Posted At : November 18, 2008 7:47 PM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
General
I mean seriously, what is it that makes Adobe so attractive to Microsoft employees? Are they looking for blogs like this one to write a reply and feed off some link bait? That's clearly a successful strategy, especially when the same bloggers selectively turn off comments on such posts. How lame. Why not tell us about your technology, show us how it's better, faster, prettier, and maybe convert one or two of us?
I am really getting bored of it. Whenever I attend a non-Adobe conference and watch any Microsoft folks speak I hear how bad [insert Adobe technology here] is in comparison to [insert Microsoft technology here]. Is this really necessary? Can Silverlight not stand up by itself, or does it really require a bashing of the other guy? I simply don't see this behaviour in the Flash camp, they are quite happy to show their work and let that speak for itself. Good on you.
PS: Check out the tag cloud - says a lot about Microsoft's focus. Borderline obsessive.
Posted At : November 18, 2008 9:29 AM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
Off topic
Definitely off topic, but I can't help myself. This morning I quickly created some new ringtones for my (i)phone. If you like Fonejacker you will like those. Otherwise you can fall back on the two CTU ringtones which I've thrown into the zip as well. Otherwise go and check outFonejacker, he may grow on you. But remember: he likes his tomatoes, and he likes 'em FRESH!
To add these to your iPhone simply unzip and drag the .m4r files into iTunes. They should work with any standard iPhone. If you want to create your own iPhone ringdings you can do so easily using Garageband. Ok, back to work I go...
Posted At : November 17, 2008 7:49 PM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
General
,
Events
There's quite a lot happening on Twitter today (you can follow me if you like) and I thought I may post a few important announcements here.
AIR and Flash Player 10 on mobile is a big deal. The Google Android creator Andy Rubin was on stage talking about Flash Player 10 running on Android. There was also a demo of installing Flash Lite apps over the air on Windows Mobile and Symbian. About time. More importantly, Adobe and ARM are partnering up and will bring the full Player 10 to a lot of smartphones. Adobe can also deliver Player 10 for the Jesus Phone - but Steve Jobs needs to give it the ok first. Apple's loss (and mine) if you ask me.
Thermo is now called Flash Catalyst. Nice piece of toolkit, rubbish name.
Last but not least, Major League Baseball (MLB.com) are switching back to Flash for all their video broadcasts, dropping Silverlight in the process. That's quite a big deal since MLB have made a serious investment in Windows Media. Since their service is pay per view one must assume that they are quite happy with the level of protection Flash video offers them.
Posted At : November 17, 2008 9:35 AM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
FMS
,
Press Releases
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.
Posted At : November 17, 2008 9:04 AM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
Press Releases
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.
Posted At : November 12, 2008 7:50 PM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
General
Google have announced a new feature for Gmail (Google Talk to be exact): free voice and video chat. The plu-gin (which according to PC World) is a proprietary, non-Flash based system and supports Chrome, Firefox 2.0+, Internet Explorer 7.0, and Safari 3.0. The technology apparently comes from a company called Marratech which Google acquired last year.
While the encoding is obviously handled by a proprietary plug-in, it was reported that the client to view the video is in fact Flash. This is interesting, since it would suggest RTMP being used as the protocol. The Google blog however mentions only XMPP, RTP and H.264 as the technologies used... Hmm interesting. I'm sure some folks will dig deeper and report back with their findings. I have installed the plug-in but got nobody to call since I never use Google Talk. Help, I need friends.
Posted At : November 5, 2008 10:18 PM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
FMS
,
Events
Should you have any doubts about the importance of Flash Media Server in Adobe's overall strategy then look no further than Adobe MAX San Francisco. As just announced by Kevin Towes, FMS Product Manager, Flash Media Server will have big presence at this year's MAX and feature not only in the keynote but also in a dedicated Bird of a Feather session about the 'Future of Video on the Web'. I would not want to miss that one... (however I will since I'm not going to be in San Francisco for MAX)
There are a lot video and FMS related sessions happening and you should check out the particulars which Kevin is highlighting, including Multibitrate Video, Future of Communication with RTMFP and the Sneak Peak session at 5.30pm on Tuesday November 18th.
