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no, html5 and ogg...

the major use of flash these days are media related (youtube and similar). the rest are just bling for the sake of it (imo).

It's true the majority of Flash use is media related like YouTube. But then it's a little more than just playing media.

Let's take Youtube videos as an example. The video it plays is of course in the Flash piece. The video *control* is also in Flash. And at the end of videos, it shows related videos, or you can replay the video or share it, which are also part of the Flash.

Of course, you can do it another way with a change in design (in case of youtube, they really don't need to change design because all these functions are available outside the Flash piece), but then, that's their design.

i dont know how often i have made use of those available "features". but i suspect that the number would be single digit.

This is mostly true, except you are forgetting about the many games that are developed in flash, and the fact that Flex is becoming more popular

Yes.



As it has been mentioned before, this is the main playing field of "Flash", but not its only one. Of course, regarding multimedia content, we seem to share the same ideas. Video playback should be handled at the user's site (i. e. from within the browser), just like libraries and plugins to it with any other content (images, audio files, Java applets). The user should be able to use whatever player he likes, for example, ebmedded inside the web page, playing in an external player, maybe in fullscreen, or maybe just save the file onto disk. Encapsulating and streaming techniques for video and audio content existed before "Flash", even good free alternatives, but as long as they are not widely used, users (or, to be more correct, the creators of web browsers and plugins) won't adopt to free standards.

Furthermore, "Flash" seems to have developed into an "HTML replacement"; this makes web content (if you can call it that way) completely unusable for disabled people. For example, blind users win't see anything. This is not entirely a problem of "Flash" itself, no, it's a problem of web developers unable or unwilling to encapsulate "Flash" content in a correct manner. HTML (and scripts) to allow to do it correctly. And what animated GIFs have been years ago, that's "Flash" today: a means to make web pages look ugly, overloaded with blinking, jiggling, beeping and blurring animations, oh what a joy - if you suffer from ADS. :-)

Things that are important to see should be put into a form that allows anyone to see it, or at least get a clue why it isn't possible to see. Todays browsers handle nearly any web content out of the box - you don't need an OS-specific plugin to see a PNG image or to connect to a web page that requests an SSL connection. And if your OS comes with the proper codecs, plugins and programs, you can play music files, watch movies and run Java applications. No big trouble.

In my opinion, anything that isn't entirely free (and "Flash" isn't, I'm sure we don't need to discuss this) has no place within a free (and barrier free) web. Don't get me wrong: There are places where "Flash" is a great solution, but as long as its availability is restricted, ... I think you get my idea. (A personal note: I'm living fine without "Flash" for years.)

One important argument seems to be that "Flash" hooks so deeply into the system that it cannot be implemented in an OS agnostic manner. That's poor. Even Java can run on any system. Why can't "Flash"? (I may give the answer just right now: Because it is not intended.) Should something that seems to see itself as a "standard" be allowed to decide what OS a user has to run?

thanks, i was starting to feel a bit alone...

btw, can one reliably develop flash based content without some kind of tool from adobe?

i think that is the classic plan for all these systems. give away the "player", charge a fee for the "recorder"...

its been done that way in one form or other since the first realplayer plugin...

Edited 2008-05-01 05:04 UTC

> btw, can one reliably develop flash based content without some kind of tool from adobe?

Adobe have open-sourced the Flex SDK, so yes, actually.

To me that seems the wrong way round. They should've opened up the Flash format and kept the authoring tools proprietary. That's where there strength is and it's a model that's been shown to work for Photoshop, Acrobat and so on.

The short-sightedness of this plan will show if people start using Silverlight, thinking that Moonlight makes it a more open format. To me, Moonlight is a disaster waiting to happen.

I support Mono because you are always in control of the apps. Banshee or F-Spot will not break because of what Microsoft or some web developer did. If Mono and .Net ever diverge, who cares?

