NBC and Time Warner Continue to Back Flash Over HTML5

[s8film40]

Some of you guys dont understand the history and the connection NBC has. Look at what they own. Any backlash from Apple would be stoopid. Also you will watch their shows because thats what they do best bring people in. THey have the NFL. So you are not going to watch Sunday games cause they have Flash....yeah ok fanboys!

I'm going to watch what I want and how I want. If NBC makes it easy for me I will use there App or site or whatever they have. If NBC drags their feet and doesn't find a way to distribute their content in a way thats easy for me to get, I'll find it one way or another, it's just that NBC/Time Warner might not make a profit. I don't think I'm alone.

 

[floatingspirit]

NBC can make some shows that are fun to watch and then I'll care.

 

[pdjudd]

BTW: we use iPads here so none of what I am saying effects me .

Lucky you! At least at our company we have started elevating iPhone recommendations over blackberry. It's progress I suppose.

 

[Jaro65]

Six months max before they sing a different tune. Short sighted fools.

I think so too. It is in their benefit to make their content available to as many potential viewers as they can.

 

[blackpond]

Of course the alternative to acquiring their content on these devices is through the iTunes store. Seems these companies are bent on sharing their revenue with Apple.

 

[ranReloaded]

As for playback compatibility, it can't be so hard:
Embed a Flash player (which loads .h264 videos) and fall back to <video> tag (which loads the SAME .h264 videos), or vice-versa...and voilá, everyone happy. I mean, how many pages do they have to recode? How many "Player" pages do they have? The library must already be in .h264, granted.

The only concerns remaining would be DRM and commercials. If the commercials are independent movie clips, I bet some clever Javascript can load them interleaved to the main feature and manage clicks, etc.. If it's YouTube-style banners it could be different...

just my 0.02

 

[hachre]

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

/b

Agreed.

 

[charlituna]

Look at the present reality. Even Apple's own browser does not yet fully support HTML5 and the bundle of technologies that come with it. There is not even a standard for video in the HTML5 bundle yet.

true and a good point.

that being said, WWDC is less than 2 weeks away and for all we know the 'lack of surprises' could include the release of a new HTML5 supporting Safari (with perhaps extension support as well if the rumors are true) and an update to iweb (if not all of ilife) that includes the HTML5 coding support.

 

[saurus]

Business 101 anyone?

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200905-201004

IE6 still has 12% marketshare, ALL versions of Safari combined have still yet to catchup to that number. The marketshare of Safari users on an iPad are less than 1% and won't likely breakout of that for quite some time to come. Microsoft has been trying to kill of IE6 for ages (take a look at Microsoft Australia's webpage for evidence of that) because it knows how IE6 is holding back Internet design and capabilities. IE6 can't run HTML5.

Still this brings up the question that must be asked: Which viable business would willingly rewrite their entire video content delivery system for the underdog with insignificant presence in the browser market? The answer should be NONE if they want to keep their shareholders happy - who know that 95% of existing users can use Flash, which is significantly higher than the number of users that can run HTML5.

A million iPads is insignificant in the great scheme of things, and we have no idea what trends the iPad will accomplish when other Pad designs start to flood the market. Steve knows this, but the FUD machine would tell you otherwise.

 

[huntercr]

And started installing *zip drives* in macs.

At the time, that wasn't a bad move. They were the dominant media at the time and were skyrocketing in popularity.

going from 1.44MB -> 100MB was thought of as such a big leap that people would have plenty of time to adjust.

The thing they didn't count on was the rapid expansion of the power of the LAN. When zip drives came out, 10Mbit has been the standard for going on 10 years. 100Mbit was on the rise, but people generally thought it would be reserved for core switches. ( heck I remember the day my department interconnected to our local backbone via 200Mbit full duplex etherchannel... we thought it was amazing )

Anyway... what people hadn't counted on where the new kids on the block.

Juniper, Netgear, linksys. The latter two revolutionized inexpensive layer 2 switches. In 3 years the world went from 10mbit hubs with 100mbit backplanes to 100mbit switches with gigabit backplanes.
The went from 8K combined caches to 8K per PORT caches.
Tiny little 8 and 16 port switches having more horsepower than the massive central behemoths they were replacing.

So everyone went on a wiring frenzy.
This of course would basically repeat itself on the internet a few years later, once DSL/Cable subscriptions got large enough.

A similar thing happened with CD-Rs... once CD-R media got under $1 a piece, people stopped giving a damn at all about floppies or Zipdrives.

