SAN JOSE, Calif. — Aug. 21, 2007 — “Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the latest update for Adobe® Flash® Player 9 software, code-named Moviestar, which includes H.264 standard video support - the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray® and HD-DVD® high definition video players - and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support, as well as hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback. These advancements will extend Adobe’s leadership position in Web video by enabling the delivery of HD television quality and premium audio content through the ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player and pave the way to expand rich media Flash experiences on the desktop and H.264 ready consumer devices. The latest update for Adobe Flash Player 9 will be available in beta for immediate download later today on Adobe Labs at http://labs.adobe.com.”
This update to Adobe Flash player will either finally push HD video to the forefront of the web, increase flash adoption to 99.9%, or slow down the web to a crawl… I would expect that providing HD support to Flash is a natural progression and should be adopted by Netflix to help their instant movie watching module as it the video content will allow for a greater resolution and will not lock out non-Windows users. Expect YouTube to upgrade as well with MovieStar–hopefully ushering in a new wave of HD content online as early adopters begin to upgrade to high definition video cameras and more professional videographers entering the fray with technology that will now be able to display their artwork with high quality resolution.
