Bowdon Media - Whitepaper
Video Distribution Technologies
Delivery to Computers
For several years, internet video providers had three options for their streaming technology.
Flash Video¨
For most of its history, Flash was not a video platform.
It began when Macromedia acquired a program called FutureSplash in 1996 and released Flash 1.0. It was a technology to display graphical animations, offering no video functionality at all. But even though it lacked the video feature, something very important was happening. For its first six years of existence, Flash technology became such an animation standard, it was incorporated into virtually every browser or operating system. So when a video capability was eventually added in 2002, (with the release of Macromedia Flash Player 6), Flash Video was an instant threat to the established players Windows Media®, RealPlayer® and Quicktime®.
Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia and its Flash patents in 2005.
Source: Adobe |
Quite simply, Flash technology can play video on more computers than any other software platform. That includes computers running Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, Mac OS9, Linux, GNU/Linux x86, Solaris, HP-UX, Pocket PC, OS/2, Symbian, Palm OS, BeOS and IRIX.
Bowdon Media recommends Flash Video® for most retailers looking to distribute information about their products for sale.
Also, Flash Video is supported in a growing number of cell phones, including models from Nokia, Motorola and Kyocera. You can see a complete list of handset models that support Flash Video at Adobe's website.
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At the present time, Flash Video is growing faster than other platforms. Well respected websites that have switched to the Flash Video platform include Disney, CNet, Target, Buy.com, Myspace.com & Sundance Films.
Microsoft's Windows Media®
Windows Media Player® is a proprietary software digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices. Earlier versions of the player were released for the Macintosh OSX and Solaris operating systems, but Microsoft has announced it will no longer develop versions for those platforms.
Windows Media Player 10 is the current version, with the next incarnation, Windows Media Player 11, in public "Beta 2." It's official release is expected in Fall 2006. Verison 11 will be available for Windows Vista as well as Windows XP. The final Macintosh version of Windows Media Player was released in 2003, labeled version 9.0.0.
iPods do not ship with the native ability to play Windows Media. On the other hand, streaming Windows Media Video is supported in all 700-series Treos (Windows & Palm OS). |
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Apple Quicktime®
Unlike Microsoft, Apple continues to update its media player program for operating systems besides its own.
QuickTime 7 was released on April 29, 2005 with Mac OS X v10.4 featuring complete MPEG-4 compliance, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec, live resizing, multi-channel audio, full-screen overlay, and support for interactive animations created with Apple's new tool Quartz Composer. Version 7 was also released for Mac OS10.3.9.
In mid-2005, Apple issued a preview release of QuickTime 7.0 for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This was followed by the first final release on September 7, 2005. |
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The popular iPod video player can play most Quicktime videos, (as well as other MPEG-4 content, of which H.264 is a subset).
RealPlayer®
RealPlayer is a media player, created by RealNetworks, that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, as well as multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo codecs.
The current version for Windows is RealPlayer 10.5 and other versions with fewer features, are available for Mac OS X, Linux, Unix, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian OS. The program is powered by an underlying open source media engine called Helix.
Bowdon Media believes the RealPlayer has a limited future. |
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Delivery to Smart Phones & Music Players
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MPEG-4 is the most supported video format for portable devices, playable natively on both iPods & Treos. (The Treo requires video as MPEG4 with AAC audio wrapped in a .MP4 file type at 320x240 at 15 frames per second less than 300Kbps.)
While the original MPEG-4 standard was introduced in 1998, the most recent video extension to the standard that applies to video digitization, MPEG-4 Part 10, also called H.264, was announced in 2003.
The first and only Blackberry with video player capability is the Pearl, announced September 7, 2006. In the United States, the phone is presently only offered by T-Mobile. It supports MPEG-4 and H.263 video formats. Its features are fully explained here. |