NBC and Time Warner Continue to Back Flash Over HTML5

[guerro]

I always wonder how many of the people who comment on this issue are actually web developers and understand the differences between what HTML5, CSS, Javacript, and Flash can do.

You cannot do everything with HTML5, even though Apple wants to make it sound that way. There are things that Flash can do that HTML5 and Javacript simply can't, and NBC has made that clear with their statement they made about Hulu.

You all are quick to take Apple's side, but I bet most of you don't even know the difference between HTML5 and Flash. (It's not even HTML that would be doing most of the work anyway; It's Javascript.)

Thank you for mirroring my sentiments. I see a lot of posts in this thread where people are posting and it is clear that they do not understand the technology well enough. It's all Apple is good and great, and anything counter to their agenda is bad.

HTML is NOT a standard, the spec is still in draft form and will not be finalized for a couple of years. Implementations of the spec will occur earlier than the final release, but the features will be fragmented across the browsers (they will all support different subsets) and the portion of HTML 5 that is relevant to this discussion, the canvas element, is currently inferior to flash when it comes to rendering (http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2010/03/22/)

I think most people will agree that HTML 5 is the way to go down the road, but Apple's insistence that nothing be developed in flash is the cause of all of the woes. Instead of Apple adopting an industry standard (~90% market penetration) that a large development community already knows how to use, they opted to go with an untried, largely experimental and non final technology at the expense of their users. Yes, at the expense of us.

Everyone in this thread is blaming these 2 media companies for not spending money to support some political land grab by apple, but why would they invest a large amount of money in supporting a technology that only handles a portion of what flash offers, and that is supported in very few browsers vs. flash which is supported everywhere. It's a losing proposition for them until the HTML 5 spec is final (or near final).

I really hate to side with media companies like these, but they made the right decision as far as I am concerned.

Everything I need to know about Flash I get when it crashes my browser and/or kills my battery. What else is there to know?

"Hi, I am a developer and I don't want to try something new, even if it will be better than what I am currently doing and will allow my content to instantly be available to millions of users that currently cannot see my content in the bloated, buggy format that I refuse to move from."

 

[deadkennedy]

When you design something as revolutionary as the iPhone you can let every piece of **** code onto it. You are designing something great, right? No.

We're talking about whether media companies should abandon Flash in delivering content through the browser. I think you missed the point of an article and went straight into clueless fanboying.

I'm designing something almost as awesome as iPhone OS is, if you want to know.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

Uhh, you want to re-phrase that a teeny bit? All the current implementations of HTML are indeed a standard under the ISO. HTML 5 is a standard as well (not yet ISO, but it is under the WC3 - a standardizing body - as a draft) and is not fully complete, but formal standardization doesn't prohibit implementation. Wireless N devices were being sold long before the standard was finalized.

You have to understand though. This is a roadmap. Companies will need to do a lot of investing and right now its not definitive. Companies are looking at the ROI right now. The only way HTML5 becomes the new Flash is if the industry collectively agrees. Right now its not. Apple turned it into an us vs them battle and that did more harm to US the consumers than anything. Now big companies are more willing to just wait and see.

 

[andiwm2003]

Everyone loves to bash the media companies but no one wants to pay for the content. The fact is, they'll redo their libraries if and when they see a way to make money off of it. [/Devil's advocate]

they don't have to redo the old libraries. they just need to start releasing new content in a new format. the investment should be quite low because they can use off the shelf technology.

but we will see. when flash sucks on google TV, android and it's unavailable on the iphone and iPad they will miss out on 20 mio potential viewers by the end of the year. if flash gets updated to a good player than apple will have to support it.

either way we will get the nbc/time warner content within a year.

 

[bocomo]

support both formats.

THIS!

 

[cutmoney]

Yeah, great plan since only a few people own iPod Touches, iPads, or iPhones...oh wait. I don't know about TimeWarner, but NBC is always making terrible decisions like this, kind of like how they decided to pull their content off of iTunes for a while. Oh well, I guess I'll just watch more ABC shows on my iPad and save the couple NBC shows that I still like for my TiVo where I can skip past the commercials.

