The flash issues does seem silly but there is a logic behind its evolution. Flash originally put on mobiles to enable developers to make flash that specificaly targets the device, whether to provide games or net-enabled widgets, screensavers, etc. Not to provide desktop-level flash compatibility in the browser.
I would think this is mostly down to issues of device screen size, input, other useability issues, cpu power & battery lifetime concerns, as well as the fact that completely emulating the desktop browser experience on a mobile is still a relatively new idea, in the past it was all about creating versions of site that specifically targeted mobiles. And whilst this is changing in some ways, in other ways there may always be a need to create content tailored to the mobile. In practice, when Flash lite 3 comes out, this may mean having a 2nd flash video player available that is setup to work better with mobile buttons controlling the UI, and more likely to work on screen resolutions below 320x240. But hopefully the video support will be good enough that flv files that work on the desktop will work on the device, so only the player wrapper will need to be different. >From what I understand, Opera is no part of the N95, Nokia have moved to their own opensource browser based on Apple Webkit. So I dont know what browser-based flash support there was in previous models like the N93. I think they were Flash Lite 1.0, as opposed to 2.0 in the N95. As previously mentioned, the video support in flash lite 2.0 consists of the ability for video formats your phone supports, to be rendered on the screen from within a flash file. I looked at a sample of this on the N95 and it worked with the included 3gpp file and a h264 mp4 file that I had. Its not a wonderful experience and its no good for most uses of flash video that videobloggers are interested in, but again there was a logic to this. It is assumed that the power of mobile devices varies a lot, as does screen size, and so it made sense to support the same video formats that the phone in question supported, the flash player passes the buck to the phone to do that. It was probably also presumed that 3gpp would be king of the mobile formats for a while, probably these were decisions made before the likes of youtube demonstrated that flash video really had 'made it' on the net. Anyway Flash Lite 3 will solve this to some extent, the devil will be in the detail, and I still worry about other issues thats beyond Adobe's control, such as the CPU power of mobiles. Now this N95 doesnt have problems with playing baseline h264 so there must be some hardware power there somewhere, but how easy it will be for adobe to harness that, and cope on lesser phones, remains to be seen. Some of those issues also apply to things like Aggregation on the N95. The app works fine but still requires you to manually tell it to download each video (as far as I can tell so far). This may seem bad but there are practical reasons. Sure its a pain to have to click the videos, but it would also be a big pain to find that memory stick had been filled overnight, or your battery drained overnight by this process. Sure, ideally the option would be there to properly autodownload all subscriptions, but for all I know there may be primitive OS reasons why this isnt easy either, maybe its hard to schedule certain apps to run at a specific time on Symbian? Or as Ram is limited you may not want it sitting in the background. My biggest issues as someone with a N95 who wants to watch download & videoblogs on this phone, is finding feeds that are the right format. The horror that I long droned about here in years past, of perfectly good mpeg4 & h264 content being unplayable on certain devices only because people have wrapped it in a .mov instead of leaving it as naked mp4, has come home to roost for me. The good news is that I think ipod-compatible mp4's will work fine, as the h264 this N95 supports is similar h264 baseline profile stuff. So maybe I need to reignite the mission to get more people to post ipod & other device compatible mp4s instead of mov's. But on the otherhand its far from clear when the majority of phones will support h264, I imagine mpeg4 support is still not a cert in many devices, so those looking to cater for a wide mobile market still need to look at 3gpp stuff. Server-side transcoding makes a lot of sense - much of the likes of blip and youtube's value comes from such things. My only reservation here is about energy use, we'd sure save a lot if one format prevailed from creation to consumption. Im still backing mpeg4 & h264 on that front, although I dont see flash video being displaced. If flash is going to stick around then I would like to see more devices that could make flv's in the first place rather than it being mostly natural for a service to transcode to that format. Flash has got a very unique thing going with the ability to record from users cams & audio through the flash browser plugin. If they could do that on mobiles, theyd really be staking a large place in that territory, and a place in my heart ;) Cheers Steve Elbows --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Mike Meiser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Even still I think your video blog with the N93 was the most effective > mobile videoblog I've seen yet. > > > The problem with watching videos on the N93 is that is has an Opera > > browser which only takes up to Flash 7 (mad). So all Blip flash vids > > are out, and it only has basic MP4, not H264, so a lot of the > > downloads are out as well. > > Good to know. The incompatibility reflects poorly on Adobe, Opera and > Nokia. Why bother implimenting flash at all if they're not going to > keep it up to date. > > I've been talking about server side transcoding for awhile. There > have been tremendous