My thoughts on Adobe Edge

Today Adobe published on their Adobe Labs website a public preview of a new application called Edge, which is described in their own words as:

"Adobe® Edge Preview is a new web motion and interaction design tool that allows designers to bring animated content to websites, using web standards like HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3."

Having previously done a little comparison between the output contents and file size of their previously released Wallaby ‘Flash to HTML5’ conversion tool and that of Flash itself then I thought it would be good to do the same thing for Edge. However, the problem at the moment is – being only the first preview release – Edge has a fairly limited featureset with animation methods such as rotation, location (X / Y axis movement), opacity, scaling and skewing. Essentially some of the basic animation tools that you’d find in Flash. The problem with trying to do a comparison along the lines of the Wallaby test that I did is that I used a shape-tweened animation for that test, something which just isn’t possible at this time within the capabilities of Edge.

So, in lieu of being able to do a really exact comparison I have instead made a simple animation using one of the original SVG source graphics that I used for my Wallaby test. The main outcome of doing this test is just to see what the output of Edge is like – how many files does it create, how big is each file individually and in total. If you haven’t read the previous Wallaby post prior to this then in a nutshell the Flash output was far more efficient in both number of files and file size. Again it has to be said that a shape-tween animation is probably the most complex type of animation you could aim to do in this context, so I did set the bar fairly high there. But as tools like Edge and Wallaby are an attempt to try and bring Flash-esque timeline based animation creation to the world of HTML5/CSS/JS/SVG then it’s fair to expect that beyond some simple x/y movement and rotation that shape-tweening is something that people – especially those from a Flash background – will want to create.

‘Edge Case’ sample: Rotating an SVG in Adobe Edge

So, here’s the simple animation I created in Edge. I imported an SVG file which I had used for the Wallaby test and applied a simple 360 degree rotation to it, a lot simpler than the Wallaby test but I thought it was worthwhile bringing in an SVG file to see what Edge did with it.


View Edge’s Output in new Window
Download the Edge Assets as a Zip

Adobe Edge’s ouput HTML, CSS, JS etc

Here are all the files that Edge created for this example:

  • edge-case.html: 1kb
  • edge_includes/jquery-1.4.2.min.js: 72kb
  • edge_includes/jquery.easing.1.3.js: 8kb
  • edge_includes/edge.0.1.1.min.js: 32kb
  • edge_includes/edge.symbol.0.1.1.min.js: 29kb
  • edge-case_edge.js: 5kb
  • edge-case_edge.css: 1kb
  • images/noun_project_182.svg: 1kb

Total: 149kb

So, to get that basic rotation animation of an SVG file we get almost a 150kb payload in order to make that work. I haven’t bothered creating a Flash (or video) version of this animation as I think it’s fairly clear that it would be possible to get a smaller file size using Flash to create it. Edge and tools like it have obviously got their work cut out here, especially with the huge use of mobile devices then file sizes and number of separate files in a site (i.e. minimising server calls etc) is an important issue.

We’ve definitely got to cut Edge some slack though here, as small as Flash files can be it’s important to remember that the entire runtime for Flash is a plugin whereas as HTML / CSS / JS etc is supported by the browser’s native features, Also the JS files used by Edge are providing a kind of runtime in the form of some Javascript functions which gets added to every animation that you create with it. Presumably this could be alleviated by having this file be published only once and then referenced, or better yet by being hosted by Google’s CDN and referenced that way along with jQuery which Edge also includes with each animation.

Adobe Edge: Just a tool for Flash-ers or true HTML based creation?

It’s hard to say at this point how these tools will be used, a big area will surely be a replacement for Flash-based interactive / animated advertising, again file size is very important here as Flash banner ads often have a maxmimum payload for ad networks of about 40kb, so Edge is not competitive here.