I can't support Moonlight because you are never in control of the app/content. Someone else compiles and stores in their own server. They have free reign to change something that breaks compatibility whenever they want, as do Microsoft.

It seems that most people ever support both or neither, but there's a huge distinction there.

Yes, even using only open-source software: http://osflash.org/ames

Don't mind. Most who are tired to be bombarded by unusable "Flash" overloaded pages are tired to open their mouth, too. And if they do, they get modded down, because "Flash" is cool and you cannot exist without it. :-)



Well, I think there are encoders that are free - for example the port swftools, p5-SWF-Builder, -Filer, sswf, vnc2swf (taken from FreeBSD's ports collection), as well as there are fre "alternatives" such as gnash or swfdec. Sadly, the last two mentioned are not 100% capable of what the OS-pedantic "Flash" players are, and furthermore, I'm not sure how good the free "Flash" encoders are - I have to admit that I'm avoiding "Flash" since I (1) didn't find any use for it and (2) the format isn't compatible to the OSes I use.



Would work vice versa, too. "You need to by (insert name of application) to view this important and entertaining adverdizing content." :-)



Hmmm... Realplayer... I think I heared this word years ago... :-)

but at least putting a spotlight on potential issues will make people work harder on getting that open source equivalent ready.

Wrong, it does. I've written a site in HTML5, and both Firefox and Safari have support for the video and audio tags. It's backwards developers that are necessitating flash & silverlight.

Isn't there a problem with video tags when it comes to codecs? Various browsers on various operating systems include different media backends that do not standarise on single and open audio/video standard.

Yes, there absolutely is that problem. But we must take one step at a time; having a proprietary video codec in a non proprietary container is still a great stride forward than having a proprietary container et al.

An .h264 video is still playable by all platforms (inc.64-bit), but a flash file isn't at all, regardless of what codec the video is in.

Plus, without a binary blob in your page, it's safer and can be interpreted better by varying user-agents, such as RSS readers and mobile browsers. If a user-agent knows that it's looking at a video or audio tag, instead of a flash-blob that could be anything, it can provide screen controls appropriate to the display technology. (small screens for instance), or interpret the information in any variety of other means. (mashable content). Mozilla have even talked about "copy & paste" for video, which could not be done (universally) with flash-blobs.

what is the licencing requirements for h264 again?

and that was what the suggestion for ogg formats where supposed to fix. yes, it was not the best in quality, but it was best in how freely it could be implemented on some random platform out there in present or future.

Well, you can thank Apple and Nokia for shooting down OGG support in the HTML5 spec.

wait... creating rich user applications that does not rely on anything from the browser maker and is rendered exactly the same from user to user, browser to browser, and platform to platform is backwards?

Sorry, your OS does not support the binary-blob required to view this comment.

I hope you know that Java faces a similar situation on new platforms as well.

Come on, you can't really expect HTML5's multimedia tags to replace Flash let alone Silverlight.

Try using it yourself before you give a handful of HTML tags feature parity with Silverlight/Flash.

Silverlight2 includes a lightweight version of the CLR, and the ability to use WPF/XAML for content presentation.

It's much more than a video player platform. Much more.

You preach these new multimedia tags, yet you fail to realize they're not supported in any incarnation of Internet Explorer. Sort of throws your cross-platform argument right out of the Window (no pun intended) doesn't it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverlight#Silverlight_2

Educate yourself.

Edited 2008-05-01 11:04 UTC

There were some solutions involving use of free video/audio solutions in HTML5 but they were blocked by major software/hardware companies - we (computer literate users and regular ones even if they don't konw it yet ) might want Theora, OGG but they lack DRM and other restrictions that make people earn money in traditional way. This is a showstopper to everybody who has a say in this.

as if flash video has drm.

i have been using apps to rip youtube videos to local storage for quite a while now...

"security thru obscurity" more like it...

Edited 2008-04-30 19:30 UTC

Screw HTML5 if it is going to be dominated by the needs of big companies.

