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NBC and Time Warner Continue to Back Flash Over HTML5

LOL at the predictable "I always hated [insert company here]" and "I didn't watch [insert company here] shows anyways" comments pouring in.

What's the big deal if you (supposedly) aren't affected by their decision anyways, eh? :rolleyes:
 
hmmm

zeromeus said:
Seriously! I own a few Apple gadgets, too. I saw from the beginning how Apple is trying to bully another company. Sure, if they don't want to support a certain platform, good for them. I don't care. However, the should stay with their own whatever crap they decide to go with and leave other people alone. Don't try to bully them. HTML5 is not exactly stable right now. Why can't they just accept the fact that they screwed up and should accept other standards that work better???
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I find your rant super amusing since:

1) you didn't, and probably can't, list to me "other standards that work better." Let's keep in mind we're talking about mobile devices here. Hint: real flash for ANY mobile device never existed before a few weeks ago, and reports of that are even coming back sub-par.

2) What company is Apple trying to bully, and bully them to do what? I'm curious. Explain.

3) "the[y] should stay with their own whatever crap they decide to go with and leave other people alone." Ok aside from the fact this sentence is horrible grammar wise, what exactly have Apple been doing to "other people" that should warrant them leaving said party alone. And who is this "other people?"

4) How exactly did Apple screw up again? oh yeah, by becoming the second largest US company by market cap? oh, no....hmm, well it must be by having a hotter-than-fire selling product that tons of people seem to want. Hmm, crap, no not that either. Maybe its because they keep reporting record breaking profits each quarter. Yeah yeah thats it... thats how they "screwed up" (insert dead-pan look emoticon)

Geez.. did you even think before you started typing? at all?
 
cocky jeremy said:
Could you be more wrong? Do you think it's a coincidence that Apple is all about HTML5 and all of the sudden all of these websites are switching from Flash to HTML5? Apple pretty much controls stuff, inside and outside of Apple itself. Here's a quick question. Do you think, if Apple had Flash on the iPhone and iPad, all of these websites would be switching to HTML5 now? That's what i thought..
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Some people need to use better logic. Most if not all of these websites aren't SWITCHING over but offering multiple ways to view their site. That's not a switch. That's adding.

I'm not going to argue that the recent surge in interest in HTML5 is because of Apple. But let's not confuse interest in the platform with abandoning flash. Most of these companies haven't abandoned flash. And they won't for some time. They will continue to offer their content in the latest and greatest formats to reach the LARGEST audience.

For example - a company sees that 95 percent (fact out of the air) of people have flash. 5 % (another FOA) can't view flash. They are offering their sites to 100 % of the viewers if they use both formats + any other new format that has a large install base.

Fact is - the 95 percent who view their sites are not viewing them in browsers that support HTML5. Who knows what that percentage is at the moment. But it's not 95 percent in the slightest.
 
foresight, baby.

IN all honesty this whole hoopla is over flash VIDEO.

Simply put, every major media company should have perked up when Adobe announced H.264 support for flash. They should have started transcoding all new files to H.264 then and started the process of transitioning their catalog. They would have still been using the same Flash front end for all their sites, simply requiring people to upgrade to the latest version of flash to support that H.264.

Now they could just hire some app dev for a month to make a nice app for any one several mobile devices that just serves up the H.264 video through an app itself and bypasses flash, and they'd be right on par. Several companies DID do this... NBC and TW I suppose didn't, and they're bitching now about all the work that'd be involved in making the overhaul. Lack of foresight. Simple.
 
Shame on NBC and Time Warner. Within a year they will change their tune.

Besides, there is nothing to watch on NBC anyway.
 
pharmx said:
Having to to code twice (one way for Microsoft, and another way for every other company) has been a nightmare, and if Adobe gets their way, it will happen all over again.
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I agree. Having to code twice is a nightmare. (I'd rather describe it as inefficient and costly, but okay...)

Now tell me, how do you feel about Apple forcing developers to use their native Xcode tools, instead of allowing 3rd party tools (like Adobe's CS5) to easily reuse code and deploy apps on multiple platforms?