I used to have 25 packs of CDRWs I ended up having to give away because people wouldn't even bother to erase... cheaper to use once and toss it.


All in all I think Apple made the right call. I think it would have been impossible to predict how fast that media would become obsolete ( and now All media basically, with a slight footnote reserved for thumbdrives etc )

 

[s8film40]

That's why you wouldn't want to own their stock? Because they waiting before investing their money into the format war winner? I'm sure their stockholders were very happy that they waited vs investing in the WRONG format.

I'm more interested in businesses that lead in their industry. A business that continually uses a wait and follow business mindset will usually do Ok but will not really grow.

Meanwhile the other big story today is that Apple has surpasses Microsoft and is the second largest US company behind Exxon/Mobile

So yeah if I owned any stock in Time Warner it would be moving to Apple. I'm not an Apple fan boy just looks to make sense to me.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I'm going to watch what I want and how I want. If NBC makes it easy for me I will use there App or site or whatever they have. If NBC drags their feet and doesn't find a way to distribute their content in a way thats easy for me to get, I'll find it one way or another, it's just that NBC/Time Warner might not make a profit. I don't think I'm alone.

At the same token what ever revenue they might of brought in converting to HTML 5 would still be less than what it cost to convert over to it so it is still a net loss to them.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Once again... If Apple supported Flash, no one would ever need to change and we would be stuck to Flash even ten years from now.

This is totally unsupported by every other tech advance not requiring the established solution becoming forbidden for progress. When autos were trying to get going, did we have to kill all the horses and destroy all the buggies? Note that you can still buy & use horses & buggies today. When the light bulb tried to get going, did we have to forbid the ongoing use of candles & lanterns? No, you can still buy & use candles & lanterns today. Did we have to forbid the use of OS9 so that OSX could take over? Did we have to forbid iPods without video so that iPods with video could take over? Etc.

In all things, the better technology can supplant the lessor technology. You don't have to forbid or kill the lessor technology to give the better technology the ability to take over. It just does if the public decides (with their wallets) that it is the better technology.

10 years from now is a long time in tech terms. My guess is that Flash- whether Apple sticks with this stance or not- will still be in pretty heavy use, even then. On the other hand, HTML5 final ratification as a standard isn't even expected to be completed 10 years from now.

Right now, Apple's HTML5 + H.264 + javascript alternative works on about 8% of the browsers in play. Flash works on 97% of browsers in play. 5 years from now, HTML5 might grow 300-400+% more, but Flash would probably still work on 9X% of browsers in play. 10 years from now... who really knows? But 10 years from now is not TODAY. And it's a shame that these fantastic iDevices we buy and use for the next year or three are limited by Apple's choice instead of each user's choice (to install or not install Flash on their own iDevice... and enjoy or suffer the added content or consequences).

 

[seven2k7]

I'm going to watch what I want and how I want. If NBC makes it easy for me I will use there App or site or whatever they have. If NBC drags their feet and doesn't find a way to distribute their content in a way thats easy for me to get, I'll find it one way or another, it's just that NBC/Time Warner might not make a profit. I don't think I'm alone.

If you watch no matter where you get it from someone paid! Its called copyrights.

 

[ghostface147]

In your face Apple. Get your head out of your butt and let flash run. There's even an option in settings that will allow a user to disable plugins. Morons.

 

[Lord Vader]

It's two fold:

1) First the simple one... HTML5 doesn't (yet) offer the copy protection that HULU has managed to keep going for so long ( I completely understand their fear here )

2) Comcast wants NBC to remain an exclusive platform... they are going to try and leverage their infrastructure to try to dominate digital delivery in the future, and they have to take a stand against apple wherever they can.
If they stick with flash right now, it makes people upset that they can't watch that content easily, and they're hoping this will cause people to jump ship away from the itunes/iPhone OS/ HTML5 future Jobs envisions.

What has HTML5 to do with DRM?

 

[george6000]

talk about biting them selves in the floor

 

[bommai]

As Microsoft is a co-owner of NBC, I'm not surprised by their position on the use of Flash. Time-Warner's reaction is a little puzzling. One would think that going forward they may change their tune. Especially if they want to enter into the subscription market.

Wrong!! NBC is owned by GE and is in the process of sale to Comcast. Soon, NBC will be owned by Comcast!! You might be thinking of MSNBC which is a news channel started by NBC and Microsoft as a joint venture. I believe Microsoft has divested itself off this venture though.

