Posted by Double Compile. Thursday, May 1. 2008, 10:18 AM
You might know by now that Adobe makes my blood boil sometimes. Their needlessly expensive graphics and publishing package represents all that open source is not. When I read news blips this morning about Open Screen, I was pleasantly surprised.
This blurb taken from a CNet article:
Wadhwani said the Open Screen project has five basic elements. Adobe will remove license restriction on the .swf file format. "It is published already, but in order to view it you have to say you will not create a competing player," said Wadhwani. "We're lifting that restriction. People have been worried about vendor lock-in. This will remove that obstacle, and concern."
Adobe will also remove licensing fees for embedding Flash Player on devices. The software has always been a free download for PC users. But Adobe has charged for embedding on devices. Those charges will disappear with the next release of the software.
Even though Adobe still rubs me the wrong way, this move is entirely in the right direction. Maybe this means I can finally get a working Flash player on my x84_64 notebook.
Posted by Double Compile. Thursday, January 3. 2008, 05:05 PM
Remember the days where a video would be embedded in a web page? You could stream different kinds of actual video right to your favorite video plugin! I remember a choice between RealPlayer, Windows Media, and QuickTime.
Nowadays, it seems like you only have one choice: Flash. If, however, you're on a 64-bit operating system, you don't have a choice at all. Hey, Flash developers: read that line again. People who run 64-bit Linux, for example, do not have a Flash plugin. Don't blame Linux; it's Adobe's fault.
(Yes, I know there are hacks to emulate a 32-bit browser in a 64-bit operating system, but they're hacks and not solutions or acceptable in any way. Silence.)
Thank you, Google Video, for allowing me to download the videos as actual video, yes, an MPEG-4 file so I can watch it as video should be watched. Thank you, Stage6, for using actual video implicitly. Meanwhile, I hope and pray that YouTube and its kin will stop wrapping perfectly good video with a Flash plugin that not all of its clients have or want.
Still don't understand? Turn off your Flash plugin and try watching some Internet videos. You'll end up spending a lot of time at Apple Movie Trailers.
