Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta 3 Comes w/o 64-bit Linux

[highlandsun]

In a short test it does not crash that often like the betas before. Have to test it a bit longer - but i see basically no diff to 10.0.

It has a lot more DRM functions than 10.0. I guess you're not seeing a difference because no servers have started requiring the new security features yet. (Which makes sense since 10.1 hasn't been officially released yet.)

And don't hold your breath waiting for full-featured 10.1 to arrive for any other platforms. The security features they added starting in 10.0 are only present in the 32 bit x86 Windows, Mac, and Linux versions. This is at least partly because they're using a bunch of obfuscated crypto libraries, and the product they're using to do the obfuscation only works on 32 bit x86 code. (Try using the 10.0 64 bit Flash plugin to access Hulu - it won't work. Hulu started requiring the 10.0 security features around January 10 this year, but the 64 bit plugin doesn't have any of this code so you have to downgrade to the instability of the 32 bit plugin and nswrapper if you want to view that content.)

Fortunately we have rtmpdump, which works on all platforms...

[highlandsun]

This would probably be a good time to repeat myself.... ADOBE are MORONS!

Some really good stuff though, regarding adobe shooting themselves in the head.....

Android phone -- no flash.
Apple phone -- no flash.
Motorola phone -- no flash.
Nokia phone -- no flash.
RIM phone -- no flash.

Why? Because ADOBE are MORONS -- they just can't write good code! They've PROMISED flash for android (among other things), but so far have yet to deliver. Its basically vaporware, and the only alpha versions that have been demoed to date have been SO SLOW and CPU intense that they'll basically suck the life out of a top end GN1!! And so they keep pushing it back and pushing it back... turning into a duke nukem forever.

Which is a GREAT thing.... with the vast majority of phones being unable to play flash (are there ANY that DO?), and the typical user switching their net use from a sit-down computer to a smartphone, websites are being forced to adapt, which means NO FLASH!!! Its DYING!!!

Slowly, but hopefully this will speed along as more and more phone users can't see websites.

And a little note: I've personally noticed a significant reduction in the number of websites with flash. Most websites now actually view properly on a phone. There's a few that use stupid flash advertisements, but who wants to see adds anyways? It is actually a GOOD FEATURE of the adds from my perspective, since they *don't work*!!!!

I sincerely hope your observations point to a real trend, I'd love to see Flash go extinct. (Although a part of me is wary that it may only be replaced by a worse evil, i.e. Silverlight.)

Even more damning for Adobe - I can grab plenty of Flash videos directly onto my Android G1 phone using rtmpdump, and they play perfectly smoothly on the phone. Flash is worse than useless, not only does it not work when it's available, but it eats up CPU / memory / battery for no good reason. All those phones you listed above are better off without it.

[highlandsun]

Why does there even need to be a standard set of codecs for HTML 5? We already have custom mime types for new media; as long as there is a standardized way of identifying which codec is being used, what's the problem? There will always be more / newer / faster / better codecs coming down the road. It's stupidly shortsighted to waste time worrying about which to recognize today; all that you need to do is make sure your specification is extensible enough to cleanly handle what exists today as well as what may come tomorrow.

[Apopas]

Um ya. BTW how's things going in Greece. Are they being Austerity enough with ya all.

I fail to see your point here and even if exists one, this is not the right place to discuss it...

[transwarp]

The point I wanted to make is that dirac isn't competitive with H.264. In fact, with the current dirac encoder, it is worse than Theora Thusnelda.

And please, don't cite the useless YouTube comparison done by Xiph people.

I thought the useless Xiph comparison was between Theora and h.264. The only comparison of h.264 and Dirac I've seen was another worthless one, where a student wrote his own Dirac encoder, compared the results with the output of a mature h.264 encoder, and found that dirac was usually a bit worse than h.264. Are there any comparisons using the actual dirac or schroedinger encoders?

[Hephasteus]

That's the most serious problem right after the reptilian aliens from Aldebaran controlling the world's governments if you ask me.

Um ya. BTW how's things going in Greece. Are they being Austerity enough with ya all.

[RealNC]

Flash elements (buttons etc) don't seem to get stuck anymore

I take that back. That still happens from time to time

[brent]

What's the problem with Dirac, aside from support in existing hardware?

The point I wanted to make is that dirac isn't competitive with H.264. In fact, with the current dirac encoder, it is worse than Theora Thusnelda.

And please, don't cite the useless YouTube comparison done by Xiph people.

[transwarp]

You're joking, right? I seriously hope you do.

What's the problem with Dirac, aside from support in existing hardware?

[Zhick]

Pretty much all phones support Flash. It's just they are not supported in the browser. When you click the link to play the video file, a separate player opens up and plays the video in there. At least, that is now SymbianOS-phones handles it.

I think you're not talking about Flash but about .3gp streams like the ones on m.youtube.com. Those can indeed be played with pretty much every phone, but that has zero to do with flash.