Adobe's Moviestar Brings HD Support to Flash

Adobe Systems announced a beta version of its web-pervasive Flash Player, code-named 'Moviestar,' that can display HD video content using the open-source H.264 standard. The H.264 codec is part of the MPEG-4 video standard, and it's implemented in both the Blu-ray and HD DVD high-def formats. The company also announced support for High Efficiency AAC audio and hardware-accelerated, multicore video playback. The beta will be available today at labs.adobe.com.




Adobe sees this enhancement to Flash as complementing its Premiere and After Effects content creation tools, as well as its upcoming AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) platform for deploying rich web applications. Another piece of the puzzle will be Adobe Media Player, which is sort of a desktop installed-software version of the browser-based Flash Player. The media player will give content creators their beloved DRM and the ability to display ads along with the video, along with TiVo-like functions for the viewer.


Adobe engineer Tinic Uro's blog wanders deep into the technical details of the update, which includes several more technology implementations than just the H.264 support, like ISO 14496-12 (read the blog if you really want to know).



SOURCE:pcmag.com