OT: Flash Player 9 now has H.264 Support

bigrock wrote on 1/26/2008, 9:08 PM
The newly released into the wild version 9.0.115.0 of Flash 9 now has H.264 video support built-in.

If you would like to test that your Flash player can play H.264 I've prepared a demo test at http://bigrockies.com/h264demo.htm! for y'all. If it does not display video than update your Flash player.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!

Comments

DataMeister wrote on 1/26/2008, 9:48 PM
I'm just curious. Did you render this from the Flash Video Encoder or from Vegas?

What compression settings did you decide on and was there a significant size difference for the same quality on the Sorenson compression?
Guy Bruner wrote on 1/27/2008, 6:06 AM
Nice static rapids shot! But, there are too many artifacts in the static areas like the rock face. I would expect H.264 to be cleaner.
bigrock wrote on 1/27/2008, 11:48 AM
it's only 256kbs video and 40k audio. And the crossstreams in the falls pull most of bandwidth. It's a good test of a codec cause it's an extreme case to deal with. Soresen looks signifcantly worse and ON2Vp6 looks almost as good as H.264.

The reason to go H.264 is cross platform capability however I think I will stick with On2 Vp6 for commercial use until there is some clearer understanding of the licensing around H.264 for publishers.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!
bigrock wrote on 1/27/2008, 12:04 PM
And just for kicks if you have the bandwidth and the horsepower try what I call Flash to The MAX, this is full 1920X1080P at 5Megabits a second, click here!

If you see screen ripping and macroblocking here it's because your processor is too slow, or your internet link can't keep up. My old P4 3.0 could not play this over the internet, but the QuadFather can.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!
Jonathan Neal wrote on 1/27/2008, 12:14 PM
Nice demo bigrock, I wonder how this could better serve the online community here.
bigrock wrote on 1/27/2008, 1:38 PM
I have an answer for that, but I'm not ready to talk about that yet.
Jonathan Neal wrote on 1/27/2008, 4:06 PM
So ... Not ready to talk about it = Going to try and sell it?

I made a website once where you could upload a Veg file, and it would automatically detect the required media files. In theory you could host Vegas tutorials that automatically list the required media files. From there, you could plug in a bittorent tracker (something I've also written) that contains all the media files necessary for these tutorials. All together, you'd have a pretty powerful, low bandwidth site.
deusx wrote on 1/27/2008, 8:04 PM
I've been testing these for a while, but don't know how interesting it would be to anybody here. I don't do anything under 1000kbs, but with more static shots it looks almost as good as uncompressed.

I can post a couple examples, mp4 and sorenson.

So far advantages of mp4, looks a little better, slightly smaller size, can be exported directly from Vegas.

One thing to note, mp4 files I export from Vegas, look noticeably different/better in flash player than in quicktime player. They look washed out compared to what you see in flash, but otherwise no other artifacts.

Don't have ON2 because I've never been able to decide that it looked any better than sorenson at higher bit rates, and I'd rather shoot myself then export anything at low rates where the difference actually shows.
Guy Bruner wrote on 1/29/2008, 5:07 PM
I'm interested. And, I'm sure my readers would be too. Let me know if you want more than a forum to communicate your findings.

Guy
Camcorder User Network
Jonathan Neal wrote on 1/29/2008, 5:53 PM
Guy Bruner, yea I could see why you would be interested. You've got ActiveX components on your front page for those wmv video files, which may have problems displaying on any non Windows Internet Explorer browsers. If you already own Vegas, you won't need to make any further purchases to produce high quality low bandwidth videos playable through Flash. Were you asking "how"?
Guy Bruner wrote on 1/30/2008, 5:05 AM
No, I was asking if you wanted to write an article on 'how'.
Jonathan Neal wrote on 1/30/2008, 9:06 AM
I'd love to, could I talk about using Vegas and the JW Flash Media Player? I'm not sure what your audience is after.
Guy Bruner wrote on 1/31/2008, 5:12 AM
Jonathan,
I emailed you.
willlisub wrote on 2/2/2008, 2:26 PM
It's been a while, but in the past I have been successful putting wma files in a web page. Used a few flash rollover buttons, but never the flash player.