advances in server side transcoding. It would now > be possible to set up a scaleable solution using Amazon's elastic > computing cloud to transcode pretty much any video in a compatible > format on the fly. > > Nathan Frietas' Mux.am is a great example of this technology in > action.... a sort of proof of concept. > > This would not only ensure that you'd be able to watch virtually > ANYTHING on your Nokia, but it could also be used in delivering videos > to all manner of hardware from set top boxes to other cell phones with > more limited video playback than the Nokia. > > BTW, does the N93 support the Symbian based video and audio podcast > aggregator? I'm wondering if you've tried it if so what you think of > it. Last time I saw a demo it was still very primitive. > > > However, the new N95 has H264. > > Also good to know... I thought the N93 and N95 both supported the same > codecs and flash... thought it was just a software issue. I guess > it's to much to ask that such devices support a wide aray of video > formats yet, but we're getting there. > > > Not sure whether the browser will > > stream flash above version 7. Steve Garfield (and now Steve > > Watkins :) ) will be able to tell us. > > I can't seem to find Steve's videoblog on google does he have a url? > > Is there some N93 or N95 mailing list, bboard or usergroup about this stuff? > > Perhaps I could invite you guys all over to the mobile media > workgroup... to use it as your personal playground for discussing > video and audio podcast issues with the N-series. That's pretty much > what it's there for. > > BTW... I heard VOX and Nokia announced a partnership for mobile video > blogging and podcasting, haven't heard nor met anyone who's used it. > > > The editing system in-phone is cool. You can cut a lot of shots > > together simply & effectively once you get the hang of it - like the > > vids I shot in the coffee shop and at the Flashmob, for instance: > > http://twittervlog.blogspot.com/2007/04/twittervlog-1pm-at-goodness- > > chiswick.html > > http://twittervlog.blogspot.com/2007/04/twittervlog-653pm-massive- > > flashmob.html > > Very cool. I can't imagine how it could be easy with a phone, but then > again my $150 digital camera has some primitive editing features so I > guess I could see that it's at least possible. I'll believe it though > when I get my hands on one.... that is when nokia sends me one to > demo. ;) > > > Would be great if Blip could auto top & tail clips with pre-set > > idents - would take editing them in out of the process for all the > > one-shot clips i send, and save me 1 or 2 minutes. > > Exactly. :) > > Been bugging them about the idea for awhile. :) > > Useful for more than mobile vlogging of course. I love that you call > then "idenities". It's a great way to think about it. > > How I'd do it if I was blip ;) ... is I'd use email addy's as one of > the upload mechanisms... and for each idenity give the user a unique > email address to send the videos to. > > > Another thing that would be great is if Blip allowed us to tag our > > videos when mobile uploading - some kind of code in the description > > text that they auto recognize as tags. Also to specify type of > > license. At the moment, I have to go in later and manually add tags > > and cc license. Which I can do on my phone browser, but still... > > Why not make the licensce part of the idenity? > > As per the tags I must agree... if the tags aren't in the RSS when > most aggregators and search engines first crawl the feed then they > don't come back and get them later. Some sort of simple markup like > following would work well. > > tags: tag1, tag2, tag3 > > It's basic comma delimination... the line break determines where the tags end. > > The bigger picture is that there needs to be some standard simple > semantic way to mark up meta information. > > Here's a good question for you... What kind of meta information does > the nokia add to the video. For example... not sure about the N93, but > the N95 has GPS I believe. Theoretically that information should be or > could be stored in the video much like digital camera's store EXIF > information in jpeg photos that is later read by services like flickr. > To automatically transfer geo information from your nokia to blip > would be VERY cool. I know blip now stores and syndicates such > geographic information to search services and aggregators like > vlogmap. > > I imagine this would be damn cool for things like your flash mob video. > > I assume you've also seen twittermap, so I'm guessing you have some > idea what I'm talkinga bout by 'cool'. :) > > > The in-phone podcasting and feedreading capabilities on N93 are there > > but not brilliant, as far as I can tell. I'd love to watch and make, > > all from the same device, but I guess i'll now have to wait until I > > get an N95, where it all seems a bit better. Again, ask Steve G, > > he's the man. He's also posting lots of nice passing moments from > > his N95 at the moment, which otherwise would have gone undocumented. > > You get a little subtle visual impression of his world as it happens. > > Yeah, Steve and I have been swapping some comments here and there. > > I think what we need is a mobile meta vlog... I'm going to see if I > can't get something going. Basically it would aggregate mobile video > from JUST mobile vlogs into one channel... just to get it all into one > place and use it as a catalyst for promotion and discussion of the > matter. Something like what they call a "planet planet" blog. > > Mefeedia already does the hard work at: http://www.mefeedia.com/collections/73/ > > ... so maybe I can clean that up and pipe it all into a blog like > movlogging.blogspot.com or some such. > > > Writing in secret again - better go rejoin the family ;) > > I know what you mean. It's Easter Sunday. :P > > -Mike
