Alex Kidman13 April 2008, 1:39 PM
Adobe's new media player is more YouTube than Windows Media Player and it's actually got some pretty decent TV shows available.
You’d think that YouTube having the virtual hammerlock on online video, and that video being largely in Flash format (iPhone/iPod Touch video notwithstanding), that Adobe would be pretty happy with the status quo?
Well, you’d obviously be thinking wrong, as the company’s released its own standalone media player application, serving Flash video files to PC or Mac platforms. It’s perhaps not the most original idea, and it’s thus got the single most unoriginal name for a media player we’ve ever hit: Adobe Media Player 1.0
Leaving the obvious jokes about never adopting a 1.0 platform aside, the application itself is interesting from a technical standpoint, as it’s built on Adobe’s AIR platform, and AIR is a necessary part of the installation procedure. Adobe’s signed up a number of US content partners including CBS and MTV, as well as a large quantity of content that wouldn’t look out of place on YouTube itself. Adobe’s two big hooks for Media Player is that content can – at the provider’s discretion – be provided for offline viewing, and it can be served up in HD quality.
We installed Media Player 1.0 on a Macbook and set about exploring Adobe’s take on the media centre model. It’s nicely supported with a number of tutorials, and because it’s a full application with (regrettably) a big chunk of DRM right in the middle of it, it’s possible to download (some) programs and schedule them for RSS-style subscription as and when they become available. The home screen lets you browse for videos, or search across a wide variety of categories, from “Action & Adventure” through to “World”.
While there’s quite a bit of content available at launch – certainly a great deal more than the Beta version of ABC’s Playback service we recently examined – it’s almost entirely ad-supported, and by “ad supported”, we mean “Ad supported in the style favoured by US Prime-Time networks, with some ad breaks being longer than program breaks”. While it’s mildly amusing seeing ads for products and services that will never be available here, that novelty wears off rather quickly.
The heavy ad rotation does tie in with Adobe’s official position on the Media Player, which talks of “new ways to distribute, measure and build businesses around video content”, and “next-generation offline monetization and branding options, including viewer-centric dynamic advertising for targeted marketing campaigns.” Or, in words that non-marketing people use, lots of ads.
While DRM capabilities are built into the Media Player platform, at this stage Media Player doesn’t seem to be performing any geolocation IP-checks, as we were able to watch all of the currently available content.
Adobe Media Player 1.0 is available for download on PC and Mac here. No doubt Adobe will be pursuing market share using the same means as all other makers of popular software that introduce a new product: ride-along downloads. Think Apple installing Safari on the PCs of people who installed iTunes for Windows; Sun installing Google Toolbar when people download Java, and so on.