Hulu Developing Non-Flash Player for Deployment on iPad?

[decksnap]

the only sensible post out of the 50+ so far…
even at MR I get sick of the repetitive, blatant, fanboyism.
And yes it is ironic that Apple fanboys dis so heavily on Adobe…these fanboys must all be < 30 years old, and not in the business of being a creative professional.

I'm over thirty and in the business of creative development. You think the situation is any better on the creative side? They spend all their time pushing out new versions with useless features and no time fixing the thousands... yes, I actually believe thousands... of bugs in the existing versions. I've had it with Adobe in all aspects.

 

[Yr Blues]

I was thinking about buying one for my mom, but every page she watches is in flash. All the vietnamese content online.

I have no use for an iPad. So, hoping everyone switches to HTML5 for good ol' mum.

 

[nxent]

that'd be great. i don't plan on getting an ipad, but i'm assuming an ipad friendly website would be iphone compatible. is there a website that demonstrates the differences between flash and html5 (or whatever the flash alternative is)?

 

[Yr Blues]

that'd be great. i don't plan on getting an ipad, but i'm assuming an ipad friendly website would be iphone compatible. is there a website that demonstrates the differences between flash and html5 (or whatever the flash alternative is)?

just go to youtube html5 beta and don't use firefox

 

[Cleverboy]

After 2016, expect to pay for all sorts of video, because the vendors broadcasting in it will have to pay. A lot. And so they will pass that cost onto the people consuming it. Apple doesn't have our best interests at heart. Apple's been in bed with MPEG LA for some time. Some other patents that company owns?

You're undermining your point by spreading FUD. If you don't have any evidence that the "royalty-free" period will be followed by HUGE royalty fees during the 11 year windows before all of the H.264 patents expire, then you're arguments are somewhat specious. What's to say Ogg Theora doesn't have some "submarine patents" out there waiting to hit any large vendor supporting them? Nothing. Apple has its OWN interests at heart... and their interests are in providing a stable, powerful product for consumers, and a profitable revenue stream for investors.

Here is a useful article on H.264 licensing and the HTML5 debate:
http://css.dzone.com/articles/h264-...=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+zones/ria+(RIA+Zone)

Apple Insider also did a great article on that discussion.

It's not as simple as some people would like (very much) to believe.

~ CB

 

[Lepton]

7 million users attempted to download flash for iPhone OS this month (according to Adobe).

I think that was iPhone users coming upon flash things they couldn't see.

They missed out on tons and tons of annoying animated ads. What a shame.

 

[aristotle]

Hooray! Because Apple refuses to support an industry standard, other companies must find workarounds so that mindless Apple fanatics who buy semi-functional products can still use their websites! Glory be to Apple! And shame on Adobe for writing software that people use. This will teach you!

Flash is not an industry standard. It is a proprietary format that requires a plugin from Adobe to function. HTML 5 video will be an industry "standard".

H264 is a standard that can be licensed from the MPEG LA which is an standards group which brought you MPEG1, MPEG2 and MP4.

 

[coldplaysucks.]

This is huge! I really feel this will make a big impact considering FLASH SUCKS.

I'm really glad that this processor hog is going to the graveyard, I already hardly ever use flash where I couldn't miss it.

 

[coldplaysucks.]

I have no use for an iPad. So, hoping everyone switches to HTML5 for good ol' mum.

Exactly, lets do it for the mum's out there, struggling to figure out if they should click again, or wait for their PCs to unfreeze!

 

[prowlmedia]

Open Rambling Letter To Steve. (Seems to be the thing to do these days)

Apple does not want flash so you have to buy games. And that's all it is isn't it Steve....

As a flash designer from way back, it may be buggy but is so prolific that it's like releasing a browser and saying, "Sorry it's not going to support JPEG as PNG is better."

Flash is the best solution for
Multi Layered interactive video
3D Animation
Easy timeline based animation
Very Complex animation!

But the point is you have said that the iPhone (and iPad) gives the best browsing experience available - but what's the point if you can't actually see any interesting sites! Content comes in different ways and I for one like usable news / social sites but I love Rich media sites, interactive multimedia sites.

