4 ms·

It's very frustrating to be able to edit 1080p video and play it back easily on my 64bit Linux machine but have Flash stutter many low res videos all over the w

by drats 17y ago

It's very frustrating to be able to edit 1080p video and play it back easily on my 64bit Linux machine but have Flash stutter many low res videos all over the web. I can't wait until the day when Flash, Adobe and Microsoft all have their formats destroyed. So I can send a document, video or audio to someone without having to think about the format - ditto for embedding it in the web.

spatulon 17y ago
Interestingly, the article's author is the programmer/maintainer of the Linux Flash port. Not that I wish to suggest the performance problems are his fault.
Terretta 17y ago
When you say "format", do you mean file container or video codec? Most people mean codec. In that case, Flash (and Adobe) doesn't have a format to destroy. Meanwhile, Microsoft's work in this area over the past 13 years with the WMV family of codecs has been extraordinary, coaxing more quality from a given bitrate needing less CPU to play back than any other commercially viable codec. That's why WMV codecs work on so many consumer devices, even phones. VC1 is remarkably good, only just recently challenged by H.264 encoding's most recent optimizations. Meanwhile, if you meant file container, Microsoft's recent player technologies such as Silverlight support H.264 in .mp4 containers, as do recent Flash Player versions. With all Windows machines supporting .WMV container and VC-1 codec, Macs still shipping with a Windows Media Player or able to play it in any QT app using Flip4Mac, Linux players supporting it "out of the box", and both Sony PS3 and MSFT Xbox playing it, not to mention most every consumer device and set top box -- if you want to send someone a video that just works, then .WMV using WMV3 or VC1 has been a decent bet. Your newer best bet for sending a file is .mp4 with H.264/AAC, which is played by Flash Player 9 Update, Silverlight, QuickTime, VLC, etc., and more recent Windows systems. For embedding in the web, stats say Flash is your best bet, but those stats apply to VP6 codec which looks terrible and most people don't know how to play locally and doesn't work for HD. So your best bet for embedding is .MP4 with H.264/AAC with an HTML5 tag, and inside that tag a Silverlight player embed, and inside that tag a Flash player embed, and inside that a download link for the .mp4 file.
- kierank 17y ago
  needing less CPU to play back than any other commercially viable codec. What do you expect from a codec that's closer to the previous MPEG-4 ASP generation (e.g. Divx, Xvid) than H.264? VC1 is remarkably good, only just recently challenged by H.264 encoding's most recent optimizations. Recently challenged when? Only right after Blu-ray was introduced VC-1 was somewhat better than H.264 because the VC-1 encoder implementation was better than any of the "pro encoders" that the studios used. http://mirror05.x264.nl/Dark/website/compare.html http://mirror05.x264.nl/Dark/website/compare.html also and there are plenty of PSNR/SSIM measurements online which show H.264 is vastly better than VC-1. not to mention most every consumer device and set top box iPods, iPhones? Also I have never seen a real-world VC-1 deployment on an STB. Virtual all of said consumer devices also play H.264 video. It was only Microsoft's lobbying that led to VC-1 getting accepted in Blu-ray and (on paper but not in reality) in DVB. Even Microsoft have pretty much given up on it; H.264 is in Silverlight, IE9 and Expression Encoder 3 has its own H.264 encoder.

by drats 17y ago

spatulon 17y ago

Interestingly, the article's author is the programmer/maintainer of the Linux Flash port. Not that I wish to suggest the performance problems are his fault.

Terretta 17y ago

When you say "format", do you mean file container or video codec? Most people mean codec. In that case, Flash (and Adobe) doesn't have a format to destroy. Meanwhile, Microsoft's work in this area over the past 13 years with the WMV family of codecs has been extraordinary, coaxing more quality from a given bitrate needing less CPU to play back than any other commercially viable codec. That's why WMV codecs work on so many consumer devices, even phones. VC1 is remarkably good, only just recently challenged by H.264 encoding's most recent optimizations. Meanwhile, if you meant file container, Microsoft's recent player technologies such as Silverlight support H.264 in .mp4 containers, as do recent Flash Player versions. With all Windows machines supporting .WMV container and VC-1 codec, Macs still shipping with a Windows Media Player or able to play it in any QT app using Flip4Mac, Linux players supporting it "out of the box", and both Sony PS3 and MSFT Xbox playing it, not to mention most every consumer device and set top box -- if you want to send someone a video that just works, then .WMV using WMV3 or VC1 has been a decent bet. Your newer best bet for sending a file is .mp4 with H.264/AAC, which is played by Flash Player 9 Update, Silverlight, QuickTime, VLC, etc., and more recent Windows systems. For embedding in the web, stats say Flash is your best bet, but those stats apply to VP6 codec which looks terrible and most people don't know how to play locally and doesn't work for HD. So your best bet for embedding is .MP4 with H.264/AAC with an HTML5 tag, and inside that tag a Silverlight player embed, and inside that tag a Flash player embed, and inside that a download link for the .mp4 file.

kierank 17y ago
needing less CPU to play back than any other commercially viable codec. What do you expect from a codec that's closer to the previous MPEG-4 ASP generation (e.g. Divx, Xvid) than H.264? VC1 is remarkably good, only just recently challenged by H.264 encoding's most recent optimizations. Recently challenged when? Only right after Blu-ray was introduced VC-1 was somewhat better than H.264 because the VC-1 encoder implementation was better than any of the "pro encoders" that the studios used. http://mirror05.x264.nl/Dark/website/compare.html http://mirror05.x264.nl/Dark/website/compare.html also and there are plenty of PSNR/SSIM measurements online which show H.264 is vastly better than VC-1. not to mention most every consumer device and set top box iPods, iPhones? Also I have never seen a real-world VC-1 deployment on an STB. Virtual all of said consumer devices also play H.264 video. It was only Microsoft's lobbying that led to VC-1 getting accepted in Blu-ray and (on paper but not in reality) in DVB. Even Microsoft have pretty much given up on it; H.264 is in Silverlight, IE9 and Expression Encoder 3 has its own H.264 encoder.