I will not make it to the US but will be attending MAX Europe in Milan in a few weeks time, where I will also be speaking on Building Collaborative Applications with FMS, a re-run of my session at Flash on the Beach. I say re-run - but it may only be a partial one - because if all goes well I will get the green light to show some of the new RTMFP/P2P features which are coming to a browser near you soon.
Posted At : October 29, 2008 10:06 AM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
FMS
,
Flex
I've recently decided that I should post more tips and tricks on this blog. I get a lot of emails and also answer questions on mailing lists that contain information that may be hard to track down (or in the case of email replies impossible) and would be better posted publicly on a blog. Here's one I'd like to start with.
Question: I have been trying to use your tutorial on the NetStream.send function and am getting frustrated. I have been researching this for the past couple of days and not finding any answers.
Posted At : October 28, 2008 9:13 AM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
Events
Today will see the start of the XCEL Pro Live event, streamed from Sunset Beach, Hawaii. I've been working on their live player on and off for a while and it's great to see it in action again today. So if you are a surf fan (or even if you aren't) then check out the XCEL Pro Surf event, starting today.
Posted At : October 22, 2008 2:42 PM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
FMS
,
Applications
Here's a Connect presentation that some of you may find useful. Kevin Towes presents on the history, concepts and development tasks of building a media player in Flash. I think his presentation is particularly useful to less technical people who would like to understand a bit more about the Flash development process, and also get a feel for the challenges in building a video player - it turns out it's not as easy as some may think. And since this is what I have been doing a few times over it makes me look really clever.
Posted At : October 15, 2008 1:48 PM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
Events
Jan Ozer is da man when it comes to video codecs - I was fortunate to have had such a knowledgeable co-author by my side when writing my first (and maybe only) book.
Jan's also taking part in Streaming Media Europe which started today in London. He has also written many book,s articles and authored DVD titles on many video related topics. Check out Jan's website for links to his work. I'm making my way to Streaming Media Europe tomorrow to moderate a panel (on Friday) on Live Flash Video with panelists from Perform, Eurosport and On2.
Update: I just found a shorter version of Jan's session in video form.
Posted At : October 14, 2008 9:02 PM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
FMS
Kevin Towes, Product Manager for Flash Media Server at Adobe, has just posted the following note on the Flash Media List:
Adobe would like your help to test the next version of our Flash Media Server software, the best way to deliver media to the Adobe Flash platform and to create rich interactive solutions.
Learn about some of the exciting new features we're adding that will significantly improve the quality of media delivery to Adobe Flash Player 10 and make it much easier to deploy your own Flash Media Server. Discover how new delivery technology can help improve the video performance and delivery the best experience to your audience. You will also get a sneak peak in some exciting new live streaming technology.
By participating you will have access to discuss Flash Media Server and streaming with the experts at Adobe and within the community to build relationships and get a jump on creating new media experiences for Flash Player. If you're interested in testing this next generation Adobe software, please take a moment and fill out our survey. You could be testing as soon as 24 hours from now!
Posted At : October 13, 2008 2:36 PM
| Posted By : Stefan Richter
| Related Categories:
Tools
Can someone recommend a decent Powerpoint to JPG (or maybe SWF converter)? It does not need to have loads of features, I'd be quite happy with a simple one-JPG-per-slide conversion. I used to use Flashpaper, but that's now dead, plus I need something that works easily within a Flex app, so no AS2/AVM1 output please. It also needs to run server side on Windows. Can you recommend a tool? I don't mind paying for it, nor do I mind if it strips Powerpoint gimmicks such as animations and sound (guess JPG would not support those anyway :-)
Please leave a comment if you have used such a tool and tell us your experience with it. Maybe we can come up with a definitive list here.
Kevin Towes, Product Manager for Flash Media Server at Adobe, has just posted the following note on the Flash Media List: