Review: Macromedia Flash Professional 8
Users who want to deploy their video via a Flash Video Streaming Service, such as Akamai or VitalStream, or via their own Flash Communication Server can make use of the same import process.
The import dialog prompts for a remote location of the deployed .flv file. Once the remote location is entered, Flash will automatically detect the video length and dimensions and place a fully preconfigured playback component on stage. Alternatively, users can also feed in video details via SMIL, which is now also supported. All that’s left to do is to export the .swf file and upload it to a Web server.
Users of Flash Communication Server were keen to leverage the new VP6 codec for their live video applications, but unfortunately their wishes have not been fulfilled. The explanation for this is fairly easy: VP6 has considerably higher system requirements than the Sorenson Spark codec and is therefore not as well suited for real-time encoding. Therefore, the Flash Player supports VP6 decoding but not encoding at this time. But it’s not all bad news: the upcoming Flash Media Server 2 offers an API for pushing data into the server, and it is likely that several hardware vendors are already working on a hardware-assisted live encoding solution for Flash Video 8.
The future
Flash 8 constitutes a real leap in the evolution of Flash. Yet it appears that this major release is only the first phase in the development of what Macromedia calls the Flash Platform. In a few months time, Macromedia/Adobe will release an update to Flash 8 (most likely resulting in Flash 8.5) which includes the next version of Actionscript, Actionscript 3.0. The recently introduced Flash Player 8.5 supports this new language and will again very significantly improve performance using a totally new virtual machine that fully leverages the capabilities of the new language.
Flash really seems to be outgrowing its reputation as a timeline animation tool whose only purpose is to produce annoying skip-intros and interfering Eyeblasters. This is further underlined by the fact that Flash developers can shortly leverage the Flex framework in their development work: Flex Builder 2. Flex Builder 2 is an Eclipse-based development environment that may be more familiar to Java programmers than to Flash developers. Like Flash, Flex Builder 2 produces .swf files, yet any search for a timeline here will be in vain.
Flex Builder 2 will undoubtedly attract many traditional .NET and Java developers to the Flash platform. In turn, they will build the next generation of rich internet applications that offer functionalities which have so far been impossible to achieve in a browser-based application. We can already get a glimpse of this future through applications such as Yahoo! Maps Beta (requires Flash Player 8.5 Alpha, part of Flex Builder 2), which leverages the Flex framework.
When you add these developments to the possibilities that are opening up through the Adobe takeover, it’s fair to say that the ranks of remaining Flash naysayers should continue to shrink.