If you are on the ball when it comes to Flash Video then youre likely to have seen the press release that made the rounds in the last few days. First I wasn't sure if it was even blog-worthy but the discussions and deciphering of the contents of the release are now in full swing, both on the Flash Media List as well as in other places. For example it is not clear what they mean by 'integrate future versions of next generation media technologies leveraging VeriSign's Kontiki peer-to-peer technology and Adobe's award winning Flash Video software'. Flash Video software? What's that? The Flash Player? Flash? FMS? All of it?
But that aside there appears to be some excitement surrounding this announcement. I am simply glad to see an Adobe press release which mentions Flash Media Server so clearly. The bottom line of the statement is that Adobe will be integrating FMS into Verisign's Kontiki peer-to-peer technology. Wow!
While CDN delivery of Flash video is nothing new, the Kontiki technology seems to be a different beast, some sort of P2P based CDN.
I make no secret that I do not fully grasp the implications of this but some folks have already mentioned that this could open the door for Flash Video based DRM mechanisms. P2P technology also seems to be a good foundation to turn the internet into a broadcast capable medium.
No doubt Adobe is keeping its cards to its chest but the Flash Video train is definitely moving full steam ahead. Jump on it while you can.
But that aside there appears to be some excitement surrounding this announcement. I am simply glad to see an Adobe press release which mentions Flash Media Server so clearly. The bottom line of the statement is that Adobe will be integrating FMS into Verisign's Kontiki peer-to-peer technology. Wow!
While CDN delivery of Flash video is nothing new, the Kontiki technology seems to be a different beast, some sort of P2P based CDN.
I make no secret that I do not fully grasp the implications of this but some folks have already mentioned that this could open the door for Flash Video based DRM mechanisms. P2P technology also seems to be a good foundation to turn the internet into a broadcast capable medium.
No doubt Adobe is keeping its cards to its chest but the Flash Video train is definitely moving full steam ahead. Jump on it while you can.
Either way it is exciting to see FLV format being considered as a valued option in delivery content in different platforms and technologies.
Abacast is a P2P software that allowed users to share our live Windows Media streams and reduced our bandwidth cost (aka piggybacking).
Although our streams were not that large of a bitrate, the same principle will make streaming high-quality long-format media feasible.
You won't see it make a big impact anytime soon, but like STefan mentioned, it is a move in the direction of turning the Internet into a broadcast medium.
Hopefully, Adobe will make the Kontiki software seamless with Flash. One thing we didn't like about Abacast was that you had to install the plugin. They made it a 2-step easy process, but I'm sure it still turned away some users.
We're very happy that we switched to Flash, but are anxious to incorporate the VP6 codec into our live streams. The 2 options available now (Flix Live and Digital Rapids Stream LE)don't quite have the features we need. Maybe we can work a deal with On2 to include the codec in the encoder we developed? LOL!!