AMSTERDAM - Adobe (www.adobe.com)
previewed something beyond its new Flash Media Server 3 here at IBC. Media
Server 3 will offer traditional media streaming combined with a "flexible
environment" for creating and delivering interactive social media
applications to "the broadest possible audience" (online, that is).
The Adobe Media Player, AMP, which was announced in April, has attracted many
third party media-management systems providers such as Akamai, Blip.tv,
Brightcove, Maven Networks, Motionbox and Reality Digital, which are supporting
AMP with branding, advertising, measurement and content protection
capabilities. This means the growing world of Flash users will be able
not only to create but also brand their online content, provide advertising, and
measure viewership, much like a miniature TV network, except with all the
promise of a potential global audience.
"Change is accelerating," says Jim Guerrard, Adobe VP. "Today
the richest form of communication is through video, and there are new ways to
watch." Adobe's relationship with Cisco, for instance, will provide
content from “any stream to any screen." The proof came from Adobe's Mark
Randall and Karl Miller, who demonstrated that the "new cable TV"
will arrive via IP cable and wireless rather than coax. Their tauted RSS - really
simple syndication - promised access to "massive audiences" online
via use of the Adobe Media Player.
Randall and Miller demoed self-produced,
AMP-powered online content that looked and behaved much like a VOD network.
"You brand your content for your viewers," Randall says, “and encrypt
your videos so viewers cannot re-edit, but can share."
Third-party Maven
would be the publishing system for such P2P (peer to peer) delivery.