Apple is doing exactly the thing you hate: Having to code twice.
 
Seriously

briankwest77 said:
Thanks for making my mind up... guess I won't be watching any of their content. :p

/b
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Other than "The Biggest Loser", which NBC stubbornly refuses to offer in HD, what have they done lately that's worth a flip? Following the whole Conan/Leno debacle, this just proves NBC is run by a bunch of inept, out of touch idiots.
 
There's still a ton of old video content on the web that is encoded in Flash, but over the last 4 quarters encoding of new video content for the web has swung dramatically in favor of h.264.

Link
 
Captain! I think is see an iceberg dead ahead!

(Captain) We have time to make up if the Titanic will make port in time. FULL SPEED AHEAD!
 
cocky jeremy said:
Apple pretty much controls stuff, inside and outside of Apple itself. Here's a quick question. Do you think, if Apple had Flash on the iPhone and iPad, all of these websites would be switching to HTML5 now? That's what i thought..
Click to expand...

If true, that would mean that the companies would not be seeing enough benefit in adopting the "superior", "open" standards of HTML5 + h.264 + javascript vs. Flash. If you have to forbid access to an established standard to win support for a new one, you're being more of a bully rather than letting the public be won over with a superior technology.

As tech keeps moving along, wallets vote for "better" technologies; it is not forced upon the public. We Apple fans can make tremendous arguments that OS X is superior to Windows, but that doesn't means a powerful entity should force the public to stop using Windows so that OS X can be adopted more quickly.

If HTML5 + H.264 + Javascript is the better solution it would win because it is better (as demonstrated by more people voting with their wallets to support HTML5, etc versions of web experiences). If Flash is "good enough" though- that is, if HTML5, etc doesn't show enough of an advantage that those wallet holders are generally indifferent, then Flash would continue to be the favored way... because it already works with 97% of all browsers everywhere.

The solution is not to FORCE change on users, but to show users superior options that motivate them to support such changes. It appears that HTML5, etc is not showing that superiority strongly enough to make this happen naturally, so Apple is trying to force the issue by forbidding the thoroughly established alternatives on their excellent iDevices. I for one would rather not have Apple make such choices for me, as acceptance & support of Steve deciding for us can just lead to more Steve decisions at the expense of user wants. Is a world where Apple could have influence on par with Microsoft's domination of OS and Office a desirable world, or would that just fuel the fire for Apple to make many other self-interest decisions for us that is good for Apple's coffers at user choice expense?
 
To make a point I see often I dont think SJ is trying to not allow flash for sales and such. Simple reason is say by the end of the year most websites support HTML5 and other resources for mobile and nix flash; then you wont see Apple not allow certain websites not to be viewed or anything like that. On my Macbook I can watch South Park on sotuhparkstudios (I really want them viewable on the idevices) so I dont have to buy them on itunes or whatever since I can view em for free.

From my point of view on this, they should do what Android is doing and just give the option. HTML5 will win out eventually and flash isn't going to be standard for too many more years. It is going to be here for the foreseeable future though. Looks like ego and some kind of butt hurt over something between those companies. IMO Jobs should have just kept his mouth shut and never said anything on why it isn't there.

At times he really doesn't resemble a CEO. He resembles a really weird mofo more often than not. Either way Jail-breaking is quite easy so whatever.

EDIT: I do think the new standards over flash are WAY better. Just not there yet.
 
I can't believe that so many people are surprised about this. Companies that have a lot of their assets formatted for Flash are not suddenly going to drop all of that simply because of the iPad. It's pretty clear that there are going to be a lot of Android driven tablets and phones released in the next twelve months.

