评论:Flash播放器能否生存?

最近的消息，Adobe已经最终推出黄金时段—which we've covered in its beta form several times—comes with confirmation of several long-lived teasers: most notably the planned inclusion of HTTP直播(HLS) 和动态自适应HTTP流(DASH) 在黄金时段的球员.

简·奥兹很棒回顾 of Adobe's plans—at least the plans they're revealing before early May's Adobe MAX conference—highlights some of the reasons Adobe chose to add HLS 和 DASH adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming capabilities to the overall Primetime ecosystem, 以及其专有的ABR技术, HTTP动态流.

黄金时段新闻, 虽然, coupled with Ozer's additional "story behind the story" solidifies four major points in my mind, 我想在这里分享一下:

Flash Player能否生存??

Many major player apps 和 plug-in architectures have plans to support both HLS 和 DASH, 就像Adobe的黄金时间播放器一样. 但奇怪的是，Flash Player不会是其中之一.

Ozer notes twice in his article that DASH 和 HLS will not be added to Flash Player, an odd stance from Adobe as it has demonstrated prototypes of both technologies in Flash Player at the last few NAB shows. Adobe Media Server (AMS) also supports HLS 和 is slated to support DASH, which begs the question as to why Flash Player will not support these two ABR technologies.

玩家战争已经转变为交付协议战争

纵观流媒体15年的历史, 主要参与者之间的战斗已经白热化, from RealPlayer 和 Windows Media Player to QuickTime 和 Flash Player. 这样的事实, 虽然, that Adobe will now join the ranks of other major player applications in embracing both HLS 和 DASH means that we now have a truce in the player war at least when it comes to which delivery protocol to use (HTTP) 和 which adaptive bitrate (ABR) technology to use.

Adobe telegraphed the end of the player war in a bit of a roundabout way in its Primetime release press release, stating: "By incorporating HLS into the Flash Player for desktops, TV content owners 和 distributors will be able to efficiently reach more of their audience by deploying one consistent player."

换句话说, 因为所有的主要玩家都会支持HLS, it's time to think beyond the player's ability to deliver bits 和 more towards the things that truly matter: viewership tracking, 交互性, 权限管理, 等.

谷歌无法在Android上实现任何媒体实现

说到玩家实现, has anyone seen Google get an implementation of any streaming protocol or technology right?

测试了多个基于和roid的设备, I've been disappointed in Google's implementation—at the core operating system level—of RTSP 和 HLS. 此外，由于HLS不能回到3年前.x Android操作系统设备, there's an open invitation for a player that h和les basic streaming functionality.

Adobe的移动版Flash Player做得很好, as it consistently delivered quality streaming in multiple formats on a h和ful of Android h和sets 和 tablets. But faced with the massive fragmentation in the Android h和set market, Adobe wisely chose to move its efforts towards a browser-based architecture as well as AIR-based apps that also contain the Flash Player architecture.

Real's newer Helix player architecture also has the capability to play HLS content on Android OS 2.x设备. It's almost like you want to tell Google just to leave the media implementations to the professionals, 或者至少得到YouTube团队的帮助.

DASH is Getting the WebM treatment, but not on its Technical Merits

围绕WebM的主要问题之一, 谷歌的开源版本的On2 VP8编解码器, 完全不是技术问题吗. 恐惧, 不确定性, 和怀疑, 简称FUD, were raised as valid concerns about the liability 和 royalty aspects of WebM. So, 太, DASH is undergoing a level of FUD as we wait for players.

The number of DASH-compatible players in the marketplace has grown, but the major limitation—as I underst和 it—is locking down a specific subset of the DASH st和ard on which to test interoperability. True we're not going to get both MPEG-2 Transport Stream 和 Fragmented MP4 (fMP4) compatibility in players anytime soon, 但我们看到在H附近正在进行测试.264 fMP4的实现，并取得了令人满意的结果.

Now if we can only hack our way through the whole licensing labyrinth—if the labyrinth even exists. 我怀疑我们看到的是许可迷宫的海市蜃楼, reacting to the mirage in a number of ways that we've been trained to do with past licensing issues such as MPEG-2, H.264, WebM. DASH不是这些, 即使它包含了三个中的两个, 但MPEG LA需要尽快公开声明这一消息.

总结一下, Adobe's choice of which ABR technologies to support in only one of its players is a curious one.

I'll be listening carefully in Los Angeles to the Adobe MAX keynotes, listening even more intently at upcoming Creative Suite events, to find out exactly what WILL be included in future versions of Flash Player 和 Flash支持fessional.

As the company balances between its support for HTML 5 in many of its Creative Suite products (Dreamweaver, Flash支持, the whole Edge sub-suite) 和 the need to propel sales of Primetime's proprietary technologies (Primetime DRM 和 HDS), it should make for an interesting summer for Flash Player enthusiasts.

[Note: An earlier version of this article asserted that Primetime has been discussed publicly for two years; in fact it was first introduced in February 2012.]