I think my biggest concern about these tools is that they simply become a swap-in replacement for Flash and that people start to use them purely from a visual perspective and not considering the structure and semantic meaning which underlies all HTML pages. It is *HTML*5 after all, even though that term is often used as a buzzword to include JavaScript effects, technologies such as Canvas, SVG etc. It is extremely important to remember that semantic meaning is at the core of HTML. As such animations created with tools like Edge should keep that at heart and include a workflow that encourages this fact, not just enabling ways to make things move around the screen etc. So I’ll be interested to see how things progress with Edge.

Despite that concern it is still great to see tools like Edge and Sencha Animator being released, the uptake of complex JavaScript based interaction and animation is certainly hindered most by the lack of capable IDE’s to make the process quicker to do. Hand coding jQuery animation and interaction is fine but a good IDE would enable you to keep on top of the code being used but also make it much quicker and efficient to develop using these technologies.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts having played around with Edge, I’ll have to go catch up with some reading online and see what other people are saying, feel free to comment with your own thoughts!

Adobe Labs release Wallaby Flash to HTML5 converter

Adobe have released an interesting experimental tool called ‘Wallaby‘ over on Adobe Labs. It’s basically an app that tries to convert Flash FLA source files into ‘HTML5’ compatible animations. Note I’m using ‘HTML5’ in quotes as usage of the term here is more in the overall grouping of HTML5 and related technologies such as CSS3, JavaScript / jQuery, SVG etc. It’s worth reading over the Release Notes to get an idea of the current limitations, the biggest issues at the moment being WebKit browser support only and no conversion of actionscript or sound within FLAs.

I just happened to be playing around with Flash this morning messing around doing a little shape tweening with a couple of symbols I found over on The Noun Project website so I thought I’d use that FLA file and see how Wallaby coped with it.

Running Wallaby:

After starting Wallaby you get a very simple interface, a file select field that you use to select the FLA file and a large Status area that shows any errors and warnings encountered whilst converting your file. There are also Preferences that can be set which at the moment include automatically opening the converted file in your default browser and enabling logging.

After selecting my FLA file I clicked ‘Convert’ and after a few seconds it happily converted my file without any errors or warnings. I was interested to see what it would make of the shape tweened animation that I had made in Flash as this seemed like quite a challenge to convert.

Wallaby’s HTML output:

The conversion process results in quite a few files being exported as the animation is recreated using a combination of HTML, CSS and jQuery / JavaScript, here a screenshot of the files I got:

It turns out that to make an HTML version of our tweened FLA animation we need two JavaScript files, one CSS file, one HTML file and a folder containing 246 SVG frames. I think it’s fair to say that tweened animations are a bit of a challenge! Looking at the Release Notes it does state that it creates an SVG file for each frame of a shape tween. As a result the approximate sizes of the exported files look like this:

  • Energy-html.html: 75kb
  • Energy.css: 49kb
  • Energy.js: 2kb
  • jquery-1.4.2.js: 70kb
  • Energy_assets: 176kb

That’s a total of 372kb in order to recreate the tweened animation in HTML / CSS / JS / SVG.

Flash’s output:

So how does this compare with the files output by Flash? Well, not very well when you look at both the amount of files required and their file size:

  • Energy-flash.html: 2kb
  • Energy.swf: 4kb

A grand total of 6kb when it’s rendered as Flash swf output. That’s quite a difference in size, although admittedly Flash’s default HTML file doesn’t use any JavaScript such as SWFObject to embed the file which is generally common practice, so I would argue that the Flash output should really have the following additional SWFObject files added to it’s output:

  • swfobject.js: 10kb
  • expressInstall.swf: 1kb

Even with that it’s still only a total of 17kb, about 1/20th the total size of the files that Wallaby outputs.

Why not use video instead?

