Adobe Ventures Into HD

I see that Adobe Systems has released a new beta version of its Flash media player that displays HD video programming.

It is claimed that Flash media players reside on 98 percent of all desktop personal computers and millions of portable devices, so Adobe says the new player extends HDTV capability to the rapidly expanding universe of online video that includes popular social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace. That assumes the flash isn't blocked by the company firewall.

Adobe’s new player supports the H.264 compression format — the same video standard used in HD DVD and Blue-ray optical video players. Audio supports the HE-ACC standard, and the player supports hardware accelerated, multicore enhanced full-screen video playback.

The public beta version of the update to Adobe Flash Player 9 software, code-named Moviestar, which includes H.264 and HE-AAC functionality, is available as a free download from Adobe Labs at labs.adobe.com. The final release is expected to be available via update in the fall.