I'm very late with this piece of news, I know, but in case you haven't heard both Adobe and Wowza have released updates to their respective Media Server technologies. I must admit that one of these updates appears more significant than the other as Wowza have pushed out a major new version with Wowza Media Server 2.0.

Before I outline the details of that though let me first point you to the newest updater for FMS, bringing it to version 3.5.3. As always you can grab the file right here.
This version of FMS is essentially a service pack which includes bug fixes and performance improvements for DVR, Dynamic Streaming and playback. It even includes security fixes to correct some critical vulnerabilities.
The FLVCheck tool also saw an update, and Flash Media Server 3.5.3 now has full support for the smart buffer management controls introduced in Adobe Flash Player 10.1. These controls include support for seeking within the buffer, stepping through a video, slow and fast playback in the buffer as well as re-establishing a connection without interrupting the stream. You can find more details about the buffer enhancements in the Flash Player 10.1 ActionScript 3 API documentation that's now available on Labs.

The team at Wowza has been very busy too and released a massive update to their Wowza Media Server, updating the platform to what they describe as a Unified Media server. Unified because Wowza can now stream not only to Flash clients but also supports iPhone, Silverlight and even IPTV clients. Not too shabby!
In terms of transport mechanisms this means Wowza now supports Adobe's RTMP based protocols, Apple's HTTP Streaming, Microsoft's Smooth Streaming, RTSP/RTP delivery for Apple QuickTime, mobile and other clients as well as MPEG-TS for IPTV set-top delivery. The full press release is here.

I think it is awesome to have this kind of competition in the market and the work that the relatively small team at Wowza is churning out will certainly give Adobe some food for thought, especially when it comes to interoperability with other runtimes and platforms. I think if I was in Adobe's shoes I'd reach into my pocket and make them an offer they can't refuse - before somebody else does.

The guys are Wowza continue to be hard at work pushing their platform - with good success as it turns out. They took first place in two categories at the Streaming Media Reader's Choice Awards for Best Streaming Innovation and Best Server Hardware/Software.
"The Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards are the only awards of their kind in the online video industry," says Streaming Media magazine editor Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen. "While other awards focus exclusively on content, this is the only awards program that honors the technology that makes it all possible, and it's definitely the only one where the people decide who wins. And this year, more than 5,000 votes were cast for more than 200 nominees. Clearly, people care deeply about the tools they use to get their jobs done."

The full press release is here. Well done and well deserved guys, it's amazing what a dedicated team can achieve.

You may have heard by now that Adobe have relaunched Adobe.TV. Adobe have listened to feedback and greatly improved the site through a better navigation system, more robust search and more interactive capabilities. Incidentally the video player used on Adobe.TV is one of the first public video players which utilises the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF).

The site now offers new additions such as a resizable pop-out window that allows users to view content while simultaneously working within their Adobe applications. A new homepage provides quick and easy access to relevant episodes, with the ability to sort by most popular, most viewed, highest rated and recently added. And users can download the Adobe Media Player to view and save content offline, and receive new programming as soon as it is released.

I've used the site to watch a few episodes by the Flex Team and I must admit that the new site is a definitive improvement. While there are some minor glitches still to be ironed out I think this is a destination to keep an eye on. And the quality of the content is superb - which is of course the most important part.

I'm sure you've heard the news by now that Google is to acquire On2 Technologies, makers of Flix Standard, Pro, Exporter, Live, Engine and Directshow SDK, plus intellectual property holder of a whole range of video codecs which include VP6, a video codec that Adobe has licensed from On2 and included into the Flash Player (Flash includes a VP6 decoder - the only video encoder in Flash is still Sorenson Spark).
In many respects the VP6 codec played a huge role in the success of Flash video as it quickly became the codec of choice for anyone encoding Flash video for the web.

The Twittersphere is buzzing with chatter about the deal which sees Google handing over around $106.5 million - peanuts in Google's world, a company which is valued at over $150 billion (who really cares about a few billion here or there :).
I'm wondering what this deal means for Flash video and for HTML5. I guess that in the short term, Flash will be unaffected since there is now a clear move towards H.264, and existing license agreements with On2 should remain unaffected too. But what about HTML5? This new standard (which actually isn't one yet) is in real need of a *decent* video codec which is not burdened with royalty fees (as may or may not be the case with H.264).