Besides, it doesn't matter what the iPad is compatible with, it just makes more sense to encode with standard format which is compatible on a wider range of devices. Flash is slow, processor intensive, and is no longer necessary. Back when there were few (if any) alternatives for animation and interactive content, Flash made sense since it was the only option, but that's no longer the case.

 

[SqB]

Read this!

These are good points, but the final truth for me and for lots of others is that I like using my iPad and my flash disabled Safari much better than I like the dredge that NBC plays. It's a personal decision that works for me. Folks who like NBC shows just need to find an alternative to watch it. I can't see putting flash on the ipad just to suit the folks who can't let go of NBC, Farmville, and the like.

 

[pdjudd]

Anyone notice the MSNBC video player works on iPad (accessed via msnbc.com). What's the delivery system for that? Certainly not flash!

I find that intriguing considering this announcement.

Velo

My guess is that it has to do with the fact that MSNBC is a joint venture involving Microsoft - from what I can determine, the site itself is operated out of the Microsoft campus.

 

[ArcaneDevice]

HTML5 can't replace flash yet, but Apple is behaving like HTML5 is a matured standard that can totally replace Flash.

Exactly. There is no reason for Apple not to allow Flash support for those that want to use it in the interim, other than Jobs throwing a hissy fit in his increasingly Orwellian world.

It's also funny to read all the calls to kill Flash because it isn't "the future." If ten years ago television networks had gone completely HD and killed the SD and analog feeds those people would have been the first in line to complain about "HD not being ready yet" and "not everyone uses HD."

I was ready to switch to 100% HD when it was starting out but I didn't insist that the current widespread standard be killed for everyone else.

 

[benpatient]

It may take time to transition but if Apple were to allow Flash on the iPod/iPhone then nobody will move to HTML5. And the user experience would suffer greatly. Instead of looking at it as a roadblock you should be looking at it as an opportunity. Wouldn't you like to reach the millions of iPod touch/iPhone users?? The glass should be half full for you. It is an untapped market.

see, that's what makes this entire argument so stupid.

If HTML5 with H.264 is better than Flash with whatever codec for video, then eventually, everyone will be using it.

If HTML5 in general is better than Flash for interactive web content, then it will win out. If it's really better, then it doesn't need any help from Steve Jobs to
"protect us" from Flash. That simple fact tells me that something else is behind all of this anti-flash stuff, and I have no doubt that it's mostly down to money and ego.

It has nothing to do with user experience.

If they allowed flash on the ipad or iphone, then nobody would buy 1-5 dollar AppStore games that are basically Flash games re-written and "apple approved".

It would hurt Apple's bottom line.

Kind of like lala was hurting Apple's bottom line more and more every day as they added new users who discovered that they need not spend any money to listen to an album once all the way through, thank you very much.

I've started spending more time with Chrome as an alternate to safari in my daily browsing, because I've noticed that it is notably faster. i have click-to-flash installed for Safari, and flash set to run normally on Chrome, and guess what? Chrome is usually still faster at loading pages like THIS ONE, which has a big flash banner at the top.

Facebook, gmail, youtube, twitter, all of them load faster on Chrome than Safari. I have no idea how or why, but it is faster. Even with flash. Even on a laptop.

Opening a flash-based video causes the CPU fans to kick in on my macbook, but I know that's because Apple hasn't allowed hardware decoding in flashplayer, because when i boot into windows on the same machine, flash videos don't kick the fan on unless they are 720p or bigger, or really, really long ones (like giantbomb-sized videos)

 

[derek4484]

Why should they change?

As TWC and NBC point out, Flash dominates the web. iDevices are basically the only devices that dont do flash. Why retool your entire library for less than 1% of the web browsers world wide? That's just plain dumb.

Again this is not an endorsement of Flash or saying that Flash is better than HTML5. Just stating a fact.

 

[devinci99]

gain/lost of opportunity, money, audience, ratings, will motivate these companies.