Can someone give me me the basics on what I need to do to get the H.264 playing in in the flash 9 player?

I'm using a older version of macromedia dreamweaver (version 4).

thanks
deusx wrote on 2/2/2008, 9:14 PM
>>>Can someone give me me the basics on what I need to do to get the H.264 playing in in the flash 9 player? <<<

Nothing really. Just render an mp4 file from Vegas. This can be loaded into the flash player and all newer versions of the player will play it. That is the only catch, if you have an older version of flash player installed, it will only play .flv, so you may need to upgrade.

If you don't know how to load movies into flash video players ( I make my own ) do a search, there are some free ones available, or if you have flash there are some included with the app.
willlisub wrote on 2/23/2008, 6:21 AM
Excuse my ignorance, but I can't figure this flash video thing out.

I don't have Adobe Flash software. I can make a H.264 file from Vegas. I do have Adobe flash installed on my computer so I can view flash in Firefox and IE.

I called Adobe and asked them if I bought Premiere CS3, could I export my video in FLV and put it in my web page. They said I'd still have to buy Flash to put the flv file from Premiere it into a web page. I'm so confused. I have the h2.64 or flv file, the clients browser has the Adobe flash player, but there is still another piece needed that I don't understand.

I don't know what to search for in regards to how I embed (?) something into a web page to play the H.264 or flash.

I'm assuming I want the latest flash player from adobe to play this as it's somewhat universal and plays the H.264 files.

I do a search for free flash players and I get 90% "download adobe flash player" or something from adobe.

Then there is the occasional 3rd party player (free or sometimes a fee) that says they can play flash.

Sorry for being so dense, but maybe someone can enlighten me a bit more on the subject. I seem to be confused about the player and the wrapped or embedded code/player or whatever it is I need to put in the web page.

If I don't buy Adobe's flash player, but people have adobe's free flash player installed on their IE or Firefox browser, can I find a way to put the H.264 file on the web page and have it played via the adobe flash player in their browser?

If this can be done, what is the other player or wrapper I need for the web page or whatever it's called to make this happen? If I use a 3rd party piece of software to install the 2.64 into a web page, will it still play in a browser with Adobe's latest flash player, or does the browser need the 3rd party flash app also.?

My other question, is this even the better way to go today? Is it common for people on Linux and OSX to be able to view windows media on the internet? Or is flash player the most commonly used method for compatibility with Windows, OSX and Linux ?

I've been looking at flash as maybe the way to go, but it's seems expensive when compared to$ 0 for windows media if I have to buy flash just to embed it in a web page.

Thanks in advance to anyone taking the time to help this confused soul.
deusx wrote on 2/23/2008, 7:15 AM
You don't need to buy flash, just get one of the free flash players.

I can give you this, so you can at least try to see how it works, , just download this zip folder, extract all files into same folder. Then export your video from vegas as mainconcept mp4 ( into same folder where you extracted all these files )).

http://www.deusx.com/darwin/flashvid.zip

All you have to do then is open the foo.xml file in notepad, enter the name of your video ( without extension ), type in length in seconds, and then as type, just specify .mp4.

Now double click the vid.html file and you should see the name of your video, click it, and video will play ( if you have the latest adobe flash player installed ).

That's all there is to it. I've been using this player for a while and I should update it ( I made it myself ) with additional features that have been added since, but you can find other players, you'll just have to follow their instructions.

Size is pre set to 640 x 360, so you should export your video from vegas at that size if you don't want it to scale.
willlisub wrote on 2/24/2008, 7:14 AM
Thanks, I'll give that a try.


I"ll report back later....although it may be a few days as I'm multi tasking at the moment...........