Whew. What a whirlwind conference! MAX is winding down, and I’m on my way out of town… but before I go, as promised, here is a PDF of the presentation. Thanks to everyone who attended; I hope you found it interesting and enlightening! I’ll be presenting a version of this session at Flash in the Can Hollywood in a couple of weeks, for those who missed it!

DOWNLOAD PDF

Share beta: Free Adobe service with 1GB of disk space; app for sharing files. Remembers who you shared your files with. Also “like flashpaper on steroids” letting you embed PDF content into webpages, etc. AS3 libraries also available to work with the service.

Pacifica: Voice, messaging, presence into Flash and Flex apps. High quality voice. Real-time collaboration
High Quality voice chat
Text instant messaging
NAT/Firewall Traversal
Ajax, HTML, JS, Flex, Flash
t/c video Chat
P2P
AIR
PSTN Access — connect into telephone network
Private beta starting this month, and hiring developers and quality engineers.
Will be open to developers to build custom apps.

CoCoMo: New version of Adobe Connect (Nigel Pegg)
Client UI has been rewritten in Flex (was Flash MX)
The worldwide hosted infrastructure will be opened to developers to access via Flex.
API/components will be available, along with the foundation classes
(Finally opening screensharing?) more in a few… battery’s dying!

This morning saw another new development in the Flash codec story.

On2 has announced support in their Flix encoder (and even more importantly, in Flash 9/Moviestar) for a new codec profile: VP6-S.

From the press release:

The new VP6-S video profile offers greater simplicity in the encoding and playback of high-resolution, full-screen video, thereby allowing high definition video to be streamed and played back within processor power limitations posed by the majority of personal computers. On2 will ship its flagship Flix Engine upgrade for VP6-S mid-October, concurrently with the Adobe Flash Player 9 update. The remaining Flix product line with VP6-S upgrades will ship during the fourth quarter of 2007.

The target of this new codec profile is high-definition/high bitrate video on machines with slower processors. The original codec, VP6-E is still the recommended format for typical video with bitrates at or below 500Kbps.
Flash video used to be simple… ‘Spark or VP6?’ No longer! Encoding is going to be a bigger and bigger issue with Flash video, as we get more choices, optimized for different deployments. This is great news, though, for audiences with slower, older machines. The Flash video experience is getting better and better for everyone!

{grumble}Now I need to go update my MAX presentation on encoding for next week, again…{/grumble}

!! UPDATE !!

I just spoke with Mike Savello of On2 about the details of this announcement.

Apparently, this new profile has been part of the Moviestar release from day one, but was overshadowed by the announcement of H.264 support.

According to Mike, where the new codec shines is in high datarate video / slow CPU environments. The VP6-S profile is much less complex than the standard VP6-E currently in the Flash Player 8. The videos do not increase in filesize, nor do they decrease noticeably in quality, but they consume less CPU overhead on playback. On2 will have more specific benchmark data at their booth next week at MAX in Chicago.

My article that published in last month’s Streaming Media magazine has been posted online! Though it doesn’t address the new H.264 support in Flash, it’s a good overview of Flash video for those who are just getting started, or would like a refresher.

In the very simple example, showing how to Instantiate and Configure the FLVPlayback component, there was one crucial line of code missing:

myFLVPlaybk.source = “examplevideo.flv”

In this example, we’re pointing to an FLV in the same directory as your SWF, called examplevideo.flv. If you don’t specify a source, your FLVPlayback component won’t know which video to play.

First off, thanks to everyone who bought our book, Flash Video for Professionals.

Writing a book is challenging, to say the least. Even with two authors, eagle-eye copy editors, savvy tech editors, and helpful friends, mistakes can slip through.

And with each new version of software, new issues can be introduced… sometimes helpful, sometimes not.

So, to be sure that readers have the most up-to-date code and information, we’ve started this topic: Book Errata & Updates. If you ever run into trouble with an example, or find a typo or error, check here first for an update. If you don’t find a reference to it here, feel free to post a comment and we’ll sort it out for you ASAP.

