Read/Write Web says that Adobe is launching a new flash.

First, this from Adobe.

“Adobe is committed to providing a seamless creation-to-playback solution that allows creatives and developers to produce video and rich-media once, and then deploy that content across the widest array of distribution and playback environments,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe. “The inclusion of the H.264 codec in Adobe Flash Player, Adobe AIR, the Creative Suite product line, and the upcoming Adobe Media Player will accelerate customer workflows, enabling the creation and repurpose of high-quality Web video content without extra development costs.”

Now this from Read/Write Web.

Adobe today announced the latest version of its near ubiquitous Web video software, Adobe Flash Player 9. It’s codenamed Moviestar, because it includes H.264 standard video support – the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video players. In other words, the quality of video has been substantially improved from the previous version of Flash Player 9. Also added to the mix is High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support and “hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback”.

Adobe claims that these advancements will extend their leadership position in web video “by enabling the delivery of HD television quality and premium audio content”.

You can read the full, detailed documentation here.
What EXACTLY Does This Even Mean For Online Video?

Good question. The article says a few things specifically for web video producers.

1) The H.264 support means superior video quality; it is also an open standard.

2) High Efficiency Advanced Audio is, says Mark Randall, a “successor to MP3″. He said it is a higher quality audio, but at a lower bit rate.

3) It means “hardware acceleration” for Web video.

Randall also said that this represents a tipping point for the H.264 standard, because now Flash Player is supporting it as well Blu-Ray - two big industry players.

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