Why re-architect your whole web platform for what could end up being a small fraction of the market? Adobe will certainly produce a Flash client that is hardware accelerated browser plugin for these devices. Until the Apple devices reach a significant market share it's just not economically sensible to drop everything. And not forgetting on how Flash provides a lot more control over the experience than HTML5 can currently do. Maybe in 5 to 10 years time, and even then it will require Apple to do something they've never managed in the past - dominate the OS market. Right now it's all pie in the sky.
 
samcraig said:
Some people need to use better logic. Most if not all of these websites aren't SWITCHING over but offering multiple ways to view their site. That's not a switch. That's adding.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like the start of a logical transition plan away from Flash. I'm not a Flash fan (hate proprietary standards - the consumer suffers in the end), but I'm not unrealistic in my expectations and I don't believe it's prudent (business-wise) to dump all Flash content right now. It will take some time. A day or two is all they all need, right? ;-)
 
Zaphodz said:
Well, I guess that means for every million new iPhones/iPads/iPod Touches sold, that a million less people going to visit their sites. Thats:

42.5 milliion iPhones (2009)
32.5 million iPod Touches (2009)
1 million iPads in 28 days and counting with European release tomorrow...

(Please excuse me if these figures aren't super accurate, I only did a quick search, but it makes a point).

Hmmm, that's a lot of people to be cutting out of your market.

Oh well, I guess they'll change when they feel they have to.

Zaphodz
Click to expand...

The number of devices that can run Flash, and so happily access these websites, is measured in the high hundreds of millions. Apple have a long way to go before content providers move en masse to a Flash free world. It's just simple economics.
 
So, bittorrent has all their content for the taking.

At least CBS and ABC generate ad revenue from their iPad reformulations.

If NBC and TW maintain their best iPad choice is to steal content and AirVideo it, then they should not complain too much when people do that.
 
Peace said:
I understood what it does very well. I think you misunderstood the implications behind Comcast starting to embrace the iPad.;)
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OK my bad I guess. What are the implications then?
Comcast doesn't have to embrace HTML5 in order to support ipad, espcially with a native app.
 
I remember when everyone jumped on the "HD DVD" (and "beta tapes") bandwagon saying it was the wave of the future. Every company that put all their eggs into it lost out big time. NBC, Time Warner and others are making the right decision by waiting.

No one, not even Apple can name a browser thats 100% html 5 compliant. Html 5 is still in development. Everyone keeps talking about the video tag but is missing that so much more is needed to be able to do what Flash does
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
... so Apple is trying to force the issue by forbidding the thoroughly established alternatives on their excellent iDevices.
Click to expand...

But did Apple leave Flash out because of malice, or because there was not, at the time, a Flash implementation that ran acceptably on a mobile device? (From the videos I've seen of Flash 10.1 running on a Nexus one, there still isn't a Flash implementation that runs acceptably on a mobile device.)
 
WilliamLondon said:
And Android prostitutes itself on how many different handsets? That's as daft as comparing Windows OS sales to Mac machines. One is hardware, one is software. The comparison is silly.
Click to expand...

Actually, the comparison is not all that silly, though I agree with how you've differentiated the companies. Google are positioning Android in the same way Microsoft positioned Windows. We all know where that led to in the "Microsoft vs Apple" wars of the early nineties. Maybe if Apple started distributing the OS to other hardware manufacturers they could prevent a repeat. Or maybe they're happy with a 5-10-15% market penetration. They are after all still a hardware company and have very healthy margins. It's just the fanboys who complain that they're not dominant. The shareholders couldn't care less :).
 
Lord Vader said:
HTML5 has nothing to do with DRM. Flash is a plugin that supports DRM. HTML5 is not a plugin it's a web standart builtin into the browser. Support for DRM video could be builtiin the same way with no need for plugins. Underperforms how?
Click to expand...

Word from the wise... Read more, comment less. You'll get there one day. Maybe.
 
ericmooreart said:
I remember when everyone jumped on the "HD DVD" (and "beta tapes") bandwagon saying it was the wave of the future. Every company that put all their eggs into it lost out big time. NBC, Time Warner and others are making the right decision by waiting.

No one, not even Apple can name a browser thats 100% html 5 compliant. Html 5 is still in development. Everyone keeps talking about the video tag but is missing that so much more is needed to be able to do what Flash does
Click to expand...

Flawed or not this is how a large corp. protects itself for technology. Its needed in some cases.
 
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