Submitted by While Adobe previously said it would support Google’s WebM video format within their Flash Player software, it doesn’t look like this support will be arriving soon. Adobe’s MAX 2011 conference took place last week in Los Angeles. During a Q&A session, WebM support in Flash was talked about. After Adobe was questioned about the WebM support, the response was, “Yes, on the priority list it’s not very high because we don’t have a lot of customers or real customers who want to do production with WebM. The problem on the production side is that encoding WebM is simply too slow, it’s not real time. And it’s not JDI too (just do it). Yes, it’s a lot of work for us.”
Could we just get rid of Flash please?
Given Adobe’s track record this isn’t very surprising.
The latest Adobe flash update was nice.
Native 64-bit support
Flash Player can now take advantage of native support for 64-bit operating systems and 64-bit web browsers on Linux®, Mac OS, and Windows®.
Stage 3D accelerated graphics rendering*
Explore a new architecture for high-performance 2D/3D GPU hardware accelerated graphics rendering by Adobe, which provides low-level Stage3D APIs for advanced rendering in apps and gives framework developers classes of interactive experiences
I’ve seen a Stage 3D demo and it looks impressive.
Console quality games through the browser.
Edited 2011-10-31 18:20 UTC
Finally! Anyone else up for a nethack?
I bet HTML5 is forcing them to compete.
This is why competition is a good thing. However, too little too late I think. I would still go with HTML5 and WebGL.
and i hope both the people who can view your content appreciate the effort
Dare I ask what non native 64-bit is?
Requiring 64-bit users to run the 32-bit plugin via nspluginwrapper or similar techniques (or just using a 32-bit compiled browser).
Of course webm production is not a high priority with customers – I doubt it ever will be. It might be nice at some point to be able to actually encode webm using adobe tools – even nicer still to embed a webm file in a flash container. But that is NOT what anyone really needs right now – no one is holding their breath for any of that…
What we really want right now is the ability to playback a webm file using flash. Thats it. This doesn’t require any support on the production side, and it doesn’t require any encoding capabilities. All it requires is the ability to load a webm file in the same manner that flash can already load an mp4 containing h.264…
Adobe is putting the horse before the cart imo – just give us simple playback capability. All we need Flash for is a fallback for browsers that don’t support webm… and that’s it really.
Come on Adobe, get a clue – you guys are pissing away an easy win here. Just add playback support – it isn’t really that hard…
Edited 2011-10-31 20:57 UTC
Adobe’s point is “customers don’t need WebM playback support because producers aren’t producing WebM content”. It is a pretty good point of Adobe to put WebM low on the ToDo list
But that’s the exact chicken-and-egg problem their support would help solve.
I’m all for Adobe adding it, but “it’s not that hard”? If you have experience writing a WebM decoder I’m sure Adobe would be happy to have your help.
They don’t need to write a webm decoder – they just need to interface libvpx with their playback code. It really isn’t that hard – VLC did an initial implementation in like a week…
Do you really think Adobe isn’t adding WebM support to Flash yet because of technical obstacles instead of legal ones?
Legal obstacles being the anonymous MPEG-LA patents?
I don´t see any obstacle there. ASSUMING THEY EXIST AND ARE VALID,
Adobe already has a licence to them, otherwise they would being sued for their implementation of H.264, which the patents all supposedly apply to. Note that there are several H.264 implementations around… MPEG-LA doesn´t care HOW you implement the patents. If MPEG-LA considers WebM to use said patents, and it actually does (for argument´s sake) then it is just another implementation of those patents, no different than x.264. Adobe already is a MPEG-LA licensee. If Flash now offers two code-paths to implement the patents, there isn´t really anything different to the current H.264 Flash situation.
Sorry my mistake, I meant to say corporate politics.
There are already at least two WebM decoders that Adobe could use.
