Adobe Builds Media Player for Flash
Adobe on Monday offered visitors of the NAB 2007 conference in Las Vegas a peek at its new Media Player desktop application, designed to play Flash video content without requiring a Web browser. The program, formerly code-named "Philo," will enter beta testing this spring.
Although named as such, Adobe Media Player takes a different approach from that found in Windows Media Player and iTunes. Instead of focusing on existing, local content, the application relies on RSS feeds to receive Flash video. Adobe will essentially provide a virtual storefront, where users can discover new content and subscribe to it.
Users can choose to download certain content for viewing offline, such as video podcasts, television shows and even short films. Adobe has focused on building its Media Player as a platform for publishers, including digital rights management (DRM) capabilities that determine how a specific Flash video can be played back.
Advertisers will be able to choose between making their content freely available and including embedded advertising that cannot be removed, or charging for videos that will be tied to a specific user or computer - much like Apple does with iTunes.
Features of Adobe Media Player include full screen playback, one-click viewer ratings, and a Favorites feature that automatically downloads content. The software is cross-platform -- for Windows and Mac OS X -- and based on open standards including RSS and SMIL.
Adobe Media Player was built using the company's new Apollo platform, which made its official debut in March. Apollo takes scalable vector graphics off the browser without breaking it free from the Web.
Like Java, Apollo will utilize its own HTTP component and its own runtime language - or, more accurately, languages, as it intends to envelop Flash, JavaScript, and the ECMA standard ActionScript developed for Flash. Unlike Java, it will not utilize a "virtual machine" environment for managed code, opting instead for a collection of less revolutionary, existing standards that at least some developers already know.