Upcoming Release of Flash Lite to Integrate Video Playback Capabilities
At the 3GSM World Congress, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced that support for video will be integrated in the next generation of Adobe® Flash Lite™ software, Adobe’s award-winning Flash® Player runtime specifically designed for mobile phones.
Flash Lite 3, expected to be available in the first half of 2007, will bring video from the desktop to mobile phones and devices, enabling operators, handset manufacturers and developers alike to deliver more compelling and engaging experiences to mobile users.
The release will be a landmark addition to Adobe’s family of video technologies that includes Adobe Production Studio for professional video editing, Marcomedia Flash 8 from Adobe for video encoding, and Adobe Flash Media Server for video distribution. Today, television shows like Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Friday Night Lights are being delivered online through FLV, the leading Adobe Flash Player video format, while the technology also powers the video capabilities of social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace.
“Flash Player compatible video for mobile phones will revolutionise the way users engage with mobile content and open up new revenue opportunities for developers worldwide,” said Al Ramadan, senior vice president for Mobile and Device Solutions at Adobe. “This release will allow users to view vibrant video content from popular Internet sites like YouTube or MySpace and enable developers to create new, dynamic applications across a variety of mobile and consumer electronics platforms.”
Flash Lite will support the same video formats supported by Adobe Flash Player and will directly support video streams delivered by the Adobe Flash Media Server, allowing users to view a broad spectrum of Flash Player compatible content. Videos can be viewed in different forms within the Flash environment, including downloadable video clips, streaming videos, applications with user interfaces based on Flash or personalized content such as wallpapers or screensavers.
Flash Lite runs on multiple platforms, including Symbian S60 v2/v3, Qualcomm® BREW® 2.x/3.x and Microsoft® Windows® Mobile® 5, in addition to embedded operating systems on a variety of OEM platforms. This allows consistent content delivery across device types, broader distribution of engaging mobile experiences and simpler publishing, testing and selling of Flash Lite content for developers.
Video playback capabilities will be included in Adobe Flash Lite 3, which is expected to be released to manufacturers in the first half of 2007. Adobe expects mobile handsets and consumer electronics devices with support for Flash Lite 3 to be available by the end of the year.