presentation from a CEO.

Nuff said.


>Flash streaming servers are not exactly necessary for the vast majority
>of deployments are they? It is such a highend niche.


OK my error, the subject of this group is "rec.video" rather than
"pro.video".


>> Bulk flash encoding software using On2 VP6 costs about $30-40000 which
>> is why it's taken this long for YouTube to consider that as an option.
>
>Well YouTube are encoding all new uploads as H.264 and Adobe have just
>updated Flash to support H264 as the video codec of choice. Beta
>available soon if not already.



So of course I open my mouth, and the very same day Adobe announce
availability, which changes the landscape and answers considerably :

http://www.kaourantin.net/2007/08/what-just-happened-to-video-on-web_20.html
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe_flash_player_moviestar_h264.php

It makes for far more direct comparisons. The only downside I can now
see is the lockin to flash streaming server for delivery of H264.

Unless I'm not able to read correctly, that applies to progressive as
well as streaming delivery, so it's actually a commercial as much as
delivery decision whether to buy a flash or windows streaming server

Effectively they've still shut out Darwin to stream that, and looks
like Red5 is dead in the water until they can hack the player
behaviour to ignore the flash server signature.

Of course claiming 'licensing of H264' is mostly BS / red herring,
since Adobe really want to make some serious cash out of Flash now
it's so widely deployed for video.

Lock-in to your own proprietary server platform is a move you might
think to be typical of microsoft - kettle, meet pan ;-)

Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

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