No surprise that this deal is seen by some (mainly TechCrunch commentators) as yet another Flash (video) killer. Yawn. Others speculate that Google may open source one or more codecs, or make them freely available. That's speculation right now and I could see it go either way, there are many reasons for one or the other (or neither) to happen. We'll see.

Then there are Google's communication tools - a decent video codec is handy for those to say the least, and it's no surprise that Skype is one of the VP7 licensees.

This is a smart move by Google, and I'm actually surprised they haven't done this sooner. The price they paid seems a bargain too, and so Google will soon own the codec technologies which power the majority of web video today. We'll see what Google's plans are from here, but since they do no evil we have nothing to worry about, right? Right? Hello, anyone here?

The full press release can be seen here.

Adobe have today announced the open source release of the project formerly known as Strobe. The Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) provides a robust code base for media playback of any kind (video, audio, SWFs, images and more).
I've been briefly involved in the Strobe pre-release program and while I haven't built anything meaningful with it yet I have to hand it to Adobe for making a really great effort here. This framework is a solid foundation for any sort of media player that you may want to build, and since it does not tie you to a specific UI (quite different to what the FLVPlayback component provided) it gives you great flexibility for your own players. A set of APIs and plugin hooks allow you to also build your own extensions for the framework while maintaining compatibility with the underlying code base.

Admittedly the learning curve will be a bit steep for some but I have no doubt that we will soon see a few more packaged and easy to digest players pop up which can be used 'off the shelf'. I also expect all the major CDNs to release plugins for OSMF or document ways to interface with their backends - as we know, almost every major CDN currently has its own quirky way of connecting and playing a Flash stream.

There's more to OSMF than what I can cover here and I suggest you head over to the Adobe website and check it out for yourself.

Wowza has previewed their latest version of Wowza Media Server at NAB. Named 'Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced', the upcoming platform will support multiple protocols for streaming video and thereby enable customers to not only stream to Flash clients but also to Silverlight, iPhone and Quicktime. Even IPTV set-top boxes will be supported via MPEG-TS.

Wowza is clearly focused on becoming the main hub for unified video streaming across platforms.
The company plans to make Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced commercially available in the second half of 2009. Pricing will be announced at a later date. All purchases of Wowza Media Server Pro Unlimited editions after April 8, 2009 are eligible for a free upgrade to Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced.

Many of you may know that MIX09 is in full swing and Microsoft has announced not only Silverlight 3 Beta but also added some new live streaming capabilities to its platform.
Once of those additions is a feature called Live Smooth Streaming which, if I understand it correctly, provides the equivalent to Adobe's dynamic bitrate streaming by offering fallback bitrates if the connection speed on the user's side fluctuates. The term 'Live Smooth Streaming' is a little bit deceptive however since this service - as far as I understand it - is not true streaming at all, however it comes close to a streaming experience. Instead it uses chunks of HTTP progressively downloaded material to provide a stream-like experience. I guess 'Live Smooth HTTP Download' doesn't sound as sexy.

Another feature is the so-called Live PVR, basically a total rip-off of Adobe's DVR functionality introduced recently to FMS which lets users rewind a live event and catch up to it as well. Microsoft describes their service as a 'PVR in the cloud', and it runs on top of IIS 7 and Windows Server 2008. Ben Waggoner has all the details, mixed in with some marketing fluff.

While it's great to see competition take hold in this space I would really wish for Microsoft to be more innovative at times. Of course they are playing catch up with Flash on the Silverlight front, but I generally expect them to be more experienced in the video streaming space (they've been doing this for much longer than Adobe). We've seen a glimpse of the fact that Microsoft is able to innovate during the preview of the out-of-browser install feature in Silverlight 3, but the blatant copy of Adobe's DVR functionality seems a bit cheap to me. If copying can't be avoided then so be it, but couldn't you at least differentiate the feature a little bit, or top it somehow? That would really get Adobe into gear too and maybe speed up some of their own initiatives - I've heard they are working some new FMS features.

Great news today amidst the Inauguration celebrations: Adobe is to publish the specifications for its (apparently patented) RTMP protocol. This protocol (the real-time messaging protocol) is designed for high-performance transmission of audio, video, and data between Adobe Flash Platform technologies, including Flash Media Server. Other server platforms such as Wowza and Red5 had in the also added support for RTMP and this announcement should make it somewhat easier for third parties to develop compatible technologies (if there are still any unanswered question about RTMP that is).

