The 'Help kill Adobe's Flash' campaign
Is that help kill Adobe flash that created the phenomenal growth of online video? Help kill Adobe flash that powers millions of free online game sessions each day? Or help kill Adobe flash that inconvenienced a few thousand Mac users due to poorly coded Flash sites and an OSX Flash plugin that can struggle to play video due to it being blocked by Apple from using the Mac's hardware acceleration?
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives..._new_tests.php
/discuss
Quote:
Is Flash really a CPU hog? Yes, in some cases. But, surprisingly, not all the time. In fact, sometimes HTML5 actually performed worse.
Is Flash really a CPU hog? Yes, in some cases. But, surprisingly, not all the time. In fact, sometimes HTML5 actually performed worse.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives..._new_tests.php
/discuss
Comments
The unfortunate side of things is most of the web got used to the creative control Flash provides and now has to code for a range of devices and capabilities instead of just regular computers.
What a lot of people might not know, netbooks with their under performing processors, have a hard time running HD video and Flash as well, so it's likely the iPad won't run HD video very well neither.
People owning the iPad with it's measly 1GHz and integrated graphics will suffer awhile, but as more and more hit traffic from the device hits server logs, it will become apparent to those sites that they to need to rethink their sites to appeal to the most people.
IOr help kill Adobe flash that inconvenienced a few thousand Mac users due to poorly coded Flash sites and an OSX Flash plugin that can struggle to play video due to it being blocked by Apple from using the Mac's hardware acceleration?
There's the issue of control though. For every new device that Apple makes, they have to wait on Adobe supporting it and hoping their implementation will be good enough. Content creation apps are the same.
... it being blocked by Apple from using the Mac's hardware acceleration?
...
Why do you believe that Apple's hardware acceleration is off-limits to Adobe when it is not off-limits to anyone else?
Why do you believe that Apple's hardware acceleration off-limits to Adobe when it is not off-limits to anyone else?
Didn't read the article? Adobe says...
In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. The Flash Player team will continue to evaluate adding hardware acceleration to Linux and Mac OS X in future releases.
Doesn't 3D gaming on the Mac also suffer from the same problem?
Didn't read the article? Adobe says...
Doesn't 3D gaming on the Mac also suffer from the same problem?
Adobe is conflating two unrelated issues. Linux developers have no knowledge of the specific hardware that it will be installed on.
Adobe would have you believe that Apple went to the trouble and expense of providing optional graphics cards, but then prevented anyone from using them. This is clearly ridiculous. If you parse Adobe's statement, then you will see that it is not saying what it is implying. Apple provides hardware acceleration via its graphics frameworks rather than through direct access to hardware. This allows any graphics app to run on any Mac. If the system includes hardware acceleration, then the graphics app automatically takes advantage of it. If your system does not have hardware acceleration, then the graphics run in software. Neither the developer nor the user need be concerned about it.
However, Adobe sees its software as platforms that make minimal accommodations to their hosts. It is Adobe's way or the highway. Adobe has been this way for more than 20 years--not only before Adobe bought Flash-developer Macromedia but also before Flash existed. Adobe's mercurial attitude resulted in losses then. It will result in losses to come.
We've got Flash technology running on the iPhone, but in order to get Flash to run in the browser on the iPhone we need Apple to support the APIs for enabling Flash to plug into Safari and those APIs don't exist today," he said. "We need Apple's co-operation.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10...be_flash_iphon
I understand Apple were frustrated at previous versions of the Flash plugin being a major cause of Safari crashing on desktop which formed part of the reasoning to not include it on iPhone and iPad but there's been no word about the new Flash player 10.1? which has been demonstrating a big improvement for content and video on other similar devices to the iPhone and desktop.
Flash player 10.1 tests:
http://gizmodo.com/5406488/flash-101...deo-yes-please
Adobe responding to Apples issues regarding Flash on the iPhone:
http://www.edibleapple.com/adobe-res...-and-the-ipad/
It's kill Adobe's Flash that makes websites with fonts whose size and appearance you cannot change and whose text is not readable by screen-readers (accessibility fail).
It's kill Adobe's Flash that makes websites that you cannot copy and paste from.
