My new Adobe Developer Center article is now available. This article demonstrates how to build an application that uses Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) as an editing module for live events without requiring any DVR features on a content-delivery network (CDN).
Due to the broad reach of the Adobe Flash Platform, Adobe Flash Player is the preferred way to deliver video on the web. With its ubiquitous penetration and its reach across multiple screens—including browsers, operating systems, desktops, mobile devices, and Digital Home—the Flash Platform enables video providers to maximize the reach and the user experience. It is the solution for some of the largest-scale live webcasts in history.
The nature of these events often requires capturing instant highlights and providing the user the option to access them instantly. One of the features that Flash Media Interactive Server 3.5 introduced is DVR functionality, which allows seeking back in time during a live event. (Although the feature to record a live video was available prior to FMIS 3.5, the DVR functionality specifically allows read access while the file is written to disk.)
However, simply allowing the user to rewind to random segments is often not enough. How great it would be to edit and extract segments during a live event as a broadcaster, without having to rely on advanced CDN features or having to wait until after the end of the event, when the on-demand file has finished recording!
The Open Source Media Framework (OSMF - formerly "Strobe") is an Adobe architected media framework, and is now available in version 0.9. If you worked with Flash video before in the past, you might be familiar the FLVPlayback Flash component, or the Flex video player component - both are easy to use video players, but primarily built for the use case to play a single clip, and not as a framework.
So why do you need a framework? The decision depends on your use case. If are building a small website, with some static videos, the existing components might work well and provide a great default UI. A different case are more advanced video projects. The players might simply not fulfill your requirements, therefore you have to build a wrapper on top of it, or even build your own framework from ground up - if you ever built your own video framework, you probably know this can be a pretty intensive task, and certainly something you don't to do for each individual video project.
What are the problems OSMF solves? First of all abstraction of the media playback. Abstraction is not always a great idea, but if you build your UI on a non-abstracted video player and are confronted with some fundamental playback changes, it will become obvious how important abstraction is (e.g. switching from progressive to streaming, or to some of the upcoming Flash Player 10.1 features, e.g. HTTP streaming).
Secondly the ability to integrate standardized plug-ins from 3rd party vendors. The Flash Media partner ecosystem is very broad, with a lot of third parties providing Flash based technology to e.g. deliver ads or do reporting. Without a standardized API, the integration can be a time intensive task, with different architectures colliding. OSMF provides a standardized plug-in architecture, which is a win-win situation. A win for the developer, since the integration work is minimal, and a win for the plug-in provider, since it reduces the custom integration work and provides scalability.
Is OSMF basically for ad integration? It certainly makes ad integration a lot easier, but it's not the only use case - the OSMF is for all media types, including video, audio, SWF files, with the ability to create compositions, overlay media elements, create playlists, etc. The benefits are reduced development time, rich ecosystem support, the ability to focus on the important parts of your application (UI, controls, etc) without having to worry about integrating latest Flash media innovations in the future - OSMF will support them from day one without any additional work on your side.
Although the current version 0.9 is still under development, with 1.0 targeted as the first major release, most of the APIs are locked down, or will be locked down soon. Keep in mind OSMF will never be really "finished", since technology will evolve continuously. If you are evaluating a new player framework, this might be a great timing to look at OSMF.
In case you've been visiting abc.com this week, and don't have the Move Networks plug-in installed (or you can't install it because you are running Safari 64 bit), ABC started to offer a Flash version of their player as fallback. ABC was one of the early adaptors of Flash Video, and then switched to Move Networks. It's great to seem them moving back to Flash.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Fox.com switched from Move Networks to the Flash platform. With the support of HD video and FMS 3.5 dynamic streaming, Flash video is combining great user experience with excellent HD quality playback. It's great to see the Flash platform becoming the de-facto standard for HD premium online playback across all major US media networks.
YouTube launched a new rental service this week, allowing users to rent movies with their Google account. The launch movie selection is relatively limited with a handful movies from the Sundance Film Festival, but given the tremendous traffic of YouTube, the new option has certainly potential once more content is available.
The videos are in 720p quality (one preview trailer in 1080p), and streamed through Flash Media Server. Another interesting aspect are the public statistics, unveiling details about the rental, including views, comments, ratings, even the target age range, and the geographical popularity (currently limited to the US).