According to Adobe's Serge Jespers, the RTMP details will soon be published on Adobe.com. The full press release is here.

"With the RTMP specification, developers and companies will be able to provide users with optimized audio, video and data streaming, no matter what kind of device the user is on or where the content is coming from," said Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch. "Our ongoing commitment to openness is accelerating adoption of the Flash Platform by developers and resulting in a new generation of Web applications, content and video experiences that run reliably across operating systems and devices."

Understandably Adobe will not release details of the secure variants of RTMP such as RTMPE since it forms the backbone of some of the content protection measures in Flash Media Server.

Wowza Media Server Pro is now available under a software subscription licensing model. This offers anyone who wants to stream Flash the most full-featured version of Wowza Pro (Wowza Media Server Pro Unlimited with MPEG-TS) and a risk-free, flexible model for managing their licensing costs according to their customers' streaming demands - it allows Wowza Pro users to add/delete servers as needed and only pay for servers used.

Wowza Pro Software Subscription is an automated monthly license subscription for deployment on users own hardware. It is ideal for service providers (CDNs, streaming services and hosting providers) regardless of their size, but is also a great choice for non-service provider uses. Users can review subscription pricing and subscribe online at here. Pricing starts at $65/server and declines in volume (the first server for the first month is Free with payment of the set-up fee).

The full press release can be found here.

Adobe Flash Media Server 3.5 (FMS 3.5) is now available to pre-order. It will incorporate new features including Dynamic Streaming, DVR functionality, HTTP delivery support, and H.264 enhancements.
The upgrade price in the US is the US$349 (depending on your existing edition), with UK pricing being in line with that (and by that I mean: just change your currency symbol since the UK price puts the exchange rate to the US dollar more or less at 1:1 with a price of GBP 346.62).
You can download the current version (FMS3) from the Adobe website and give it a try.

Apologies for the earlier misinformation, I was under the impression that FMS 3.5 had actually shipped.

Today Adobe announced the next version of Flash Media Server, FMS 3.5. Dynamic Streaming makes it easier to deliver a consistent stream even when bandwidth conditions and general network health changes during playback. While similar techniques were possible before it is now even easier and in particular much more seamless to integrate this functionality.
The DVR feature is great when viewing live streams, either to rewind back to the beginning of the broadcast or simply to re-view a certain part of the stream. I can see this being a great feature for sports broadcasts in particular.

FMS 3.5 now also ships with an in-built web server in the form of Apache. This allows developers to provide a single point of access to their content and they can now deliver SWF, JPEG, CSS, JS and other assets including video over it. It's notable that both RTMPT and HTTP can co-exist on the same port (80) and IP address.

Kevin Towes has a full length post on his blog outlining all the new features in FMS 3.5.

Adobe today announced the Cocomo public beta, a technology which allows developers to add real-time social capabilities into their web applications.
Cocomo basically leverages the Adobe Connect back-end to deliver features such as Data Messaging (think traditional Remote SharedObjects), VoIP Audio, Webcam Video, File Sharing, Text Chat and so on. The tool is provided in shape of a developer framework and component set that can be used to build Flex based applications.

Cocomo is definitely a very cool platform and on the surface it makes it easy to build real-time applications that may otherwise be quite difficult to build. But I also see an enormous overlap between Cocomo and Flash Media Server.

Today - as you probably know - is CS4 day. As part of the CS4 suite, Flash also got an update and with it ships the new Adobe Media Encoder (with Flash CS4 Professional that is). Not only has the encoder changed its name slightly, it has also seen a feature update and got new UI that is now more in line with the CS4 interface (click for screenshot).
In fact it is the same tool found in other Adobe professional video products such as Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 software and After Effects CS4 -- and it now supports H.264 encoding, and includes support for batch processing and also adds two-pass, variable bit-rate encoding. This is certainly a step up and brings it very close, if not on par, with dedicated and professional encoding tools. Or put it this way, Adobe Media Encoder will suffice most standard encoding tasks for web based video. Nice one.

Adobe today announced the Flash Media Encoding Server at IBC. This is a new scalable, high-performance solution for converting multiple video file formats to Flash video (FLV/F4V) and the latest addition to the Adobe Flash Media Server family of products. The solution is powered by Rhozet, one of the leading providers of transcoding solutions.

