“Adobe previewed some new streaming video capabilities of its Flash Media Server at the 2011 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show, including new compatibility with iOS devices like the iPad,” Chris Foresman reports for Ars Technica. “Instead of getting Steve Jobs to relent on his ‘thoughts on Flash,’ however, Adobe is instead adding HTTP Live Streaming support to Flash Media Server.”
“HTTP Live Streaming is a protocol that Apple developed to stream live and recorded video using standard HTTP connections instead of the more difficult to optimize RTSP. It uses H.264-encoded video and AAC or MP3 audio packaged into discrete chunks of an MPEG-2 transport stream, along with a .m3u playlist to catalog the files that make up the individual chunks of the stream,” Foresman reports. “QuickTime on both Mac OS X and iOS can play back this format, and it is the only streaming format compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.”
Foresman reports, “In other words, instead of trying in vain to persuade Apple to build Flash into iOS, or losing potential Flash Media Server customers to some other iOS-compatible solution, Adobe seems to be implicitly acknowledging that content publishers need Flash-free video streaming.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote nearly a year ago: “Flash is being marginalized. Any content provider worth anything simply cannot ignore 100+ million iOS devices.” – MacDailyNews Take, June 10, 2010