The WebM decoder source code available from here:
http://www.webmproject.org/code/#webm-repositories
… is irrevocably licensed at zero cost (i.e. royalty-free) to everybody world-wide. There are no restrictions on its use, other than people who wish to use it may not sue Google over it.
http://www.webmproject.org/license/software/
Essentially, the terms are these:
Copyright (c) 2010, Google Inc. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
– Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
– Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
– Neither the name of Google nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
There you go, source code for a WebM decoder that Adobe can readily use without risk.
That was just too easy, really.
Edited 2011-11-01 03:04 UTC
TBH why would Adobe bother?
It is better that people need to use Flash mp4 embedding than supporting WebM … since that would be a nail in the coffin of flash.
TBH I am surprised more people aren’t interested about this
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/10/native-javascript-h…
Edited 2011-11-01 20:12 UTC
To keep their word? The said they would do so over a year ago…
http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/2010/05/adobe_support_for_vp8….
Why? A JavaScript decoder no one can actually use legally without MPEG-LA licensing? Its neat an all, it says a lot about how far JavaScript has come, but other than that I don’t see much point in it. They even mention in the article Mozilla has no plans to ever use it for anything – it really is just a tech demo.
Isn’t that usually a good idea?
Good point
In fairness (and what I considered to be your possible point, even if expressed in a curious way vs. one saying; but it apparently isn’t), the opposite situation – the usual form of this saying, “cart before the horse” – could be seen as analogous to what you proposed, and as “desirable” here.
What is the horse if not what propels the whole thing – the servers and content?
What is the cart if not the consumers, browsers which need to play it?
Too big of a stretch, I guess…
There is no Flash in iOS, no Flash in WP7 or Metro, and no Flash in most Android devices. The future has no Flash. The fact it won’t support WebM is not relevant to the success or failure of WebM.
]{
I have a webm encoded video. I want to publish it on the web, and I want to have the broadest playback support possible. Right now, having Flash support for webm playback would be very, very useful.
In other words, I’m not saying Flash is the future or even has a place in it. I am saying that 6 months ago if Flash had webm support it would have enhanced adoption of webm quite a bit. Every month that goes by it matters less and less, because every month that goes by Flash matters less and less.
So I am in fact agreeing with you. Just saying that Adobe could have bought themselves a bit of time by just adding the fricken playback support they said they were going to add while it still matters. If they added it right now it might still do them and the webm community a bit of good. If they want to wait 6 more months then I would say they should just not bother at all…
I agree… Since Adobe has been moving to support HTML5, they could just be seeing the writing on the wall, and not see it as worth the effort to integrate WebM into Flash, although they may eventually support it via their HTML5 tool-set.
Edited 2011-11-01 00:28 UTC
It’s obvious they got threatened by MPEG-LA. “If you bring in WebM we’ll make trouble with H.264.”
MPEG-LA patent pool is available under an equal access provision,
they can´t cut you off because you say mean things about their mother,
they only sue you if you don´t pay up.
There are over 1,000 H.264 licensees, including Adobe, Google and Canonical.
29 licensors, most of them global industrial giants like Mitsubishi.
H.264 is core technology in digital television production and distribution, which is the fundamental reason why WebM is on the back-burner.
From a January 2011 discussion on Twitter:
http://www.osnews.com/thread?457509
Adobe gave the impression it was coming soon.
Clearly they don’t want HTML5 video to succeed and take their market share.
Announcing support for a niche open standard might have come handy half a year ago, if only for stirring the competition a bit and putting their foot in the Google’s door. Apparently, they are now considering WebM a major contender, that given their support could actually take off on the web. Because of its open nature that would be an irreversible loss for Flash.
Will they finally start supporting it? Sure, when only WebM starts winning on its own merits and attracting Flash user base they will do it in a week. Of course, Google has some power to change things a bit, but so do Microsoft, Apple and MPEG LA.
What would be the benefits of supporting WebM? Not more that a handful of people would use it anyway.