At IBC2008, Adobe is also previewing new technologies that will be available in future versions of Adobe Flash Media Server. These include dynamic streaming for delivering the highest quality, uninterrupted viewing experience, and the ability to pause or rewind a live video stream. Expect more news from IBC over the coming days.

Full press release here.

The BBC will be adding several channels to its online simulcast lineup shortly, including BBC Four, CBBC and CBeebies. This is in addition to the already announced simulcast (read: live streaming) of BBC One.

Viewing habits and TV consumption is rapidly changing and this announcement just underlines the obvious trend. I'm sure future generations will find it very strange indeed that programs used to start at set times. Of course the really cool thing about this announcement is the fact that Flash will once again play a key role, since the streams are likely to be streamed via the iPlayer or one of its live-streaming-baby-brothers. Personally, I'm determined to ride this wave... watch this space.

The full press release is here.

And the usual disclaimer for everyone not in the UK: sorry but you'll be GEOIP blocked when trying to access any of the BBC streams. Those fortunate enough to be in the UK must hold a valid TV license (yes, no kidding, even if you have no TV but watch on a laptop or mobile phone).

One of my advertising partners, Imediasee, have just launched a pay-as-you-go video streaming service which requires no monthly fees or long term commitments.
The service is capable to delivering videos with the newly introduced H.264 codec for both live and on demand streaming and the announcement came alongside three new price promotions, in addition to their regular packages and include:
- On-demand video: 4,000GB for $999 only $0.25/GB, 33% off regular prices
- Live ad hoc streaming video: 2,000GB for $999 50% off regular prices with no reservation or long term commitment required stream live anytime
- Encoding of video: $20 per video plus $1 per minute for encoding save $25 per video (usually $45 plus $1/min.)

The full press release can be found here.

CBS have launched their redesigned Flash based video player supporting H.264 HD videos. Viewers are able to watch full length episodes of their favorite shows such as CSI, Criminal Minds and How I met Your Mother, to name but a few.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to bring up any of the content which I presume is down to geographical restrictions. Hopefully viewers from the US could try the player and tell us about their experience by leaving a comment below.

The next version of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro (I still haven;t figured out why they had to name it Acrobat) has been announced and will be available towards the end of the month. The full press release is here.

As you may know, Connect is built on top of FMS and leverages most of its features. Presenters can also run a special version of the Flash Player which features screen sharing capabilities, amongst other things.

Wowza Media Systems have announced a new price for their popular Wowza Media Server Pro. Now priced at $995 it offers a similar feature set as the recently announced Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server which is priced at $4,500. Wowza Media Server is now at the same price level as the announced Adobe Flash Media Streaming Server and it means a price reduction by Wowza of 80%.
It's obvious that we're seeing the market for Flash video streaming heating up with Wowza trying to maintain its lead to be the cheapest commercial RTMP streaming server around (Red5 being of course free and open source).

Streamzilla, a european media hosting provider, have updated their Flash streaming support and is currently offering free RTMP streaming to both customers and non-customers powered by Wowza Media Server, for a limited period. To request a trial account simply email rtmptest@streamzilla.eu.
Apart from live and on-demand streaming, Streamzilla continue to offer 'StroboScope' (FLV semi-streaming) services (similar to like PHP-FLV / Lighttp) and will introduce a session management option for this technology soon. The company also offer progressive downloads and of course support for Windows Media, QuickTime, MPEG-4, 3GPP and Icecast streaming. You can find more info at www.streamzilla.eu.

The BBC's much criticized iPlayer will add the Flash Player to deliver the BBC's content to a cross platform audience, something the current Windows-only iPlayer is not capable off. This is big news as Flash video will become a major part of the BBC's content delivery infrastructure and it significantly deepends the partnership between the BBC and Adobe.
More in depth news over at streamingmedia.com.

I'm rubbish at re-iterating press releases and as others have already done it for me I recommend you read this one, this one and this one.
Very cool news nevertheless, as in effect BEA and Adobe are cross-pollinating each other's products with Weblogic Server and WorkShop Studio on the BEA side and Flex Builder 2 plus LifeCycle Enterprise Suite at Adobe's end.
I'm not very familiar with BEA's software or server products but apparently they are big with the J2EE crowd and widely used for high-end, enterprise level applications.

Have any of you readers worked with Workshop Studio before? What does it do, how will it power Flex Builder forward and is the bundle a reply by Adobe to Microsoft's Expression tools? :-)