This particular animation is obviously a challenge for Wallaby to convert into anything closely competing in file size, so perhaps in this case it would be a better option to use a video clip to provide a non-Flash version of the animation? The same animation can be output as an H.264 video at the same frame rate and it comes in considerably smaller at 192kb:

  • Energy-video.html: 1kb
  • Energy.mov: 192kb

That’s about half the size of the Wallaby output. It’s also likely to playback much better on mobile devices such as iPhone / iPad / iPod touch as Adobe warn that the output of shape tweened animation can result in playback performance difficulties on iOS devices.

In the interest of being consistent I should of course add some additional JavaScript video embedding option such as JWPlayer as again this is common practice when it comes to adding video on web pages. Using JWPlayer would add the following additional files:

  • jwplayer.js: 104kb
  • player.swf: 96kb
  • yt.swf: 1kb

This adds 201kb to the total file size required so that brings it to about 393kb, almost the same as Wallaby’s HTML5 output. I’m sure there are possibly slimmer options compared to JWPlayer for embedding that could reduce that down a bit but I reference JWPlayer as I consider it to be one of the best cross-platform methods of embedding video on website.

Of course I haven’t mentioned anything about delivering video in alternative codecs such as Ogg Theora or WebM to serve browsers like Opera, Firefox and Chrome, this would further increase the files and sizes involved. However, given that Wallaby is trying to provide a way for animated content created in Flash to be output and made playable on devices such as the iPad and iPhone it could also be considered that providing any kind of Flash fallback for video is unnecessary, so we could ignore the JWPlayer / JS completely and just use the regular HTML5 <video> tag and a single H.264 video, so we’d be back to a considerably smaller size than Wallaby’s output in this instance.

In Closing…

Overall Wallaby looks to be a pretty handy tool for people that are struggling to find a way to get their content viewable on the millions of devices that don’t (and likely never will) run Flash. For animation that doesn’t involve shape tweening I think the resulting file sizes will be a lot more favourable and it will be a reasonably efficient way to create animated content using standards-based technology.

I would say that the primary target user for Wallaby, at least at first, is for people doing online advertising. This is an area that is seeing a lot of activity with tools like Sencha Touch appearing, there’s definitely opportunity for a ‘killer app’ that makes creating banner advertising using all of these new emerging web technologies in a way that people are used to doing in the Flash IDE. There’s a lot of challenges in there technically, as well as a lot of issues such as accessibility, graceful degradation etc, but I think a lot of companies are focusing on this challenge now, so it’s good to see that Adobe is thinking about various ways of providing tools for the job.

Sample Animation files:

I have included the HTML5 output as an iframe and also links to each animation in HTML5, SWF and H.264 formats. There is also a link to download all the assets of Wallaby’s output in a zip archive:

Wallaby’s HTML5 output:

View Wallaby’s HTML5 Output in new Window
Download the Wallaby HTML5 Assets as a Zip

SWF output:
View SWF Output in new Window

Video output:
View Video Output in new Window

Why Flash CS5’s export to iPhone App is better than native Flash support

Adobe announced at their annual MAX conference that the next version of Flash CS5 will include the capability to publish iPhone apps, and in fact that there are several games in the App store already that were created using a pre-release version of the software.

There’s been a lot of commentary on blogs that seem to think that Adobe have added this feature because they think that they may never get Flash as a plugin on the iPhone, indeed that this is some kind of ‘backdoor’ route for Flash on the iPhone. However, I disagree, I just don’t think that there’s any reasoning like that at all.

While it is great that Flash developers will have a way to get content onto the iPhone now I think that the ability to create iPhone apps is a much better opportunity for them than having native Flash on the iPhone.

Why? One simple reason: Money. A lot of people are willing to pay money for an iPhone app, but people are far less willing to part with money for Flash games that run in the browser. It simply presents a much better business opportunity for Flash developers.

Adobe Flash to add DRM in the player via Flash Access 2.0

I’ve blogged a few times about Flash and how it seemed like an obvious tool for the job of a cross-platform means to provide protected streaming video, in particular for the BBC’s iPlayer in the UK. Many of the things I’d thought in those old posts have actually happened now, streaming Flash video is now used to provide access to the BBC iPlayer content on many platforms such as Mac OSX, iPhone / iPod touch, Wii, PS3 and other devices. Streaming Flash video is also used for Hulu.com in the US.