It's not quite true that there's no open-souce equivalent. Check out JavaFX:

http://www.sun.com/software/javafx/index.jsp
https://openjfx.dev.java.net/

It's still in its relative infancy (the NetBeans plug-in is still in beta, there's no Eclipse plug-in yet, and it's interpreted-only for now, with a compiled version on the way), which probably explain why it hasn't been more extensively marketed. But it looks promising.

In combination with upcoming changes to the way the JRE is downloaded:

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/javase/java6u10/ind...

and the fact that many Linux distros will be bundling Java by default in the near future, we might have a real open-source contender to Flash/Silverlight in the works.

100% agree - today it is alot better than years ago, when one had to have 1/2 dozen different players installed to support the huge number of formats that provided nothing in terms of quality to the end user - and the stability and security issues; imagine trying to keep track of all that junk installed just to have a reasonable internet experience?

I'd love to see Flash opensourced - fully opensourced and then Adobe creating and selling development products - the money isn't in the technology itself but the software which allows people to taken advantage of that technology. If they opensource it tomorrow, Adobe would still be raking in the money today in terms of content creation tools.

Now, if Microsoft did that to Silverlight before Adobe, I'd put my money behind silverlight. I'm always surprised over just how stupid managers are when they become fixated on the technology rather than realising that you can bleed your customers dry with the stuff that sits ontop of the technology.

perhaps if they opensourced it we could turn Flash into a useful runtime like silverlight will be once it hits 2.0

Actionscript is a pain in the ass and the library support could be a lot deeper IMHO.

From what I understand, that is what AIR is attempting to do - what I find the most disappointing is Adobe's lack of foresight. If they keep acting the way they do Microsoft will eventually make them another victim of the juggernaut. Too bad Adobe have this, "we'll succeed because we're Adobe" instead of facing the reality - they're up against a stiff competitor with very deep pockets.

Before ActionScript3 and Flex came out I would have agreed. But things have changed quite a bit.

Sorry, still based on ECMA, Actionscript is Flex's VBscript.

lets get some real languages on the runtime and we can talk.

i just wonder what kind of media formats will be contained inside those silverlight containers (thats what flash basically is, a container for the video content).

its as if each video file would come with its own player...

hmm, sounds like a mpaa utopia...

You can host whatever kind of video you want, you just gotta write a provider for it. AFAIK moonlight (the LGPL silverlight) comes with Ogg Theora support built in. This is very different from flash, which is tied to propriatary codecs.

hmm, either microsoft dropped the ball on that one or they have some trick or other up their sleeve as that just made things much more interesting...

this is, if someone can make a ogg provider for silverlight...

or can the one in moonlight be simply copied over?

Edited 2008-04-30 20:05 UTC

The question is why would someone want theora in silverlight? Theora started as VP3, the commercial version is used by adobe and is at VP7 now, and out performs it in every way. Not only that, but VC-1 (the silverlight codec) does 720p, and is currently the standard for hd video compression.

Anyways, aside from that, MS has said that it currently isn't really looking at providing the ability to swap out video codecs, because they want to keep the runtime size small, and they have a bunch of features that would be really hard to provide in a more generic way (like automatic downgrading of quality for slow connections) I haven't really looked at the content distribution side of silverlight that much yet (been having too much fun XAML UIs), but i wouldn't be suprised if you were able to hack it

That is 100% incorrect. There are tons of tools which produce Flash. What Adobe doesn't allow is the creation of alternative players. Neither does Microsoft.

From the Player licensing page on adobe.com (http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/)

This license grants the Licensee access to the SWF file format specification to aid in the creation of software which creates SWF files.

This license does not permit the usage of the specification to create software which supports SWF file playback.

The SWF output from the Licensee software must create content which renders error free in the latest publicly available version of Adobe Flash Player.

Get your facts right.

MS is working with Novell to develop Moonlight, which is an OSS version of Silverlight based on mono. So I guess MS does allow alternative players.

