JD on EP

I do not agree most flv's on the web look like crap :)

[jd sez: Hey, man, don't hurt my feelings, or I'll make fun of how you look too... ;-) (Seriously, from what you took the time to try to put in front of others' eyes, it might have been stronger had you listed specific sites, with specific problems atop specific configurations, to give someone else a chance to figure out exactly what it is which is prompting your current unhappiness. Not that I'd probably put my time there on a Friday night, but at least it would made a good attempt at creating a functional message.)]

Jack,

Flash is powerful, but potentially dangerous in inexperienced hands ;-)

Quality in web video is a function of the quality of the source and the quality of the encoding. Since Flash 8 introduced the On2 VP6 codec, there really is no excuse for "flv's on the web to look like crap". ... although having just written that I realize that I have never tried going to a Flash video site using a 56KB dial-up line. Are you using dial-up?

Anyhow, Flash Video is plenty good enough for ABC TV to blow away their competition by putting their current season shows up on the net:
http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/player?mk=20152527

If this ABC site looks like crap to you, trust me, it isn't the Flash Video :-)

g

"Since Flash 8 introduced the On2 VP6 codec, there really is no excuse for "flv's on the web to look like crap" -

Heres your excuse. Its not an open codec. [jd sez: Logical inconsistency here.] I understand they are a company and getting such a good codec requires money...money has to com from profit blah blah, But in developing systems around flash video I am finding it hard to intergrate the lack of encoders/options with other technologies. If Adobe trully wants to take the online video scene over, then make it realy really easy for developers to use, encode server side without having to specifically use FMS. Currently the only option is using the V7 codec and FFmpeg. Might explain some sites not so great video. My two cents anyway and I still love the flash player.

[jd sez: I can appreciate the desire to build third-party software around codecs which Adobe Flash Player does not distribute, but as discussed in comments here, that factor was not among the top dozen in codec choice. The topic is still a non sequitur in this discussion, though.]

So, in the past few nights I've watch a few iTunes TV episodes that took roughly a 1/2 hour to download, and a full-length episode on the ABC Site in "Large" mode. While, currently the ABC site can't go full screen (Soon to change, I'm sure), I was extremely impressed with the quality of the FLV, that this streaming format that required no wait time for download was, other than the lack of full-screen, on par with the downloaded iTunes version. The quality is fantastic.

I suspect Jack's point of reference is youTube or Google Video, where the FLVs suffer more from their content creators than the format of the video, but that's the risk you run when you enable the general populous to become content creators.

Hi all, yeah last night it was a little late, I work with flash on a daily basic and I know the tech is there to make great looking flv's and I see firsthand how good it work on youtube and others of that sites.

I seen many people complent about sites that still use the media player format like for exsample: www.gamespot.com all there forum is full of people having problems with there wm player.

And the new divx web player I not seening go anywhere but at a failed project.

But here is the kicker... I my self try to encode videos most of them low Q. stuff of my clients.

My computer is one of the p3's with low ram still. And my bigger client is shared to make the move to flash player 8 still. So the On2 VP6 codec is useless for me at the moment.

And at the time I had to do this projects I had lots of problems finding good docements on the topic. Yeah mabey I did not know where to look.

Anyway a sample of work I did with flash video;

promocionesrojas.com (the intro is full flv)

[jd sez: So, it sounds like you're saying, "John Dvorak really likes FLV, but my computer doesn't have enough RAM to compress video"... is that what we're looking at here?]

RE: Quality.

GIGO - Garbage in, garbage out. No one submits clean original .dv or .avi files to Google or YouTube. They HAVE to use a good amount of compression because of the volume they deal in. WMV/QT would look just as bad if they re-encoded a compressed source down to a volume/stream friendly format. Flash as a player is much more lightweight.

RE: Rights-Management.

ABC took a big risk, tools are popping up to snag FLV for local playback. (Yes, you could always steal it from your cache, but only a small number of people would do do that.) Not having a content protection mechanism will always shut FLV out of certain markets. See: http://www.lifehacker.com/software/video-demonstration/weekend-project-save-and-convert-a-youtube-video-205974.php

Re: Dvorak.
Having that lunatic sing your praises could very well be the kiss of death, despite the merits of your product. I don't know why he continues to be published. I'm surprised this article didn't send the already anti-Flash /. crowd on an anti-FLV crusade.

RE: Rights-Management.

ABC is using Flash Media Server (FMS). Nothing ever gets written to client disk cache. On the client side the FLVs live in Flash Player memory only. Note that as soon as you start the shows on ABC you can immediately use the seek head to move forward in the video (1 hour long shows, and yes I know about the commercial breaks). The ability to immediately seek forward is a hallmark of FMS hosted video.

FMS product manager Chris Hock refers to this as "Digital Media Protection" as contrasted with "Digital Rights Management". DRM is necessary when you dupe and distribute files. ABC actually is not taking that big a risk by using FMS because no intact FLV files ever exist except on their FMS servers. More on FMS "Digital Media Protection" here:
www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/digital_media_protection.html

Regarding fishing FLVs from browser cache, apparently YouTube is not using FMS, but rather hosting via http progressive downloads.

Yes, if you want to get into the file distribution business, FLVs have no DRM mechanism.

btw ... great news Wednesday about the Flash Player 9 update introducing FULL SCREEN VIDEO for Flash!!! JD's words here:
weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2006/10/immersive_video.cfm

Adobe rocks!!!

g

I found this site becasue I am unable to watch the ABC full shows of desperate houswives, actually any of them. the player does not work. I get caught in a loop at the beginning, where it jsut keeps saying who is sponsoring the show. it will play aboout 10 minutes then when it seems like a commercial should play it jsut hangs and doesn't play. all I see is Loading...
i have had problems for 2 months now, basically the whole new season. OTH the player at CBS works perfectly all the time. I wish you would forward my comments to ABC because they ahve no place for me to forward the comments on the problems. thanks

[jd sez: Sorry, Roxanne, I don't know anyone at ABC myself. If you suspect an installation problem with Adobe Flash Player, then search term "site:adobe.com 'flash player' troubleshooting" will pull up the troubleshooting FAQ, which should also be linked off the ABC site: http://www.adobe.com/go/15511 )