In addition to the streaming option Flash is now used to provide a cross-platform downloadable iPlayer service via Adobe AIR’s protected runtime, so it’s all come a long way really. Of course no-one really likes DRM but at least it does provide a way to make all of this content available (geographic restrictions aside) without any major restrictions – apart from not being able to download directly onto the iPhone / iPod touch I suppose!

Adobe Flash Access 2.0

Adobe has just announced a new version of a software developer kit called Flash Access 2.0 (previously known by the snappily named ‘Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server’). One of the main features is that it will enable protection of files that can be played directly within the Flash player instead of requiring it to be wrapped within the Adobe AIR runtime. This will offer a lot more flexibility in that files can be played directly within the browser. The technology supports MPEG4 H.264 content as well as FLV files so the quality of video provided via this technology has the potential to be very good.


Example of Flash Access 2.0 workflow.

I’m not sure if this has any real impact for services like BBC’s iPlayer as they already have a downloadable option via the AIR based iPlayer. It’s an interesting situation with distribution of digital video content really, DRM was a complete failure when it came to audio but there’s no sense that content creators are about to take the same approach as the music industry. Of course the big missing piece to the digital media distribution puzzle is that none of this Flash based content can be used or distributed to Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch platform.

Time for Fairplay DRM to be broadly licenced?

I’m not holding my breath waiting to see Apple add Flash support to their devices and I understand that in many ways. However, the main benefit I’d see personally for support for Flash video on the iPhone is to be able to access more of the streaming video content that is out there as most of it is Flash based, and only the likes of Youtube have the means to offer content in multiple formats. Asides from accessing Flash format streaming video I’m not bothered about accessing any other kind of Flash content on my iPhone (I think the Javascript / HTML / CSS3 / WebKit stack is much more suited, that’s maybe something for another blog post).

Although there’s some sense in supporting Flash video on the iPhone I think what could be a solution is for Apple to make their Fairplay DRM licencing available for others to use on their own websites, media stores etc. If we’re not likely to see media become completely DRM free then what is at least needed is any easy, cross-platform, cross-device method to distribute digital video content to whatever device is desired. At the moment the whole digital video distribution system is full of restrictions, dead-ends and political manoeuvrings by big media companies.

I wonder if it’s going to take greater consumer unrest to finally force the various companies to work together for the greater good, to simply be able to play video content that you’ve paid for on any device you want? Especially if that device is an iPhone or iPod touch? At the moment it’s just “a bag of hurt“.

P.S. Don’t anyone suggest Microsoft’s Silverlight as a solution, we don’t need yet another format for video distribution!

 

Adobe unveil Creative Suite 4 on 23/09, AIR for Linux, Flash Player 10 Release candidate

Adobe will be unveiling the next version of their Creative Suite software on the 23rd of September. This will be done via a special web broadcast, you can sign up for email notification via the following webpage – http://adobe.istreamplanet.com.

Details of any new features have not been revealed but Adobe did release public beta versions of Dreamweaver CS4, Fireworks CS4 and Soundbooth on the Adobe Labs website a few months ago.

Adobe AIR for Linux beta released on Adobe Labs

Support for the Linux operating system has been increasing from Adobe with continual improvements to the Linux version of the Flash Player plugin. Now Adobe have fulfilled their promise of full cross-platform support for their AIR runtime with the release of Adobe AIR for Linux beta.

Flash Player 10 release candidate on Adobe Labs

A new release candidate of Flash Player 10 was released on Adobe Labs. If you haven’t already checked it out then there’s quite a few new features such as 3D Effects, a new text engine, enhanced drawing API, GPU support and enhanced sound APIs to name a few.

