Flash 8 Goes Live with On2’s Live SDK for Flash

Some might question the release of an SDK before an actual application that webcasters can pick up off the shelf and start using, but in reality this sequence of product releases has its advantages. "One of the reasons we came out with the SDK before coming out with any specific applications is that we think there will be a wide number of uses for live Flash," says Hock. "We wanted people to get the SDK first and start baking the technology into their specific applications. In the future, we hope to see standalone encoding applications being developed with this, and integrated encoding appliances and hardware having this baked in so a live Flash stream can be captured directly from a hardware card."

"The reality is if we were going to build an application, we’d need an SDK anyway," says Luther. "One of the things we’ll likely be doing going forward is developing an end-user product. We anticipate either taking some of our other tools and making them capable of live (webcasting), or adding a new product. But regardless of which direction we take, we really needed to have the low-level building blocks first. And in finishing those we figured we might as well make them available to the industry.

"Whether someone buys our end-user tool or someone else’s that’s built on our technology, we’re not really hung up on that," Luther continues. "It’s better for the industry for them to have as many choices as possible to do Flash encoding."

Apps Coming Down the Pipeline
At this early stage of the game, with the SDK available for less than a month, there have not been any official announcements regarding what products will be coming to market first with these improved live Flash capabilities built in. "It’s a gut feeling, but I’d say we’re probably about six months away from seeing some of the first applications built on this SDK released into the market," says Hock.

Luther seconds the notion of a six-month lag before products begin hitting the market, but at the same time he says he knows of at least one company that has plans to at least release a beta version of its product built on this SDK sometime later this summer. "Six months is certainly reasonable, although I’d actually expect to see something earlier that at least in beta from partners we’re working with. One of which has an expectation of having a product in the market sometime this summer," says Luther. "By the time it’s done it would be a bulletproof live event broadcaster with some pretty good capabilities for mission-critical webcasting."

The range of products that may soon see the integration of live Flash is diverse and widespread. "Because of the control you have on the front-end with Flash and the ability to create engaging interactive customer experience, this missing ingredient of live Flash coupled with that interactivity is going to spawn some really cool applications, such as live camera switching, and events that have deep interactivity built into them, maybe coupled with some of the capability of the Flash Media Server like moderated chat, shared whiteboards, and so on," says Hock. "This is really going to open up a whole new level of applications that can be built with the Flash platform."

As the applications span a wide range of functionality, so too will they touch upon a broad spectrum of markets that may adopt live Flash into their business practices. "Very clearly there’s a huge opportunity in the event-driven market, whether it’s the really large media companies that want to do live broadcasts of TV shows or newscasts, or businesses in the corporate space that want to use it for CEO communications, company meetings, and more. There’s also going to be an opportunity within two-way communications as well, although that piece is going to take a little longer to mature, as most people are expecting to get video chat capabilities essentially for free nowadays, so the smaller companies are going to have to put together a business model that supports that feature set," says Luther. "All in all, you’ll see live Flash across many verticals. It’s just going to take the market some time to realize that these new capabilities are available for them to use."