Whew. Just getting back from Boston and taking a breath. Wow, what a whirlwind conference!

This year’s FF was sold out, with a fantastic line-up of speakers and informative and entertaining sessions. I was honored to be a part of it, with my session, “Fun with Flash Media Server.”

As promised, here are the source files for you to play around with.

[ Fun with FMS : Source ]

Note that the connection string will have to point to your own server running the free FMS developer edition (running on your local machine), or using a third-party FMS hosting service such as Influxis. (As an helpful alternative for Mac users, you could run RED5 locally and connect to a default application file you name funwithfms, to test.)

Please post any comments or questions, and I’ll keep an eye on this space. Now go have some fun with FMS!

The brilliant minds of Flash developers are always working… More proof here, on FlashcomGuru, where xmoov has developed an improved solution for emulating streaming’s smooth seeking, for progressive download video delivery. Like the solution mentioned in our book, this is PHP-based, and allows you to skip around freely within a progressive video, even if that portion of the video file has not yet been downloaded. He’s open-sourced the code, and also offers a plug-and-play version for a small fee, (UPDATE: contact the developer for pricing) if you don’t want to get your hands dirty with PHP.

The updated source by xmoov.com is available from FlashComGuru’s site.

Beet.tv’s Andy Plesser recently interviewed Chris Hock of Adobe about the momentum building around live video on the web. With the free tool Adobe Flash Media Encoder, alongside the Flash Media Server, more and more opportunities are opening up to easily deploy live video using Flash. From this interview, it seems that live streaming is a real focus for Adobe, so expect more developments in this area in the future.

With one earth-shaking announcement, Adobe has changed the landscape of online video.

Flash Player 9, Update 3 will support playback of H.264 encoded video in the following file formats:

- .MP4

- .M4A

- .M4V

- .3GP

- .MOV

It’s important to note that the video file must be encoded using the H.264 codec (FairPlay is not supported). All H.264 formats including Base, High, and High 10-bit streams will play.
What does this mean for you? Well, depending on your application and the demands of your video projects, it could be business as usual — or it could be a whole new business model.

Flash will continue to support both Sorenson Spark and On2VP6. Note that there are still reasons to use VP6; alpha channel video, for example. You also won’t be able to stream H.264 videos via Flash Media Server until a future version of FMS is released. Also, FLVs are built for fast-start streaming, where many H.264 videos are not. That being said, the benefits and opportunities that the new codec brings are huge.

You can now re-purpose existing H.264 content, and play it back in the browser WITHOUT any other special plugins. This means that iTunes files (with all metadata) can be played back through Flash. Videos with karaoke tracks or multiple-language subtitles encoded in can be read and and displayed in Flash. All of this (and more) in the browser, without any special codec or plugin downloads.

The big-picture benefits are clear: Adobe has given their customers what they’ve been clamoring for — a non-proprietary, standards-compliant video format. This gives them confidence that their often huge libraries of content are not held hostage by a single company and their player. It also gives us access to more encoding tools, a more flexible codec, and native hardware support.

All of this, and less than 100kb added to the Player!

There are two potential issues with this announcement that I’ll be keeping an eye on. One, there may be additional licensing required for H.264 video used for commercial content. The implications of this are not yet clear. The second is the assertion by Adobe that the Flash Player will not support playback of streams from non-Adobe H.264 servers. Though neither of these issues will likely become deal-breakers, they could prevent the industry from fully embracing the news.

Watch this space for more details, and what the new codecs will mean for you. You can bet I’ll be keeping up with the latest developments!

This update for Adobe Flash Player 9, code-named Moviestar will be available in beta later today on Adobe Labs. The full release is planned for later this fall.
More info:

What just happened to video on the web? — Tinic Uro, Adobe
Flash Player Supports H.264 Video — Ryan Stewart, ZDNet
Adobe Extends Web Video Leadership With H.264 Support — Yahoo News