Once you’ve downloaded it then go an check out the Feature demonstrations page to get a taste of these new features.

One thing to keep in mind though, if you a frequently upload images and video to sites such as Flickr, Vimeo and even Adobe’s own Photoshop Express web apps then you’ll want to avoid this version of the Flash Player just now as there’s still a ‘bug’ which affects the uploaders for these sites. It seems to be a hotly debated issue just now but it appears that Flash Player 10 stops these kinds of image uploaders from working due to a new security restriction. You can catch some of the discussion on this Flash Player thread.

Adobe Open Screen: Will Apple make their own Flash Player for the iPhone?

Adobe recently announced the ‘Open Screen‘ initiative which further opens up the SWF format along with the FLV / F4V video specifications along with . The Open Screen FAQ explains the core deal:

  • Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
  • Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
  • Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast? protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
  • Removing licensing fees ? making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

The FAQ also explains why Adobe is opening up these specifications:

Publication of an unrestricted SWF file format has long been requested by the Adobe Flash developer community. The longstanding publication of the SWF specification has fostered a vibrant ecosystem of companies and developers who create experiences with Adobe Flash technology and by removing the SWF licensing restrictions we are allowing that growing ecosystem to use the file format for any purpose, including the ability to playback SWF content

Additionally, Adobe intends to make Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free, starting with the next major releases for devices, along with publishing the device porting layer APIs. As a result of these moves, OEMs, software developers, and content owners will be able to deliver content and applications built with Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR technologies without concerns about device restrictions. By removing the licensing cost and restrictions, as well as opening up the protocols and porting layer, Adobe is making it easier for developers and partners to deliver more engaging experiences to more of their customers, and ensuring that audiences can engage with content no matter what device or medium they use.

So, with that background detail out of the way I’ll get onto my main question:

Will Apple get involved in the Open Screen project and provide support for Flash, or at least Flash video, on the iPhone / iPod Touch?

Steve Jobs was recently asked about Flash support on the iPhone by saying ?there?s this missing product in the middle?. What he was referring to is that you’ve got the full Flash Player which is very processor intensive and best suited for desktop PCs and laptops and then you’ve got the streamlined Flash Lite intended for mobile devices. Steve Jobs’ opinion is that the full version is too intense for the iPhone whilst Flash Lite lacks a lot of important functionality.

Could Apple provide at least some form of Flash support on the iPhone / iPod Touch by getting involved in Adobe’s Open Screen initiative and implementing only the parts they wish to have for Flash playback but all within the confines of the Quicktime framework itself I can see how this could fit in on regular Mac OSX as well as on the iPhone / iPod Touch too. I think it presents a really interesting possibility.

I have another reservation about Apple’s willingness to support Flash though, perhaps it’s not in Apple’s interest to further the spread of Adobe’s Flash platform? Apple certainly don’t intend to allow companies to develop runtime environments of their own for use on the iPhone / iPod Touch as the terms of the iPhone SDK specifically state:

"No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple?s Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s)…"

So, that certainly seems to close the door for Java, Flash, Silverlight, etc, etc. Despite this possible reason I still think it is possible that Apple could provide native support for Flash video playback, at the very least, on the iPhone / iPod Touch.

~Rick

BBC iPlayer launches for Mac / Linux using streaming Flash format

This week the BBC launched a version of the iPlayer that is compatible with Mac and Linux by allowing viewing of streamed movies via the Flash player rather than the Windows-only DRM based download method.

Screen shot of BBC's Stremaing iPlayer interface

First impressions are pretty good although I would have liked the quality to be a little bit better, or at least the video to be a larger dimension. The player uses a 512 x 288 pixel video format and offer the fullscreen playback option, however, playing full screen on my 1680 x 1050 pixel monitor resulted in fairly pixellated video. That’s a pretty extreme example of zooming I’ll admit but if the video was larger to begin with it would make the zooming feature much better. The recent addition of support for H.264 video within Flash Player 9 would potentially offer an big improvement if the video could be offered using that format instead of FLV video files.

