Flash Player 10 feature: Dynamic streaming

This functionality will work with a future release of Flash Media Server to automatically adjust the playback quality as the bandwidth fluctuates. This should put an end to rebuffering and video that stops - if this works as well as advertised.

The basic idea is to provide variable bitrate streaming of video that will dynamically change when the bandwidth change. We have to admit that we're skeptical about this feature. Apple and Microsoft have claimed that they have solved this so many times without really delivering the goods and they're not stupid. It could of course be that the good folks at Adobe are even smarter, but we're looking forward to see some real life tests of this.

If it works, this will greatly improve the overall user experience. "in some cases the change in bitrate would be barely perceptible to the end user, dependent on how severe that fluctuation is." Justing adds, "For most people when the bandwidth goes down what they are going to see is they're gonna loose a little bit of sharpness. It'll become a little fuzzier, but the audio will continue ... and It'll also keep the framerate high. Those two things create the feeling of consistency for the video experience.

Stefan Richter at FlashComGuru has more details on the news related to video in Flash Player 10 - Peer to peer, new audio codec and UDP

Click here to visit Adobe Labs to download and play with the new Player. This article is part of an interview with Justin Everett-Church (Flash Player product manager) and Tom Barclay (senior product marketing manager) from the Adobe Platform Business Unit.

 

 

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