Not one of these works properly on the iphone...
www.disney.com (!)
www.tokyoplastic.com
www.nike.com
www.adidas.com
www.philips.co.uk
www.sony.com/index.php
www.bbc.com
www.facebook.com - no the app doesn't count.
www.myspace.com
www.prowl.co.uk (ours - slipped that in!)
www.vimeo.com
www.snow.com
All these....http://www.papervisionshowcase.com/
the utterly awesome site http://www.cinema.philips.com/?ls=gb_en
http://www.snow.com/

Blue boxes everywhere!

The web is not all play through videos - it's interaction and what annoys me the most is that the iPad would be an awesome interface for flash.

I'd like to see any of these done in HTML5 - certainly in the time it took me to make mine! The fact it that there are some HTML5 code that would take 100 lines of code and in flash maybe 2 lines... it's a huge step back.

http://html5gallery.com/ - Oh look it's 1997 again - and anything interesting on there… guess what… all done with flash!

If apple is so narked with it being buggy - grow up and sort it out. Seriously it was on the back of adobe and macromedia that People even started using Mac's ( Photohop / Illustrator for DTP ) I've spent my career learning it and making money form it and now Steve are dead set on killing it. And what do we all still buy… Apple!

But to be honest - this is all one step to far. Android for my next phone. A win 7 tablet - just but I'll still keep the macbook… It not apple love or hate thing, steve… the macbook is awesome bit of kit… but then again I can still play flash on that!

If you are so narked with it, Apple has $40Billion(!) in the bank, invest in Adobe and fix it Steve, Don't try and put all us designers out of work.

Andy

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Frankly, by 2016, won't we have all moved on to a better video codec anyway?

 

[ARF900]

If apple would just buy Hulu, add all the shows hulu doesnt have, and make it compatible with tv, they could phase out "television" all together.

 

[Friscohoya]

So, what exactly is better? It's anywhere from a 3" to a 7" smaller screen when compared to MacBook Pros and you have to hold it up to watch it while you can lay a laptop down in front of you. I still see zero purpose in the iPad.

Dont buy. AND STOP BEING SO COCKY!

 

[appleseed76]

This is the biggest thing for the iPad (and iPhone) possible. The ability to watch TV wherever whenever is huge! This alone will convince many people to buy an iPad way more than if it had a camera or any of the other stuff people are complaining about (although that wouldn't hurt either)

Just imagine an iPad commercial with people watching TV on their iPad in the car or on the train...

In their car, are you crazy?! Texting and driving is bad enough. Just kidding, I know you didn't mean the driver. However, I doubt AT&T's 3G network could handle all of that traffic. It will work over Wi-Fi though and that's on some trains and buses these days. I'm more excited now than ever!

 

[Speedy2]

And yes it is ironic that Apple fanboys dis so heavily on Adobe…these fanboys must all be < 30 years old, and not in the business of being a creative professional.

Hardly anyone is dissing Adobe itself, but Flash. Flash video to be more specific.

Flash video, being a closed-source, corporate-owned web technology, is evil. Open standards are good. I couldn't imagine a single reason why anyone could prefer Flash over HTML5 for watching a friggin' video! The success of Flash video was purely accidental. It just happened with the rise of YouTube. The plugin was leightweight (unlike Quicktime) and reasonably platform/browser independent (unlike Windows Media). The success has nothing to do with the qualitites of Flash as a tool to build web applications.

Yes, the <video> support is a mess at the moment, but there are good chances that it could sort itself out. Firefox might be the key. If they flip, Flash for video will die in the long run. Another option could be that in five years time, WebKit (Chrome, Safari, iPhone/iPad) could be the most important browsing platform. Of course, it all could fail, but then we'd still have this silly, evil, buggy technology just to watch our stupid videos.

 

[chstr]

if the price is reasonable, I will be spending part of my tax return on an iPad (gawd-awful name that it is, shoulda been called iTab)

 

[appleseed76]

If apple would just buy Hulu, add all the shows hulu doesnt have, and make it compatible with tv, they could phase out "television" all together.

You can't buy Hulu chief it's owned by all of the TV companies. One of which hates Apple with a passion, NBC! There's no way they're going to sell their web portal and all of it's content to Apple. They're making bookoo bucks on ad revenue on top of what they charge cable companies to carry their networks.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

You're undermining your point by spreading FUD. If you don't have any evidence that the "royalty-free" period will be followed by HUGE royalty fees during the 11 year windows before all of the H.264 patents expire, then you're arguments are somewhat specious.