Share iPlayer videos with other people

Nope, it’s not what you might think by reading that heading, you can’t share the actual files but there’s a nice little feature available via the ‘SHARE’ link in the player menu.

Picture of sharing features of the streaming BBC iPlayer

This offers the ability to either send a link to a friend via email:

Link to iPlayer 'Send to a friend' page

You can also post a link to the Social Networking sites Stumbleupon, del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook and Reddit:

Link to sharing page of BBC iPlayer

It’s nice to see those links to these sites, it would be great to see a larger range though to include sites such as Ma.gnolia, MySpace etc but perhaps these can be added.

All in all it’s a good start towards better cross platform support by the BBC. My daughter was especially pleased to be able to watch kids shows whenever she wanted! Like many people though I would still like to be able to download shows and watch these on other devices such as iPods etc, I’m looking forward to finding out more about the BBC’s plans for providing cross-platform downloads.

BBC iPlayer comes to Mac and Linux via Flash streaming

There’s some interesting developments in the progress of making the BBC’s iPlayer available to more than just those people running Windows XP. The BBC announced that they are partnering with Adobe to make a streaming version of the iPlayer based on Adobe’s Flash player which will make the service available to people running Mac OSX, Linux and Windows.

This solution won’t bring exactly the same experience that current Windows XP based users of the iPlayer get, users will simply be able to play the files whilst they are connected to the internet whereas the full iPlayer allows people to download shows and keep them for up to 30 days. It is still definitely a step in the right direction though, the use of Flash for the video format was a no-brainer really as it is the most cross-platform solution out there.

Previously I’ve blogged about whether Flash was a viable alternative for the iPlayer so it’s good to see that my thoughts weren’t really off-track. It will be interesting to see how Adobe moves in future, will they try and enable some kind of DRM system in order to try and get the BBC to drop the Windows Media DRM system that the main iPlayer system uses? or will the BBC forego the use of DRM altogether and make the transition to a Flash based iPlayer even easier?

Head in The Clouds…

The BBC also announced a deal with WIFI network The Cloud to offer access to all of their online content without the user having to pay a subscription to The Cloud. This makes the Flash-based streaming iPlayer even better news in that you will be able to watch BBC video content without paying for WiFi access at your local coffee shop, oh, except if you’re on an iPhone as there’s no Flash player!

Joking aside though, I wonder if the BBC will choose to make content available using the H.264 video codec and make use of the latest Flash Player 9? If they did then this could allow the content to be published and made accessible on devices that can’t run Flash player. That’s just one more reason why the BBC needs to drop the Windows DRM based iPlayer as it’s just profoundly inaccessible.

~Rick

One more reason why there is no Flash Player on the iPhone – H.264 support in Flash Player 9

Adobe announced today support for the H.264 video codec in an update to their Flash Player 9 software. No longer will it be necessary to encode video files specifically using their FLV video format in order to allow playback of video using the Flash Player, which is pretty awesome news really. It will of course rely on people upgrading to the latest version of Flash Player 9 but as most people receive this via auto-update this should be reasonably fast.

Apart from the benefit of using an open standard for video it does also bring higher quality video, specifically HD format video into the realm of Flash Player. The only other mainstream way of playing H.264 video in a web browser is via Apple’s Quicktime player, soon Flash will allow you to play those same files without requiring Quicktime as a download.

Maybe that’s why there’s no Flash Player on the iPhone?

When the iPhone launched recently the ‘great ommission’ as some saw it (apart from copy and paste!) was that there was no Flash Player support in the iPhone’s Safari browser. A few different theories have abounded as to why this is, one of the main theories being the impact the Flash player would have on the iPhone’s battery life, this is probably quite true and Apple’s own Quicktime framework is undoubtedly optimised better for playback on the iPhone. Another reason was that YouTube, probably the largest provider of Flash video format files, have their own application on the iPhone. This YouTube application actually plays video that has been re-rendered into H.264 instead of the Flash FLV format, thereby doing away with one of the reasons for FLV support in Safari.

