Adobe Launches Media Player, Video Site Adobe Media Player to Battle RealPlayer, Windows Media Player Andy Patrizio
Better late than never. Adobe today announced its entry into the streaming media market with the launch of its Media Player and Adobe TV, a free online video resource to host videos for the Media Player.
In beta for some months on the Adobe Labs page, Adobe Media Player 1.0 is an AIR-based application, which makes it a cross-platform application and thus available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
That's a plus over Microsoft's Windows Media Player and RealNetworks' RealPlayer, both of which are Windows only, but it also has a shortcoming in the number of formats it supports — FLV files, which are Flash video files, or H.264-endcoded MPEG-4 files, and that's it.
However, H.264 is a high definition format, so by using it, Adobe TV will offer video in 1080p, 720p, or 480i resolution, which is much higher quality than the grainy, windowed video often seen on YouTube.
One analyst said Adobe was overdue to release a media player. "This is important for Adobe because Adobe didn't have a desktop media player in the past and ceded the ground to Microsoft and RealNetworks, which had a rich media player on the desktop," said Melissa Webster, program vice president for content and digital media technologies at IDC.
Adobe hopes to offer people a more user-friendly interface, since the Media Player is more customizable and programmable than Windows Media Player or Real Player, as well as offer a new way for publishers to reach their audience and monetize their media.
"With Adobe Media Player, we're bringing viewers and content owners closer together, with an experience that doesn't constrain them by platform or proprietary software application," said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe in a statement. "It's a merger of TV Guide and DVR for Internet video content."
Loicono promised professional content from TV shows like "CSI" and "Star Trek" would be available soon. For now, Adobe TV is a little empty. Mostly it's just tutorials on how to use Adobe TV.
Adobe Media Player provides content owners and media publishers multiple ways to distribute their content and measure who is viewing it. It will allow for free content subscriptions and viewing content online or off, so a person isn't hostage to a stream.
Customize the Look
It will also offer features like viewer-centric dynamic advertising for targeted marketing campaigns and the ability to customize the look and feel of the player to match the brand or theme of the video content — features sure to go over well with content owners.
In addition, Adobe TV will let customers subscribe to a series, download them when they are released, and share those videos on their blogs.
Webster thinks Adobe has done a good job balancing the needs of the user and content rights holder. "It offers a consistent look and feel but has some branding capability, too, so I think that should make it appealing for users to adopt," she told InternetNews.com. "And for Adobe it fills a gap in their product lineup around Flash and Flash content."
Launching the two together makes sense, even if Adobe TV is a little empty right now, she added. "This gives Adobe the full arsenal it needs to campaign on rich media, especially video. Now it can do free Flash stuff plus ad sponsored and paid content. It's critical to making the Adobe Media Player successful and getting traffic for it. They had to give people the reason to get the player and use it. I think providing free content from media publishers is the best way to do that," Webster said.