 

[Peace]

It's two fold:

1) First the simple one... HTML5 doesn't (yet) offer the copy protection that HULU has managed to keep going for so long ( I completely understand their fear here )

2) Comcast wants NBC to remain an exclusive platform... they are going to try and leverage their infrastructure to try to dominate digital delivery in the future, and they have to take a stand against apple wherever they can.
If they stick with flash right now, it makes people upset that they can't watch that content easily, and they're hoping this will cause people to jump ship away from the itunes/iPhone OS/ HTML5 future Jobs envisions.

2. You do realize Comcast is coming out with a native iPad app for it's cable boxes don't you ?

 

[ranReloaded]

We may not see the death of Flash any time soon, but Apple has achieved quite a bit for support of HTML5 already.

 

[blackpond]

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200905-201004

IE6 still has 12% marketshare, ALL versions of Safari combined have still yet to catchup to that number. The marketshare of Safari users on an iPad are less than 1% and won't likely breakout of that for quite some time to come. Microsoft has been trying to kill of IE6 for ages (take a look at Microsoft Australia's webpage for evidence of that) because it knows how IE6 is holding back Internet design and capabilities. IE6 can't run HTML5.

Still this brings up the question that must be asked: Which viable business would willingly rewrite their entire video content delivery system for the underdog with insignificant presence in the browser market? The answer should be NONE if they want to keep their shareholders happy - who know that 95% of existing users can use Flash, which is significantly higher than the number of users that can run HTML5.

A million iPads is insignificant in the great scheme of things, and we have no idea what trends the iPad will accomplish when other Pad designs start to flood the market. Steve knows this, but the FUD machine would tell you otherwise.

I agree with this. But there is one aspect of this that makes no business sense. Though the user base is currently small, NBC & Time Warner both offer content on the iPhone and iPad through the iTunes store. So in this case they are offering content to these users but they are supporting and growing the 'middle man' (iTunes/Apple) in the process. Perhaps, in their view, a small price to pay for the lack of resources to hire a coder to make an HTML5 video player.... but they are supporting the growth of a platform that is not in their control.

Every NBC episode purchased through iTunes is another episode tying the end user to the iTunes ecosystem...

 

[mockindignant]

What has HTML5 to do with DRM?

Flash provides the facilities for video AND DRM. HTML 5 offers a non final implementation of video that underperforms flash and is supported on significantly less extant browsers.

 

[bommai]

This is totally unsupported by every other tech advance not requiring the established solution becoming forbidden for progress. When autos were trying to get going, did we have to kill all the horses and destroy all the buggies? Note that you can still buy & use horses & buggies today. When the light bulb tried to get going, did we have to forbid the ongoing use of candles & lanterns? No, you can still buy & use candles & lanterns today. Did we have to forbid the use of OS9 so that OSX could take over? Did we have to forbid iPods without video so that iPods with video could take over? Etc.

In all things, the better technology can supplant the lessor technology. You don't have to forbid or kill the lessor technology to give the better technology the ability to take over. It just does if the public decides (with their wallets) that it is the better technology.

10 years from now is a long time in tech terms. My guess is that Flash- whether Apple sticks with this stance or not- will still be in pretty heavy use, even then. On the other hand, HTML5 final ratification as a standard isn't even expected to be completed 10 years from now.

Right now, Apple's HTML5 + H.264 + javascript alternative works on about 8% of the browsers in play. Flash works on 97% of browsers in play. 5 years from now, HTML5 might grow 300-400+% more, but Flash would probably still work on 9X% of browsers in play. 10 years from now... who really knows? But 10 years from now is not TODAY. And it's a shame that these fantastic iDevices we buy and use for the next year or three are limited by Apple's choice instead of each user's choice (to install or not install Flash on their own iDevice... and enjoy or suffer the added content or consequences).

Actually USB 1.1 existed for several years and not adopted by PCs at all until the iMac came out with only USB and no serial port. Then we started seeing fancy and funky looking USB perepherals.

 

[s8film40]

If you watch no matter where you get it from someone paid! Its called copyrights.

There are quite a few sources out there that violate copyright laws. I'm not saying it's right or legal, of course it's not, but not adapting to new technology is the best way to support these other sources. It's not a good business move, people will find what they want.

 

[Peace]

If the Ballmer story is true I can see where all this is going.

Silverlight will replace flash on OSX.