The addition of H.264 support to the Flash Player means that this same YouTube footage as used by the iPhone could now be played in the Flash Player too. It’s quite likely that Apple would have knowledge that Adobe were working on H.264 support in the Flash player and this made it even less essential to include Flash Player.

A win-win-win-win situation for Apple, Adobe, YouTube and Us (the content consumer)

This does of course still leave the many interactive Flash content providers out in the cold but as Flash has become so ubiquitous in regards to video playback then I think this still represents a great win-win for both Apple and Adobe, and I guess YouTube too really. If content creators choose to use the open standard of H.264 for video instead of the FLV format then any Mac, PC or iPhone user using Quicktime to play movies can view the content, as can anyone using the new Flash Player. This does appear to represent a good move towards open standards, it will take time for the new Flash Player to get more widespread support so I don’t think FLV format will go away anytime soon, but it is a step forward at least.

One win-lose aspect though – Flash Media Server for streaming H.264 only

There is only one negative aspect of the Flash Player support of H.264, and that is streaming support of H.264 will only work if it’s being served by Adobe’s own Flash Media Server software. This is due to the files being streamed via Adobe’s own RTMP streaming protocol rather than the RTSP protocol supported by Apple’s Quicktime / Darwin Streaming Server or Real’s Helix servers.

This is a shame, but hopefully Adobe will see fit to change tack on this, perhaps it is just a technical issue in that they don’t yet have support for RTSP inside Flash player.

More information about H.264 and Flash Player 9

To get a great explanation about all the new changes then go and read Tinic Uro’s post "What just happened to video on the web?". Tinic Uro is one of the main Flash Player engineers at Adobe, in his post he introduces all the changes as simply as he possibly can. There’s also some information on Ryan Stewart’s blog – "The H.264 Announcement in Black and White".

~Rick

Flash: Can it be a viable alternative to Windows Media DRM for the BBC? [updated]

This post continues my ongoing theme of the last few posts which is in response to the issues raised by the BBC choosing to use Digital Rights Managed Microsoft Windows Media format for their new iPlayer initiative. Please read the previous post ‘Dear BBC…‘ for more background information about it.

Where are the alternative formats?

I wrote in my last post about trying to find alternative formats to use instead of Windows Media DRM that could be used to deliver the BBC iPlayer initiative, I didn’t find any real solutions that could compete. I’ve been looking into it a bit more and I still don’t think I’ve found anything. One thing that comes to mind when thinking about video on the web these days is of course Flash video, sites like YouTube and Google Video have meant a huge upturn in the amount of Flash based video content available. What’s more it’s also incredibly easy for people to get it into Flash format thanks to these sites.

Why not use Flash Video for the iPlayer?

If Flash video is so popular then why doesn’t the BBC use Flash for the iPlayer initiative? A good question, and I’ve found a few answers that give some explanation to the reason. I found a post on the FlashComGuru.com website entitled “‘Why we don’t use Flash (video)’ – The BBC speaks up“, the article and the comments left by various people make for interesting reading. This article in turn references a response from the Editor of the BBC News website Steve Herrman regarding changes to the way audio / video is used in the BBC News website. FlashComGuru highlights that the overwhelming reason not to use Flash for video is simply the cost implications of shifting over to a whole new format and delivery method, particularly due to the invested use of RealPlayer format content.

The reponse from Steve Herrman titled “In response to site changes” contains a technical response as to why they don’t use Flash, one reason is:

“The BBC is trying to make its video available to the widest possible audience. This means that when we choose the formats in which to stream our audio and video clips and live programmes, we have to take account of: All the operating systems in use, and the number of people who use them (this is not just desktop operating systems – we need to take account of mobiles too); whether a player is available for that format on a particular operating system; and whether it is easy to play that video on an operating system.”

