Flash To Get True High Definition Video Capabilities?

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On2 Technologies At CES, On2, the company that provides the video codec for the Flash Player is going to show off new “high definition and cross-platform video technologies” according to a press release.

There are two big implications here. One is the possibility of a truly high definition codec for the Flash Player. The second is their new mobile offering which aims to bring quality a quality video codec to mobile devices. Both of these are important but I’ll touch on the high definition news quickly.

According to the press release the high definition is based on it’s VP7 compression technology. Currently Flash Player 8 supports the VP6 codec. The VP7 codec seems to have been around for a while, and I’m not sure why it didn’t make it into Flash Player 9, but with the news today it sounds like On2 is positioning it as a viable high definition solution. In theory, this could become a part of Flash Player 10 or even possibly a point release of Flash Player 9 which would keep Flash ahead of the curve when it comes to online video.

The two big quotes from the press release:

High Definition Video: On2 will demonstrate high definition video playback based on its latest award winning TrueMotion VP7 compression technology at data rates as low as 2Mbps, allowing greater penetration of high definition video across low cost devices and existing networks for on-demand, broadcast and other streaming applications.

Mobile Video: On2 will demonstrate TrueMobile®, its VP7 based mobile video system for reaching the largest number of handsets across the most networks, including 2.5G, 3G and 4G networks. TrueMobile offers the most efficient and affordable mobile video solution for carriers and media companies at data rates as low as 20kbps, and with an over-the-air upgrade to convert most popular data-enabled phones to TrueMobile video phones.

[tags]On2, Flash Video, High Definition Video[/tags]

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  4. New York Times using Flash Video
  5. Flash Video – The New Flash Player Hook
  • http://www.jolyonruss.co.uk Jolyon

    Hold on a sec, what platforms are there that currently support HD, Flash and would be used to play video?

    PS3.

    Unless I’ve completely misunderstood your/their definition if HD, please correct me if I’m wrong.

    And the PS3 doesn’t actually run Adobe’s Flash Player, it run’s Sony’s version which is currently running to a pick and mix FP7 spec. There is rumour of a Flash Player update for the PS3, but to what spec 8 or 9? Who knows?

    Don’t get me wrong a better quality video codec in the Flash Player is always going to be a good thing, I just don’t get how HD is relevant to the Flash Players scope.

    Jolyon

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Hey Jolyon, you hit something I’ve been kind of confused about so maybe you can help me get it all straight. I always thought HD essentially came down to native pixel counts and how those are rendered. At least that’s what I’ve inferred from various Wikipedia articles

    So aren’t computer monitors capable of displaying HD content? But isn’t there also a difference between a video that is blown up to run full screen on a 1920×1080 monitor and a video that has a native resolution of 1920×1080 running on the same monitor?

  • http://www.jolyonruss.co.uk Jolyon

    I don’t profess to be an expert on anything, but, this is how I understand it to be…

    The term HD does not really relate to computer monitors, it’s more about TV, where for a long time no matter how big (phyical inches) the resolution stayed the same 486 lines. My tech history is pretty vague but I think we’ve had monitor resolutions greater than X by 486 for some time now. HD is a result of combined efforts by broadcasters (including movie makers) and TV manufacturers, btw they’re still not all working to the same specs, there’s 1080i 1080p and 720p.

    In answer to you questions, err, yeah, but they’re not a TV.

    I have a feeling that On2 may be jumping on the HD band wagon much like Apple have on the Quicktime pages of their site and simply muddying the waters further:

    Welcome to a revolution in resolution. High-definition video brings the widescreen vistas, clarity and color depth of film to the television and computer screen. So you can view movies the way film directors intended. Check out this gallery of amazing high-definition video and see what’s in store.

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Hmmm, I guess I’d always assumed that Apple knew something I didn’t about what was or wasn’t HD. But I think you’re right, this could be more marketing than technology.

    Can you represent the i’s and p’s on a computer monitor? Do all computer monitors do interlace? Do they do something else entirely?

