Adobe Flash Media Encoder in Labs

January 19th, 2007

This is a very interesting announcement and addition to the Labs site. When Flash 8 came out they introduced a new Flash video codec called VP6 by the company on2. This codec has many benefits compared to the previous Spark codec. But the slight problem with live encoding is that the live encoder for VP6 codec FLV is not part of the Flash Player. Until on2 released their on2 Flix Live product last year there was no product that did “live” VP6 streaming.

With the release of Adobe’s Flash Media Encoder we have an another live encoder, DigitalRapids also has VP6 support through software for their video cards.

The Adobe Flash Media Encoder software it self seems to have promise. I downloaded the software and installed it. At first look it does not look like a typical Windows application but more like a Flash/Flex app wrapped in a exe (I have no real knowledge of what it really is written in).

The Audio options are limited to the NellyMoser codec and up to 32kbps 22Hz Mono. The options for video settings out does on2’s Flix Live software. Also noteworthy is that the FME can save live recordings to file as well as provide a nice log and real time stats of the stream’s bitrate and time.

I couldn’t get it to connect to a FMS but did not have time to test throughly, I was getting some errors on the FMS side that I am not sure if its the FME or the FMS application instance. I’ll try and post more when I have time to play with the application more.

Get FME and the FMS Authentication Plugin-In off the labs now - http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/fme.html

Entry Filed under: Flash Media Server/Flash Video, Rich Internet Applications