Filed under: Internet, Video, Adobe, Browsers
Flash player 10 is here: impressive performance, new features
I was fully prepared for Flash Player 10 to be totally underwhelming, but it looks as though Adobe has gotten things right this time around.
After looking at the beta back in July, the new features - 3d effects, hardware acceleration, custom filters and effects - intrigued me. I also noted a slight improvement in performance on my workstation. You can view a full list of v10's features on Adobe's web site and try out some of them in an interactive demo.
The 3d draggable DVD case demo is interesting, but far from a perfect illustration of the new capabilities. Take a few seconds and flip it, and you'll notice the cover reappearing on the back and sometimes the bottom edge of the case. I don't doubt that the effects will improve with time, and it's still a promising start.
I'd like to see a more practical demo of the custom filters than what Adobe offers. Call me crazy, but I don't see much use in being able to watch a video clip with a mosaic or spherize filter applied. In the three months between the beta and final release, I expected a demo with a bit more impact.
What I didn't expect was Flash Player 10 actually making my MSI Wind and its piddly Atom CPU capable of finally watching stutter-free FLV clips on the web. Thanks to the new dynamic streaming quality of service abilities and the general performance enhancements, playback is silky smooth even on my underpowered netbook.
Overall, v10 is impressive, and reminds me how exciting Flash was when it first burst onto the scene. It's well worth the download.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rocketboy said 12:39PM on 10-15-2008
I'd just be happy if they finally updated the flash player for embedded systems. I dream of the day I can use my Wii to use Hulu.
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Rizzle said 2:44PM on 10-15-2008
The PS3 was updated to support Flash 9, which is a huge undertaking. I'm hopeful that the Wii will update to at least Flash 9.
The big hurdle is that Flash 9 and above use a completely different (but faster, better) virtual machine (AVM2) than Flash 8 and below (AVM1). AVM2 can understand "old Flash (written in Actionscript 2), as well as the new Actionscript 3 which is is object-oriented and generally awesome for developers.
Once they make the leap to AVM2, they should be able to keep up with updates (like Flash Player 10 which is still AVM2) much more easily
James said 5:21PM on 10-15-2008
@Rizzle: I leapt to Google to deny your claim, but it turns out I'm a few days behind on PS3FB -- !!!! This is fantastic -- there's all kinds of web media I've been ignoring because I like to watch TV *on my TV*, and while I have an HDMI-capable laptop, I do not have a remote for it, so I'd have to jump off the couch and fiddle with the keyboard every time I want to pause something. The idea of watching, say, Hulu, on my TV, using my Bluray remote... awesome.
Jash Sayani said 3:09PM on 10-15-2008
Lots of Adobe updates this year...
AIR 1.0 (Our of beta), CS 4 Suite, Flash 10....
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Lee Mathews said 3:10PM on 10-15-2008
And quality updates, too. Frankly, I'm getting a little scared.
What's next, a 64-bit Flash player? Hahahaha....Oh, my sides...
Ryan Stewart said 9:59PM on 10-15-2008
@Lee, you mean like this? - http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/08/random_blog_post.html
:)
=Ryan
ryan@adobe.com
thiel said 7:20PM on 10-15-2008
I had been using the beta version, but too many websites kept telling me I was using an outdated version of Flash Player!
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Firtch said 3:09AM on 10-16-2008
Yeah, some of my "professional" sites like Vanguard and Yahoo Avatars still have the bug where they look for a 1-digit Flash version number and thin I'm using Flash version 1. Stupid. I have to downgrade just for that.
Brett said 11:45PM on 10-15-2008
How's the memory footprint now? That's my only real flash complaint
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Quikboy said 1:08AM on 10-16-2008
So is it better than Silverlight now? Or not?
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Ray said 1:55PM on 10-21-2008
I installed Flash Player 10 but it won't run?
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