TAKE A PEEK INTO THE FUTURE WITH ADOBE

SINGAPORE: Adobe Systems recently held an event at the Arts House, at the Old Parliament to preview the latest edition of its Flash Media Server technology for video streaming and real-time communications, and the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium.
The event was presented by Pete Brownstein, Adobe's Market Development Manager for Dynamic Media in Asia and Brian Chau, Adobe's Web Marketing Development Manager for Asia-Pacific.
Do you want to be the next Youtube?It took Brian merely minutes to setup and run the first streaming demonstration, showing the audience how simple it was to create progressive video download and live streaming. Imagine what it take to you started on being the next Youtube. What's more astounding was some of the facts & figured shared by Brian Chau. In a survey extracted from ComScore (Sept 2007) over 134 million internet users watched videos online, viewing over 9 billion video clips, with an average of 181 minutes per viewer per month, or 68 clips per month.
In a recent survey conducted by Scene7 (an Adobe company) their findings have shown that more than 50 percent of web marketers plan to deploy new features and rich internet enhancements - which include enhanced imagery, personalization and user-generated content to their sites within the next 6 months and 93 percent say they will deploy these within the year.
Brian believes that video, be it live streaming or on-demand will continue to grow. ADOI managed to catch up with Brian to ask him what he thought the landscape of the online space will be like.
"At Adobe we always believe in experience. Experience is what sells. In the immediate future we want to take video beyond just a passive experience, we seek interactive participation", commented Brian Chau, Adobe's Web Marketing Development Manager for Asia-Pacific.
Key highlights of the new Media Server was its improved performance, better encryption security and its licensing model which now offers unlimited users. Proud owners of the Media server would be limited only by the hardware requirements. The Media server now features industry-standard, high-performance live H.264 and ON2VP6 video to a higher volume of subscibers in real time. In addition to W3C-compliant ASCII logs, which enable real-time usage monitoring, complete with the necessary APIs for server and stream events. In layman terms, it will provide better tracking of audience usage and ability to generate the required reports.
The new Flash Media Server 3 comes in 2 versions; Flash Media Interactive Server 3 and the Flash Media Streaming Server 3. The Interactive server supports multiway applications, including webcam chat, online games, VoIP, video blogging and numerous other interactive capabilities. The Streaming server features stream protection, high-quality live and on-demand video. The Interactive server now priced at RM15,989.00, while the Streaming server is priced at RM3,539.00.
Get your free copy of Adobe Media Development Server 3The good news for developers is that Adobe Systems is now offering FREE downloads of its Flash Media Development Server. The development server is not limited to local IP, which means you could use it for commercial purposes, however it is limited to 10 concurrent users. It is one good way to test the full-features of the Media Server 3 now, but with it's new attractive pricing model one should not find it to be a big pinch on the pocket to upgrade. However, just be warned that the minimum hardware requirements are 2Gb of RAM, Intel Pentium 4 and a 1Gb Ethernet card.
Adobe's new desktop applicationOther than previewing the new features of the Media server, Brian when on the explain Adobe's move towards applications beyond the browser. He introduced the new Adobe AIR, which stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime. It is essentially a platform which enables Flash developers to build desktop based applications, without having to re-learn new programming languages. Flash developers with existing skills in actionscipt, javascript, AJAX, XML are now able to build more complex applications for destops with Adobe AIR. You can find the latest download for Beta 3 of Adobe AIR here.
One of the initiatives that Adobe have taken is the development of the Adobe Media Player (AMP). Developed with Adobe AIR, Adobe Systems is taking the lead in building this new desktop application that would enable video streaming, rich content and much more. The new AMP, which is crossed platform for both PC and Mac, will likely be due out some time in the 3rd Quarter of 2008. However, you would to sample the pre-release 2 version of AMP, it can be downloaded here. AMP allows users to archive and manage all their FLV format videos.
About Adobe Systems Incorporated Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.