Adobe Flash Player 9 Update Features H.264 Support

August 21, 2007- The bar has been raised within the world of internet video today as Adobe announced an update to its Flash Player 9 featuring H.264 standard video support. Internet video producers, aspiring independent filmmakers, and everyday YouTube amateurs will eventually be able to upload their content via H.264 as video hosting sites like YouTube and MySpace are likely preparing for the implementation of Flash 9. The popularity of the H.264 codec has gradually risen within the last couple of years, but has seen the most rapid increase since earlier in the summer with the release of two prominent media that support it—Apple TV and the iPhone. Much to the relief of many frustrated internet video creators and viewers, the days of pixilated, over-compressed video may be numbered.

“Already a broadly adopted industry standard, the inclusion of the H.264 codec in Adobe Flash Player, Adobe AIR, the Creative Suite product line, and the upcoming Adobe Media Player will accelerate customer workflows, enabling the creation and repurpose of high-quality Web video content without extra development costs,” explains John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe.

Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects already offer H.264 support. Now Adobe is branching out not only to Flash Player 9, but to applications supported by Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), including Adobe Media Player. The H.264 codec appears to be morphing into the next internet video quality standard. Since the release of the Apple TV, YouTube has converted a significant amount of uploaded videos to support the H.264 format, and by the time the iPhone was announced, users could access most popular YouTube videos via either medium. 

Currently, YouTube utilizes Adobe Flash 7, a prime contributor to most of their content’s poorly compressed quality. After the inclusion of H.264 support within Flash Player 9, it is probable that YouTube will upgrade from Flash Player 7—a crucial move that would influence the online video quality standard due to YouTube’s massive popularity and power. MySpace, Google Video, Blip, and Brightcove are just a handful of video hosting sites would then also be likely to upgrade to Flash Player 9 in order to remain competitive. Adobe Flash player content makes its way to 98 percent of desktops with an internet connection.

The reason H.264 is so highly sought after stems from its support of high quality video at a low bit rates, High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support, and full screen playback. A derivative of the MPEG-4 format, H.264 is utilized by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players, supporting high definition video and premium audio content.

A beta version of the Flash Player 9 upgrade will be available for free later today at http://labs.adobe.com .