Media publishers can now stream Flash-based video to iPhones and iPads, Adobe has announced.
Adobe's Flash Media Server 4.5 will allow publishers to stream Flash-based video to iPads and iPhones. Photo credit: James Martin/CNET News
On Thursday, Adobe released Flash Media Server 4.5, which introduces support for Apple's iOS mobile operating system. It does this by letting broadcasters stream Flash-based video content in an Apple-derived format, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS).
Apple's iPhone and other mobile devices are well known for not supporting Flash, so in April Adobe said it had come up with a workaround.
Flash Media Server usually packages video streams using MPEG4 fragments, in the F4F file format. However, the new version adds support for a different protocol, HLS, which Apple created for QuickTime and iOS.
Where the media server system detects a lack of Flash support on the client device, it delivers the content in an MPEG2 stream, using the HLS format. HTML 5-capable browsers also support HLS, so using it makes it easier for broadcasters to reach a wider audience.
The end result is that Flash-based video content can now be delivered to iOS devices by using Apple's technology, in a way that requires almost no extra effort on the part of the publisher. Microsoft has been doing the same thing to get Silverlight-based content onto Apple mobile devices since 2009.
However, the advent of Flash Media Server 4.5 only enables Flash video streaming to iPhones and iPads. Flash-based games, animations and advertisements will still not work on such devices.
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Talkback
Wowza Media Server 2, a strong competitor to Adobe's Flash Media Server has allowed users to stream Flash content to iOS devices for a year or so now.
Adobe is just a bit slow off the mark.
is this something that has to be downloaded???
This post has been removed by a moderator.
No. This is something web developers will use to add video content to their site. This means the end users, like you and I, will have no way of knowing which sites have video we can watch. It will kind of be a luck of the draw type deal.