The bean counters at a high level have no idea the technical aspects versus cost/investment differences in html5 and flash. All they see is that flash = html5; while flash dominates the web. So why should they invest $$$ into converting to html5 when they already spent $$$ on flash development/tools; They see this as only Apple vs Adobe. I don't think they even understand that flash player at it's current condition is barely useable if even at all on a mobile platform.

I think they will change their minds once they understand/see the opportunity and impact to reach millions of viewers on these mobile devices.

Hate Apple if you wish, but you have to acknowledge Apple is giving the world of web developing companies and freelancers the carrot to move forward to flash sooner versus later. Apple has created a 'market' or audience of millions of people across the globe.

If companies wants to reach these new audience, they should develop for html5. Simple. The millions of audience is the carrot. There is a TONs of ipad, iphone, ipod touch users out there! hmm

Adobe is STILL allow to continue developing a suitable flash player for iphone OS. It just wont get approved unless it passes minimal quality requirements and does not affect stability of the O/S, Safari, or other apps.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

Exactly. There is no reason for Apple not to allow Flash support for those that want to use it in the interim, other than Jobs throwing a hissy fit in his increasingly Orwellian world.

It's also funny to read all the calls to kill Flash because it isn't "the future." If ten years ago television networks had gone completely HD and killed the SD and analog feeds those people would have been the first in line to complain about "HD not being ready yet" and "not everyone uses HD."

I was ready to switch to 100% HD when it was starting out but I didn't insist that the current widespread standard be killed for everyone else.

Once its the majority the big players will follow. Until than its roadmap discussion for a lot of the big players.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

Opening a flash-based video causes the CPU fans to kick in on my macbook, but I know that's because Apple hasn't allowed hardware decoding in flashplayer, because when i boot into windows on the same machine, flash videos don't kick the fan on unless they are 720p or bigger, or really, really long ones (like giantbomb-sized videos)

This x10

 

[Peace]

I don't get most of my video content from NBC/TW from their websites. I hardly ever visit them as a matter of fact.
There's only two shows I watch from them and they both have very nice podcast versions I download every day.

They don't need HTML5. I don't need Flash.

Fine by me. I could care less if they stick with flash.

 

[marksman]

Company I work for is a company like NBC and we face the same issues. 10's of millions of dollars in investments and contracts of servers, software, and SLA's. Just because Apple's iPad is out doesn't mean that its necessary for us to invest 50-100 million dollars in changing our digital deployment scheme. HTML5 is not standard yet and in fact the iPad is still in its infancy. Maybe later on the change will happen but right now, why? Just because Apple said so? No Flash is the standard and until that changes it makes no sense for large companies with large investments to just follow.

You sound like the TimeWarner and NBC folks who made this announcement. You don't understand your own technology. All those things you talk about are irrelevant to not using flash.

 

[iZac]

No, it doesn't. It slows down the entire device, sucks battery power, scrolls very choppily...

Agreed! As much as I love Flash (it’s a damn animation tool, not video packager) it proved unusable in-browser on the Nexus One. I think Adobe are doing sweet FA to ‘make it work’ and watching that Engadget interview, they simply want developers to tone down the actionscripting and slick tweening to ‘optimise’ them for mobile delivery - basically gimp their games / players / websites until they run well on current mobile hardware.

Alongside Kevin Lynch complaining that Adobe need deeper APIs and GPU access in mobile devices, it's an admission that basically a 1ghz snapdragon CPU is not good enough to run current flash web content. This isn’t going to change.

For all the moaning that companies are doing, to say they won’t redevelop sites for HTML 5, they'll have to do so ANYWAY to re-encode smaller video files that flash will play well on mobile processors. Kevin Lynch said this himself in the Engdaget interview that the 'choppiness' seen in his demo was due to the video encoding, and that companies need to re-encode video files - to basically make them lower bit rates. Note that he didn’t mention that they were going to continue to strip down and re-engineer flash to run more efficiently, make your video file smaller is their answer.

