journal

Flash and HD (H.264) Video

Just recently Adobe made the announcement that they would be supporting the HD (H.264) video format in their latest Flash Player.  Little did anyone know though, that it was already in there.  It looks like they just didn’t tell anyone.  But the latest Flash player has been getting some serious video playback enhancements. According to Adobe, Flash Player 9, Codenamed “Moviestar”, is “hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback”.  In short, Adobe has added H.264 support which is being used in both Blu-Ray discs and Quicktime.  Adobe has also added (HE-AAC) or High Efficiency Advanced Audio Codec for audio playback.

A great example of the latest HD format can be found here, don’t forget to right click and select “Full Screen” on the flyout menu.

For alot more info on the new format, here’s a great resource…

Silverlight and VC-1

Silverlight on the other hand supports the HD format through VC-1.  Silverlight also supports WMA, WMV7-9 and MP3 formats. WMV9 is the Microsoft implementation of the VC-1 standard which ships in all HD-DVD and Blu-ray based hardware.    A good example of the HD playback is on this page, don’t forget to click the fullscreen button!

The HD wars have begun!

So both formats are competing for dominance which is great for competition.  Personally, I’m really glad to see Microsoft showing some initiative in the web space. I’ve always believed that Flash and now Silverlight have really bright futures on the web and now we have a great way to watch movies too!