Get your facts right.

Here are quotes from from MS:

No code has been contributed to a community under a liberal license. (As Miguel says, "Microsoft will give Novell access to the test suites for Silverlight to ensure that we have a compatible specification.") No IP has been contributed to a community under a liberal license. ("The codecs will be binary codecs, and they will only be licensed for use with Moonlight on a web browser".)

So they are helping to make sure that Moonlight is compatible. Exactly my point. By helping Novell create Moonlight, they are helping to create an alternative player. Regardless of the codecs, the player is free.

so they are no better then a kernel binary blob for some hardware.

heh, i would not be surprised if videos played by said blobs ended up showing a lesser quality video...

Maybe Microsoft feels that they could never been seen to be porting Silverlight to Linux themselves, since it would undermine the "anti-Linux" attitude they seem to portray. Such as "Get The Facts", their supposed funding of SCO, the so-called patent violations etc

Ahh, so you're proposing that we use .net and suck up to Novell.
I'd rather sell my soul to the devil than do that.
And although Adobe is just Microsoft in a different coat, it's the lesser evil right now.
So we'll see what other alternatives come up in future.
Meanwhile, let's just concentrate on hating Microsoft.

P.S. Maybe Apple will opensource Quicktime and make OSX available for all computers. [j/k]

I'm proposing we use technology based on technological merit rather then some sort of distorted morality.

the CLR is an open standard. If you feel using an LGPL implementation of an open standard, written by one of the most open source friendly companies on the planet taints you in some way, our views of the world are so wildly different I don't think theres much point talking much more about it.

activex was/is a proprietary microsoft system. if you will, the forerunner to silverlight.

and javascript was not much better at one time, it was a netscape centered solution iirc. but these days its standardized as ecmascript, again iirc...

Great comments. Mozilla would have more of a point if it was offering some kind of alternative -- but they're not. Until that happens, the competition between Flash and SilverLight is actually GREAT for customers. Ultimately, I predict, one or both of these technologies will become open source. It's just a question of time.

Linux becomes more and more a copycat of Windows. It's a pity ....

Linux is a Kernel, Windows is an operating system, therefore Linux couldn't be considered a copycat of Windows.

I modded you up.
However I'd hate to see an old story repeating itself: for years we have tried to catch up with WMP and we never really got there.
If Microsoft offered WMP codecs for Linux tomorrow as they did with OS X (Flip4Mac) I'd start using them immediately.

MS liscenced the "Silverlight Media Codecs" (i.e. wmv and related tech) for moonlight to use.

ScottGu (manager of devdiv at ms) talked about it with his 1.0 blog post http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/09/04/silverlight-1-0-r...

licensed how? ms licenses have a habit of turning into coiled snakes when one isnt looking...

I am not a Microsoft fan, just the exact opposite.
However they have been offering WMP for OS X for years (first WMP 9, then Flip4Mac) and Mac users have just enjoyed WMP content without problems.

Liscenced as in MS giving a grant for the windows media stuff, and paying whoever owns VC-1 to allow novell to use it in Moonlight. In both cases the liscence only applies to moonlight.

Just out of curiosity, when have microsoft licenses turned into coiled snakes?

Great, thanks! I wasn't aware of it.

indeed, and thats why the dropping of ogg from html5 is such a sad state of affairs...

Theora is really not that impressive. Theora = a slightly modified VP3 that doesn't really compare to VP6/7 (what adobe uses), or VC-1 (what microsoft, bluray, hd-dvd, and the rest of the world use for hd video)

in this regard, quality is less important then freedom of usage...

WMP on OS X sucks. You can forget about playing any DRM or WMP 10 media.

The WMV components that MS releases are next to useless.

Windows media doesn't seem that great anyway. For example, the majority of the TV and movies that people download seems to be either DivX or Xvid.

If Windows Media was a superior format, wouldn't more people be encoding their TV and Movies to that instead?