These are all good intentions obviously, the BBC has a remit where it has to be available to the widest possible audience and this is clearly stated in the first sentence. However, taken in the context of the iPlayer initiative which locks you into Windows Media DRM format and excludes Mac OSX and Linux OS users then this is obviously not the widest possible audience being catered for! Admittedly the article this quote from is specifically talking about the use of RealPlayer and Windows Media format on the BBC News website, but the remit there is the same as for the rest of the BBC.

So ultimately it is an issue of it being too costly to replace all of the existing infrastructure with a Flash based system due to the previous investment in the RealPlayer over the last 10 years. Now I can appreciate that, obviously the BBC don’t want to go wasting the investment previously made, plus they could be perhaps criticised for wasting Licence payers money too. However, why get into a relationship with Microsoft on this? There’s really no likelyhood that they will ever do much to help the fact that DRM’ed Windows Media content can’t be played on Mac OSX or Linux. I can’t see how this represents any kind of good investment of my Licence fee?

Surely there must be an alternative?

I keep coming back to that question, however, I can’t really find any viable alternatives. However, that is not a reason to let the BBC of the hook here. The best thing I can possibly think of is that this is time for Adobe to step up and take on Microsoft in this area, there’s a long game afoot here which Microsoft are pushing with the BBC. If the BBC can’t just dump the investment into RealPlayer technology overnight then how is it going to be any easier to dump investment into the Windows Media format and it’s DRM?

Calling Adobe! Time to get ‘mobile’…

There are obviously big issues going on here, advocating one commercial companies format over another isn’t necessarily the answer. For some this definitely isn’t the answer, especially with the use of DRM within the files. However, despite the prospect of perhaps seeing music available for purchase DRM free, I don’t think we’ll be seeing this happening as easily or so quickly where video is concerned. With that said I think the best option here is for Adobe to get the Flash video format positioned much better as a viable format to compete Windows Media DRM’ed content.

The previous quote from the BBC above mentions the use of Mobile devices as a target end user of the BBC’s content, yet again Windows Media is no solution here at all either with or without DRM. The point is interesting though because Adobe have just made an announcement at the annual 3GSM conference that version 3 of their Flash Lite mobile platform will support Flash video. This provides a vital piece of the puzzle that the BBC is trying to piece together, and a much more platform friendly method at that.

I think the only technical challenge left to fill in is the provision of a decent DRM scheme to use within Flash video, if Adobe can provide that piece of the puzzle then there’s absolutely no reason for the BBC to use Windows Media DRM and cause thousands of licence payers to be locked out of using a service they are entitled to use.

So, Dear BBC, time to think again…

If…

  • Flash format can work for other TV channels such as ABC around the world,
  • a growing amount of people use non-Microsoft operating systems on their computers,
  • more and more people are looking to access content online via mobile devices

then how can you consider Windows Media DRM a viable solution that is compatible with the remit of the BBC?

Update:

Bruce Schneier has written a great article about the DRM restrictions in Windows Vista, more reasons why a lock-in to Microsoft DRM is a bad choice for the BBC: [Via DaringFireball]

This isn’t even about Microsoft satisfying its Hollywood customers at the expense of those of us paying for the privilege of using Vista. This is about the overwhelming majority of honest users and who owns the distribution channels to them. And while it may have started as a partnership, in the end Microsoft is going to end up locking the movie companies into selling content in its proprietary formats.

I think you can replace the words movie companies at the end there with BBC instead. Microsoft desperately wants to have control of the DRM used in TV / Movie / Video distribution, the control they never managed to gain in the Music industry.

Vista: the longest suicide note in history

There’s an interesting article by Peter Guttman I just saw a link to: A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. It gives a lot of indepth information about Vista’s Content Protection, it’s quite scary reading, the heading above kind of sums it up.

~Rick