  • http://www.jolyonruss.co.uk Jolyon

    According to the wikipedia entry for Interlace it’s dependent on the type of screen. LCD and Plasma being progressive while CRT’s are interlaced. LCD and Plasma screens have to do additional processing to “deinterlace” any interlaced broadcast.

    After a brief geek off with a guy in my office he dumped a couple of other links in my inbox, see below:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_resolution
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_display_standard
    http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/video2.htm

    I think that clears it up, I know I feel a little wiser. And more sure that the term HD used by On2 is mostly marketing fluff.

    The truth is you could make a FP1 swf at 1920×1080 and claim it’s HD because HD is just a resolution spec like VGA, PAL, NTSC, SVGA, etc.

  • http://www.skidgel.com/blog/ John Skidgel

    Hi Ryan,

    All computer monitors are progressive, or P. Cathode Ray Tubes or old school televisions are interlaced. They’re interlaced because when color television was developed, they had to do some trickery to keep compatibility with black and white televisions. In short, interlaced televisions show video at 60 fields per second. The fields are interlaced or interleaved together to create a full frame. The fields though are actually 1/60th of a second different in time. When you see raw interlaced video on a computer, you may have seen the veneitian-blind like effect of interlacing. More could be found on wikipedia, I guess.

    Progressive video, or P, on the other hand, displays video in full frames. For film bulfs and purists, 1080p is 24p or 24 frames per second (the frame rate of film). While it has less temporal resolution, there’s more detail preserved since it’s not cut up into 60 fields. However, when film is telecined for DVDs, 3:2 pulldown is applied and basically makes it compatible with broadcasting and display on interlaced TVs. A decent DVD player is able to reverse the pull-down (for material that originated from film or a 24p video camera) and display it progressively for progressive TVs.

    Most video on the internet is deinterlaced. When encoded, the encoder takes the video and blends the interlaced frames to produce progressive frames. Professional looking internet video is often shot with a camera that can is capable of recording in progressive mode. This saves the step of deinterlacing, preseves more detail, has that “film motion” look, and is 20% smaller in size since it’s 24 and not 30 frames a second.

    HD is generally considered anything bigger than standard definition (SD) television. But the common formats are 1080i, 1080p, and 720p.

    HTH and I enjoy reading your RIA blog.

    John

  • http://dreamdrummer.com/ Erki Esken

    What would be most interesting to know is if Flash will support VP7 or newer codec, will it also support encoding to it (i.e. when broadcasting webcam to Flash Media Server)?

    Currently Sorenson codec is used for broadcasting if I’m not mistaken.

    Note that realtime encoding and broadcasting in VP7 is possible, since Skype and others already do it.

  • http://www.encodeflashvideo.com flashvideo

    “Currently Sorenson codec is used for broadcasting if I’m not mistaken.”

    http://www.liveflashvideo.com
    [lower right of page]

  • Pingback: Flash Player soon with HD video « Cyberspace Nova

  • JT

    I could be wrong but I was under the impression that VP6 could encode and decode at HD levels. I don’t think that On2′s VP7 HD will be showcased via the Flash Player. JMO. I think they’ve been working with other companies to bring HD VP7 out. Also, from what I’ve read is that VP7 is a bit of a processor hog and that’s why it wasn’t in Flash 8 or 9. Of course On2 doesn’t release all versions of VP7 to the public for personal use so there may be versions of VP7 that have been refined a bit for specific customers and platforms. Maybe one for Flash.
    It’s also been a while since On2 released a new codec. If you follow the company history through VP3,4,5,6,7 and the time frames that they were released, they are past due for VP8. I’m sure they have been busier than they ever have working with customers with the growing popularity of VP6 & Vp7 but I’d be willing to bet VP8 will be out before Flash Player 10.

  • http://mrsteel.wordpress.com MrSteel

    You are probably right 100% but flash will eventually have HD, and it’s possible for Flash Player 9 to have long history and updates that will incorporate HD just as part of a race with concurrents
    anyway still small percent of people have big monitors or good tv’s for real HD resolution… so seeing it soon is not for sure