A few months ago, I was introduced to the concept of Adobe “Strobe” and quite honestly I was a bit confused on the reasoning behind the project. The confusion was built up due to Adobe’s efforts on the Open Video Player project and Strobe project. The two similar projects had intentions on standardizing the market’s video players. So why two?
With the release of new documentation on Adobe “Strobe”, I can now say that the confusion I once had is now gone and I can’t wait for the official release of Adobe “Strobe”. While these two projects are similar, they both serve two different purposes and look to standardize those efforts. Actually, the Open Video Player initiative will aid the development and standardization of the Adobe “Strobe” project as it leverages code from the Akamai’s Open Video Player.
More About Adobe “Strobe”, Now Called Open Source Media Framework
Late last month, Adobe announced that Adobe “Strobe” is going open source and being renamed to Open Source Media Framework. This is great news and indicates the extent of the efforts on this project. Once again, I have to say to thank you to Adobe and its partners for contributing their efforts to a great cause.
So what is the Open Source Media Framework
Now that the confusion is out of the way,let’s talk about what this framework will be able to do. Adobe’s new media player framework simplifies the development of media players by enabling developers to assemble pluggable components, creating high-quality, full-featured playback experiences. Its open framework enables collaborative development for future web video monetization, with lower costs and faster turnaround. To learn more, visit the home of this new Open Source Media Framework.
In today’s media player development, every attempt to create a personalized media player has resulted in multiple flavors of multiple media players. Complete saturation and non-consistency! The need for a standardized video framework is in high demand and sorely needed. Adobe’s attempt is to provide a standard media player framework, code-named Strobe, to enable the creation and delivery of high-quality, monetized video experiences.
Strobe is designed for content publishers, Adobe development tool users, and Flash Platform partners – basically, anyone who is developing video on their website today. Learn more about this new project.
I’m a bit confused…
While I think the efforts of Adobe and its partners will prove worth while, the one question that automatically crossed my mind was “How this will effect the Open Video Player Initiative Project?“ If you are not familiar with Open Video Player Initiative, it is a joint collaboration with community leaders like Adobe, Akamai, and others to provide a standard and open video player framework.
Personally, I was quite excited about this and couldn’t wait to see how this will effect the community. Adobe has indicated that the two efforts have a common goal. Unless I am missing something, two separate efforts will probably result into two different “standard” video frameworks. Lets just wait to see how Adobe Strobe pans out and the impact it will have.
At the beginning of the month, Lee Brimelow released a new video series he calls Flasher Magazine. He is now sharing the video player he uses on the site to the community. It’s a nice piece of work. However, keep it mind that the “Flasher Player” was not meant to be feature rich. I guess we can’t be too picky, its free.
For all you Flix Engine users, Flix Engine version 8.0.12.0 for Windows and Linux is now available.
If you are not familiar with the Flix Engine, Flix Engine is used by many of the leading UGC and social networking sites as the basis for their video functionality. It is currently the engine behind Adobe Flash’s video codec.
This release enables progressive download of 3GPP, 3G2, MOV and MP4; it also introduces the AAC and AAC Plus audio to the FLV muxer.
See the changelog (linux|windows) for complete details on each release.
Greg Rewls shows off how sophisticated video tools in Adobe Flash Professional CS3 help you create, edit and deploy streaming and progressive-download FLV content with comprehensive video support.
This video is brought to you by Adobe at the NAB 2008. It provides a nice intro to Flash video and how it it can be integrated within a workflow that involves Adobe Bridge CS3 and Adobe Flash Professional CS3.
Lee Brimelow chatting about a lot of stuff ranging from his past experiences with Flash to why he is currently using a Mac. I found this video inspiring in a sense that working hard pays off in the long run.
Adobe Systems on Wednesday released a new server for putting restrictions on content delivered from its Adobe Flash Media Server. This new server is called Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server. This new software is aimed at TV and Movie producers who want to manage their content is distributed and viewed.
For example, a content producer could let a user view a video only after seeing an advertisement. The software also allows people to serve up media that can be viewed for only a certain amount of time.
Adobe will also be releasing an accompanying API for Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server that will allow developers the chance to integrate all of this onto a desktop platform.
Overall, I believe this will offer credibility and comfort to all video publishers. Hopefully, this will help populate the quality of video that will be available on the web.
RichFLV is an Adobe AIR application that lets you edit and stitch Flash Video (FLV) files. The app reads FLV metadata – while importing the video, the app outputs the number and types of tags found for video, sound, keyframe (Keyframe Tags), and data (DataTags). With RichFLV, you can read, edit, modify, or delete cuepoints and cut FLV files. You can also use the app as a conversion tool, and convert the FLV files to SWF (Shockwave Flash) format. The sound in the FLV can be converted to an MP3, as well.
This tool adds a whole new imprint on Adobe Air and it’s abilities. RichFLV is well worth checking out and giving it a test run.
Here’s a scenario: you have a video that needs to be converted and you have an application to convert that video into the popular Flash video(FLV) format. However, most applications will offer a series of options from sample rate, kilobytes per second, video codec, and much more. Where do you even begin?
For this reason, the FLV bitrate calculator was developed. This FLV bitrate calculator was developed by Robert Reinhardt to help you determine the optimal bitrate at which to encode your Flash video files. It is a great way to figure out your settings with some insight on to as they might turn out. Also, let’s say that you’ve now figured out the perfect settings for your project; you can download these settings which can be easily imported into your video conversion application.
Overall, I would highly recommend this tool if your seriously looking to get the best out of your Flash video. This handy tool can be found at the Adobe Flash Developer Center.
Looks like Adobe Flash video, FLV, is making it’s way up in the popularity votes. As a matter of fact, it is my preferred choice of web video deployment. However, unless you currently have access to Adobe Flash CS3 Professional , converting video into the popular format will be a bit of a hassle. There are many applications available that take on the role of converting video into the Flash format, however, not all of these applications conform to Adobe Technology standards. For this, I would highly recommend the FLVCheck tool and use this FLVCheck tool to check the FLV files before you let others see them.
The FLVCheck tool will inspect the FLV file and will only return information about the composition of the file. FLVCheck does not correct the FLV data if it is corrupted. If an error is found, you will need to re-encode the file to get the best quality.
This application is a nice complimentary to any third party FLV converting tool. You can find more info through Adobe Labs.
Adobe Systems on Wednesday released a new server for putting restrictions on content delivered from its Adobe Flash Media Server. This new server is called 
Looks like Adobe Flash video, FLV, is making it’s way up in the popularity votes. As a matter of fact, it is my preferred choice of web video deployment. However, unless you currently have access to Adobe Flash CS3 Professional , converting video into the popular format will be a bit of a hassle. There are many applications available that take on the role of converting video into the Flash format, however, not all of these applications conform to Adobe Technology standards. For this, I would highly recommend the 