I don't know how large they're going to be, but MPEG LA has stated they will go into effect. If the company that owns the rights to the tech says they're going to start charging, i wouldn't call that suspect. They could change their minds, but I doubt it. They want to become a standard and then start raking in the dough once everyone can't turn back.

What's to say Ogg Theora doesn't have some "submarine patents" out there waiting to hit any large vendor supporting them?

Now who's spreading FUD?

Apple has its OWN interests at heart...

On this we agree.

Here is a useful article on H.264 licensing and the HTML5 debate:
http://css.dzone.com/articles/h264-...=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+zones/ria+(RIA+Zone)

Yeah, that's from my previous post which you said was FUD.

It's not as simple as some people would like (very much) to believe.

~ CB

I believe it is much simpler. Apple is using its considerable media clout to try to force customers into its own business model and revenue streams. You can see it with music, video, and books.

We benefitted from their clout in music, but did we really benefit from their clout in books? $9.99 vs $15.99? And publishers will actually make less money using Apple's model, and we pay more:

http://gizmodo.com/5465323/why-and-how-apple-killed-the-999-ebook

Thanks Apple! I trust them less and less now.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Yes, the <video> support is a mess at the moment, but there are good chances that it could sort itself out. Firefox might be the key. If they flip, Flash for video will die in the long run. Another option could be that in five years time, WebKit (Chrome, Safari, iPhone/iPad) could be the most important browsing platform. Of course, it all could fail, but then we'd still have this silly, evil, buggy technology just to watch our stupid videos.

If the WHATWG would consider adding Ogg support to the video tag, then Firefox will flip.

 

[jettredmont]

How about Hulu detach from ALL Flash on ALL platforms and just do HTTP Streaming of H.264!?! Come on, I believe in you! -- Richard Simmons

DRM.

HTML doesn't have an encrypted streaming mode (yet ... and if they added it to the proposed standard tomorrow you'd still have to wait a while before browsers support it). Hulu relies on Flash's streaming encryption.

As others have noted, the "analog hole" still exists; if Flash is putting it onto a video screen, it can be captured back down to disk, but that's a "real-time" copy, costing the would-be pirate 1 hour of their computer to copy 1 hour of content. Supporting HTML5 on Hulu would open the door to sub-realtime copying (a minute to download that same hour of content) as well as even easier ad-stripping.

On the other hand, the iPad/iPhone ecosystem is locked-down enough that Hulu knows no one will be able to capture the unencrypted stream from their player, so they can send the unencrypted H.264 stream there and play it directly in their approved player. They just need some authentication mechanism to "prove" that the player is who it says it is before streaming.

 

[rudy713]

Anybody stop to think what Hulu on the iPad will do? It'll cannabilize iTunes video sales. No way is Apple going to allow this.

 

[Michael CM1]

if the price is reasonable, I will be spending part of my tax return on an iPad (gawd-awful name that it is, shoulda been called iTab)

You apparently have never encountered Coca-Cola's drink for Satan, also known as "Tab." Imagine Diet Coke, yet nastier.

But speaking of tax returns, I just got my big Uncle Barack homebuyer tax credit spent on a new heating system before I even got it. DAMMIT. So probably no iPad for me on the first generation, which may not be bad.

On Flash, I did a little test on Hulu's site a few nights ago to see what the CPU load was. It took about 80 percent of my processor to play a 480p video in the box -- not fullscreen. My CPU is hardly a dinosaur. I opened big, bloated iTunes and played a video at about 3/4 screen size. It never topped 25 percent, and the video was 720x400 at 1100 kbps.

After trying to play FarmVille on a G5 Power Mac at work, I can tell you how horrible Flash is on efficiency. If HTML5 allows development that drops CPU processing requirements across the board, it's insane for everybody not affiliated with Adobe to not move that way. With the move toward lower-powered devices -- smart phones and netbooks -- by a big chunk of the population, CPU efficiency and battery power are big benchmarks.

 

[fox10078]

Anybody stop to think what Hulu on the iPad will do? It'll cannabilize iTunes video sales. No way is Apple going to allow this.

If its on their site apple has no control over it. An APP on the other hand.

 

[MorphingDragon]

W3C need to hurry it up and define a video standard.

 

[crackbookpro]

Great News for the iPad!