Friday, August 24, 2007

Adobe adopts the H.264 Codec

Here we are again watching Adobe pave the way for the delivery of interactive content and rich-media. Adobe has announced an update to the Flash 9 player which includes support for the H.264 codec which is the standard compression for the dueling High-Definition DVD formats and is the same codec that Itunes uses for its video delivery. The updated player will now include multi-core hardware acceleration. psst.... This little blurb about hardware acceleration is a big deal!

So what does this mean? Right now it means larger, more crisp video that requires hardware acceleration to make it run smooth and a more efficient way to deploy content. Encode once and deliver to pockets, IP networks and DVDs. But this may be a glimpse into Adobe's quest for IPTV domination. If you own the conduit that media runs through, you essentially own the network right?

Now that they have multi-core hardware acceleration in place, how long long before they introduce the real-time 3d engine? My gut tells me not long. I always thought Adobe's Atmosphere Engine looked great and it included the Havok physics engine . Could they dust off the 10+ years of Atmosphere research and finally give flash a Z axis. Let's hope so!

Press Release Link

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