Although it's clearly an early beta, YouTube might be become an easy to access channel for movie rentals in the future. Judging based on the the available movies, the quality is convincing - smooth and crisp 720p HD, with the ability to take full advantage of H.264 hardware decoding in Flash Player 10.1.
Kevin Towes, Flash Media Server product manager, announced the availability of Stratus 2 today. If you are interested in the details of Flash Player 10.1 P2P, I would strongly recommend to watch Matthew Kaufman's presentation on Adobe TV.
"Today, we released Stratus 2 RTMFP introduction service with full support RTMFP Groups. With this updated service, developers can start exploring a full set of Peer Assisted Networking functionality within Flash player 10.1 and AIR 2.0.
You can access your Developer key and more details here.
Adobe® Stratus 2 enables peer assisted networking using the Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP) within the Adobe Flash® Platform. RTMFP is the evolution of media delivery and real time communication over the Internet enabling peers on the network to assist in delivery. Stratus was first introduced in 2008 as a rendezvous-only service that allowed clients to send data from client to client without passing through a server. Adobe Flash Player 10, which debuted peer assisted networking, has been adopted today by over 90% of all internet connected PCs.
We have some new articles in the works, and sample applications coming soon, but you can start using the new service right now.
If you are a fan of 24 (new season started this week) and visited Fox.com today, you might have realized that it doesn't require the Move Networks plug-in anymore. The experience is fully enabled by Flash now, providing a great user experience and HD quality video.
Another great example of Flash becoming the de-facto standard for HD broadcast quality on the web.
"Sling Media, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), today announced a collaboration with Adobe to support the Adobe Flash Platform. As part of the alliance, Sling Media will natively support Adobe® Flash® Player and Flash streaming protocols in the Slingbox® Pro-HD and Slingbox SOLO to deliver smooth H.264 video and audio to its award-winning SlingPlayers.
How It Works SlingPlayer will leverage the ability of Adobe Flash Player to use the power of a device's hardware to accelerate the decoding of a video stream, creating a high-quality experience while conserving battery life. It will also support secure RTMP measures, including RTMPE encryption, supported by the Adobe Flash Platform to protect content as it streams from supported Slingboxes and SlingLoaded™ devices. As Sling Media continues to enhance its placeshifting technology, its support of the Adobe Flash Platform will ensure that these enhancements will reach the largest possible set of devices."
Flash Player 10.1 beta 2 is now available on Adobe labs with numerous improvements under the hood. If you are interested in experiencing the tremendous performance improvements due to H.264 hardware decoding (with supported graphic cards on PC), I would recommend taking a look at the 1080p videos in the HD section of CBS.com. What used to be CPU intensive playback, is now smooth, low CPU, 1080p playback.
Exporting instant, edited on-demand highlights clips during live events with FMIS My new Adobe Developer Center article is now available. This article demonstrates how to build an application that uses Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) as an editing module for live events without requiring any DVR features on a content-delivery network (CDN).... The Power of OSMF (v 0.9 released) The Open Source Media Framework (OSMF - formerly "Strobe") is an Adobe architected media framework, and is now available in version 0.9. If you worked with Flash video before in the past, you might be familiar the FLVPlayback Flash component, or the Flex video player component - both are easy to use video players, but primarily built for the use case to play a single clip, and not as a framework.... ABC returns to Flash platform for premium online content In case you've been visiting abc.com this week, and don't have the Move Networks plug-in installed (or you can't install it because you are running Safari 64 bit), ABC started to offer a Flash version of their player as fallback. ABC was one of the early adaptors of Flash Video, and then switched to Move Networks. It's great to seem them moving back to Flash.... YouTube launched Flash based rental service YouTube launched a new rental service this week, allowing users to rent movies with their Google account. The launch movie selection is relatively limited with a handful movies from the Sundance Film Festival, but given the tremendous traffic of YouTube, the new option has certainly potential once more content is available.... RTMFP Groups / Multicast now available from Adobe Labs Kevin Towes, Flash Media Server product manager, announced the availability of Stratus 2 today. If you are interested in the details of Flash Player 10.1 P2P, I would strongly recommend to watch Matthew Kaufman's presentation on Adobe TV. ... Fox.com switched to Flash platform from Move Networks If you are a fan of 24 (new season started this week) and visited Fox.com today, you might have realized that it doesn't require the Move Networks plug-in anymore. The experience is fully enabled by Flash now, providing a great user experience and HD quality video....
