H264 for Windows Mac and iPhone

[Craig Seeman]

H.264 will work in Quicktime, Flash, Silverlight 3 (in beta).

Flash and Silverlight are extension agnostic. You can wrap an mov or mp4 in them for example.

The viewer will need the appropriate player though. Flash has a very high market penetration.

There’s nothing to prevent you from also providing a direct link to the very same file if you would like to allow the viewer to download the file to the desktop (although a savvy user can pull it out of their cache if the file is progressive download).

Windows Media Player will not play H.264. H.264 compatibility is Silverlight (3 in beta).

iPhones, Touch, other cell phones, don’t have the processor capabilities of a typical computer. They may not be able to decode the file. Generally such devices will need a Baseline (vs Main or High) Profile version of the file as it’s much easier to decode (sacrificing quality).

When you start getting into compatibility for such devices there can be a dizzying array of compatibility issues. iPhones and Touches can’t handle anything wrapped in Flash for example, regardless of codec. Sometimes you’ll need to encode to H.263 or MPEG4 (part 2 ) rather than H.264 (MPEG4 part 10) although some devices can handle H.264 Baseline Profile.

[Ed Dooley]

Adobe says Flash 10 has a 74.5% market penetration. They say Flash 9 is something like 98%, but what they don’t say is what the penetration of the updated Flash 9 that plays H.264 is. For now I’m going with the 75%+- number, which means that I’m not ready to use H.264 in Flash for a general audience. I’m giving it a few months, at least. ON2 has a new version of VP6 that they claim can get the same image quality with up to a 40% decrease in bandwidth, and it plays in Flash 8. I’ve seen a couple of tests that look pretty good.
Ed

[Craig Seeman]

I’ve read that H.264 Flash compatible player was at about 90% a couple of months ago. I wish I could remember the source but it was reputable.

Updated On2VP6 codec only helps if it’s widely distributed to compression apps.

Given that the higher quality Hulu and YouTube HD videos are H.264 I’m guessing H.264 Flash penetration is very high.

[Ed Dooley]

Got it right from the horses mouth, Adobe:
https://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html They rank them through March 2009, so it’s a little higher, I’m sure, but not much.
I don’t understand the VP6 comment. It’s part of all ON2’s products, so it’s a matter of updating whatever ON2 product you own, it’s free.
Ed

[Craig Seeman] “I’ve read that H.264 Flash compatible player was at about 90% a couple of months ago. I wish I could remember the source but it was reputable.

Updated On2VP6 codec only helps if it’s widely distributed to compression apps.

Given that the higher quality Hulu and YouTube HD videos are H.264 I’m guessing H.264 Flash penetration is very high.”

[Don Hertz]

I appreciate the information. It falls in line with what I am experiencing. My web engineer informs me that 97% of the traffic to our site is using Flash 9 or higher – which coincides with Adobe’s numbers. But it sounds like you are saying there was a revision to Flash 9 that added H264 capabilities – so just because they are using Flash 9 doesn’t mean it is going to work.

We use On2VP6 heavily now and I may look into that newer version with improved quality (hadn’t heard of that). You said it still maintains playback compatibility with Flash 8 – so the improvements are in the encoding algorithms – not so much the playback?

Don

Don Hertz
Fusion Media Works

[Ed Dooley]

Adobe released the beta version of the update (Update 3) last August, and followed up with the official release sometime after that (a couple of months later I think), so hard to pin down how many installs of Flash 9 can play H.264.
You’re correct, the new ON2VP6 is included in their free update, so you can get it right away and start using it, and yes, any Flash 8 or higher player can read and play the newer version.
Ed

[Craig Seeman]

Flash 9 Update 3 which an play H.264 was released in December 2007. Now 18 months ago.
The information on market penetration does not differentiate that update.
When you include Flash 9 Update 3, market penetration is MUCH HIGHER than 75%. It was about 90%. The source was not from Adobe as Adobe does not breakout 9 Update 3.

[Craig Seeman]

Dec 3 2007 H.264 playback released
https://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Player:9:Update:H.264

Adobe’s comment on growth.
A: Flash Player is installed on 98% of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide and on a wide range of popular devices. Flash Player installs are driven by content, and new releases of Flash Player take approximately 12 months to reach 90% penetration. There are approximately 8 Million Flash Players installed every day.

That would mean 90% as of Dec 2008 (although speculative) which would be 6 months ago.

[Craig Seeman]

Flash Market share by version

These are April 2009 numbers of versions that play H.264. I get just over 93%
Version 10.0,12,36 – 21.37%
Version 9.0,124,0 – 18.93%
Version 10.0,12,0 – 8.01%
Version 9.0,115,0 – 5.71%
Version 10.0,22,87 – 24.79%
Version 9.0,151,0 – 5.08%
Version 10.0,22,0 – 9.09%
Version 10.0,2,0 – 0.26%

[Daniel Low]

I think one could summarise by saying that it is clear (more so than at any time recently) that you should be delivering your content encoded with H.264. It is clearly going to be the future delivery format of choice (if not already); viewable using Flash, sliverlight or the iPhone (and many other mobile devices). On2 has, and always will be fighting a loosing battle. The sad thing for them is that they keep making stupid claims about the superiority of their codec over H.264 that are so easily debunked in most, but not all cases. – See Doom9 forums and here:

https://provideocoalition.com/index.php/webvideo/story/encoding_web_video_in_the_age_of_the_iphone/P0/

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