I have a feeling Adobe are hoping to basically weather this storm by waiting for mobile hardware to catch up with the content that is on the web today. In a year or two when there is some future HTC that’s running at 1.7 ghz Adobe will point to it and say … “look, flash runs fine!”

Right now though, there is no easy win for web content. People will need to redevelop to run ‘mobile’ friendly flash or they will have to redevelop to make it run in HTML 5. To be honest though, the march of technology will mean in 2 years all this fighting will be moot because the technology will finally be there to run flash content properly. This being the case, I think lethargy will win out.

 

[Scooterman1]

Let's face it.... There are MANY times more Windows users than OS X. And there are more Android sales now than iPhone(I believe I read that). Flash works great on Windows, and is now working on Android. So..... do the math. Until Apple outnumbers their competitors userbase, they'll just have to dream on SJ changing the standard. He's trying to take on a lot.

 

[mockindignant]

Uhh, you want to re-phrase that a teeny bit? All the current implementations of HTML are indeed a standard under the ISO. HTML 5 is a standard as well (not yet ISO, but it is under the WC3 - a standardizing body - as a draft) and is not fully complete, but formal standardization doesn't prohibit implementation. Wireless N devices were being sold long before the standard was finalized.

It is not a standard until the spec is final. Until that point it is a proposed standard. This is why all of the wireless N routers sold prior to the spec being made final were labeled as Draft N.

 

[derek4484]

...That simple fact tells me that something else is behind all of this anti-flash stuff, and I have no doubt that it's mostly down to money and ego....

Correct! Apple and Adobe have been feuding for quite some time, long before the iphone was a twinkle in stevie's eye.

 

[SqB]

Exactly. There is no reason for Apple not to allow Flash support for those that want to use it in the interim, other than Jobs throwing a hissy fit in his increasingly Orwellian world.

It's also funny to read all the calls to kill Flash because it isn't "the future." If ten years ago television networks had gone completely HD and killed the SD and analog feeds those people would have been the first in line to complain about "HD not being ready yet" and "not everyone uses HD."

I was ready to switch to 100% HD when it was starting out but I didn't insist that the current widespread standard be killed for everyone else.

Is anyone outside of the fanboi zone really calling for the instant death of flash? I think the problem is Adobe hasn't worked on optimizing it which means it works poorly on windows and even more poorly on OS X. I think if they hadn't just sat back and dismissed the popularity of the iDevices and gotten to work optimizing their product and teaching developers how to write good code then this would be a different story.

Let the folks who want to use flash buy a different product. There are lots of netbooks out there and I'm guessing they're about to get real cheap.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

The bean counters at a high level have no idea the technical aspects versus cost/investment differences in html5 and flash. All they see is that flash = html5; while flash dominates the web. So why should they invest $$$ into converting to html5 when they already spent $$$ on flash development/tools; They see this as only Apple vs Adobe. I don't think they even understand that flash player at it's current condition is barely useable if even at all on a mobile platform.

You're wrong. It has nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with the audience.

You have to think these companies are targeting the masses and right now the iPad is doing well and HTML5 will at some point become the gold standard. Right now though, it is not. It makes sense to target what is the standard now and to watch to see what the technology does as it matures and than pull the trigger.

 

[darbus69]

starting my day with a smile!

Serious.
NBC and TW are yesterday's media dinosaurs. I'd rather watch paint dry.

great comment - never did like trying to watch 30 Rock start over and over again - there is WAY TOO MUCH GREAT CABLE programming anyway - network tv is trash, how many ways came an ignorant public watch NCIS and Law and order and not fall into a permanent COMA...

 

[pdjudd]

You have to understand though. This is a roadmap.

I understand that - but my point still stands - calling HTML 5 not a "standard" is not 100% accurate. The W3C considers it a standard in draft form.

I personally don't give a darn what NBC or Time-Warner wants to do - let the consumers decide that. My statement does not have anything to do with a companies business decisions.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

You sound like the TimeWarner and NBC folks who made this announcement. You don't understand your own technology. All those things you talk about are irrelevant to not using flash.

Never said I agree with it, I just know how these people think. I work with them everyday.