4 ms·

I think the main point is that for video flash is more taxing than a hardware decoded html5/x264 (at least on the mac because flash video doesn't use hardware d

by Judson 16y ago

I think the main point is that for video flash is more taxing than a hardware decoded html5/x264 (at least on the mac because flash video doesn't use hardware decoding).

necubi 16y ago
Except that it's also much, much more taxing on the Mac than other non-hardware decoding players. What seems seldom noted in this discussion is that the only OS X video player that supports hardware decoding is Quicktime X. Anything else—earlier versions of quicktime, VLC, MPlayer—uses software decoding. Despite this fact, those three options place half or less CPU load on my MacBook's processors than flash video does. As a quick test, a 720p h264 video running in VLC (software decoding) uses 35-50% of a CPU. 720p youtube using Flash 10.1's new hardware decoding support, uses >100%. That's simply unacceptable for fundamentally doing the same thing. Flash performance on the Mac is terrible and hardware decoding is a red herring. I think a lot of those defending Flash's performance use Windows, where performance is much better.
- wmf 16y ago
  http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different...
  - necubi 16y ago
    The only thing that article convinced me of was that Flash is not a good solution for playing streaming video, because it has other priorities and must make concessions to those. But isn't that what the anti-flash crowd has been saying all along? Other video players may have an easier time providing good performance, but they still can get better performance. If Adobe is happy solving different problems they should accept that their customers who have a problem Adobe doesn't solve will be looking towards other solutions. There's also the sticky issue of vast performance differences between windows and OS X/linux on the same hardware, but even if we accept your thesis that this isn't really Adobe's fault, it doesn't excuse the poor performance.

by Judson 16y ago

I think the main point is that for video flash is more taxing than a hardware decoded html5/x264 (at least on the mac because flash video doesn't use hardware decoding).

necubi 16y ago

Except that it's also much, much more taxing on the Mac than other non-hardware decoding players. What seems seldom noted in this discussion is that the only OS X video player that supports hardware decoding is Quicktime X. Anything else—earlier versions of quicktime, VLC, MPlayer—uses software decoding. Despite this fact, those three options place half or less CPU load on my MacBook's processors than flash video does. As a quick test, a 720p h264 video running in VLC (software decoding) uses 35-50% of a CPU. 720p youtube using Flash 10.1's new hardware decoding support, uses >100%. That's simply unacceptable for fundamentally doing the same thing. Flash performance on the Mac is terrible and hardware decoding is a red herring. I think a lot of those defending Flash's performance use Windows, where performance is much better.

wmf 16y ago
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different...
- necubi 16y ago
  The only thing that article convinced me of was that Flash is not a good solution for playing streaming video, because it has other priorities and must make concessions to those. But isn't that what the anti-flash crowd has been saying all along? Other video players may have an easier time providing good performance, but they still can get better performance. If Adobe is happy solving different problems they should accept that their customers who have a problem Adobe doesn't solve will be looking towards other solutions. There's also the sticky issue of vast performance differences between windows and OS X/linux on the same hardware, but even if we accept your thesis that this isn't really Adobe's fault, it doesn't excuse the poor performance.