It's kill Adobe's Flash that can be hideously CPU inefficient. Adobe would have you believe that hardware acceleration is a requirement for low CPU usage when decoding video. This is simply untrue. For small mobile devices, video decode in hardware is preferable as it maximises battery life. On computers with more powerful CPUs though, hardware acceleration isn't so important. For example, I watched the 720p version of this youtube clip in my browser - CPU usage = 150%. Then, I downloaded it and played it with VLC (which has no hardware acceleration) - CPU usage = 40 to 50%. I have a 2.4 GHz Penryn Core 2 Duo.
Right now, some HTML5 functions may be less efficient than some Flash functions. But you need to remember that HTML5 is a nascent standard and over time competition between browser vendors will lead to faster and faster HTML5 renderers. Flash has existed for years so it's not surprising that Adobe has managed to optimise at least some of it.
No, it's kill Adobe's Flash, that makes multi-level sites that have only one URL, so you can't link directly to any of the site's sub-pages and always have to navigate your way (or tell others how to navigate their way) to where you want (them) to go.
It's kill Adobe's Flash that makes websites with fonts whose size and appearance you cannot change and whose text is not readable by screen-readers (accessibility fail).
It's kill Adobe's Flash that makes websites that you cannot copy and paste from.
All of these are the responsibility of the developer.
The ability to deep link in Flash has been around for years, made easier in the last three by swfaddress.
Dynamic font sizing is achievable but I can't remember one Flash enabled site that does it. There are of course accessibility advantages Flash has, like the ability to detect active screen readers.
Being able to select text in Flash is controlled by a property, again set by the developer.
It's kill Adobe's Flash that can be hideously CPU inefficient. Adobe would have you believe that hardware acceleration is a requirement for low CPU usage when decoding video. This is simply untrue. For small mobile devices, video decode in hardware is preferable as it maximises battery life. On computers with more powerful CPUs though, hardware acceleration isn't so important. For example, I watched the 720p version of this youtube clip in my browser - CPU usage = 150%. Then, I downloaded it and played it with VLC (which has no hardware acceleration) - CPU usage = 40 to 50%. I have a 2.4 GHz Penryn Core 2 Duo.
Not exactly a like for like test that. What Flash player were you using?
Right now, some HTML5 functions may be less efficient than some Flash functions. But you need to remember than HTML5 is a nascent standard and over time competition between browser vendors will lead to faster and faster HTML5 renderers. Flash has existed for years so it's not surprising that Adobe has managed to optimise at least some of it.
HTML5 is forcing Adobe/Flash and Microsoft/Silverlight to improve and compete more, can only be a good thing.
All of these are the responsibility of the developer.
Well, clearly it's just too easy to make a deeply user-unfriendly site with Flash. I'll continue to lay a decent proportion of the blame at Flash's door.
The default behaviour should be to be more HTML like when it comes to basic site layout etc.
Not exactly a like for like test that.
What, playing exactly the same video content with two different players? No, it's a perfectly like for like test which demonstrates that a.) Flash video-decode CPU usage is truly awful and b.) Good video-decode CPU usage does not require hardware decode assistance.
What Flash player were you using?
10.0.42
The default behaviour should be to be more HTML like when it comes to basic site layout etc.
Agree, selectable text and other features that are readily available in HTML should be enabled by default in Flash.
What, playing exactly the same video content with two different players? No, it's a perfectly like for like test which demonstrates that a.) Flash video-decode CPU usage is truly awful and b.) Good video-decode CPU usage does not require hardware decode assistance.
10.0.42
Thought you were referring to the standalone VLC app, didn't know it was available as a plugin. Yes that's a fair test and it'll be interesting to know the results again when 10.1 moves out of beta.
Thought you were referring to the standalone VLC app, didn't know it was available as a plugin. Yes that's a fair test and it'll be interesting to know the results again when 10.1 moves out of beta.
I was using VLC as a standalone app but it doesn't make a difference. In preperation for you getting upset about that I viewed the clip via the quicktime plugin in Safari (on Leopard, so not QT X) and that resulted in around 40% CPU usage.
Stop living in the past Mr. H
Get upset, moi?
Stop living in the past Mr. H
If it ever gets out of Beta.
The main thrust of 10.1 seems to be sorting out the dire CPU usage on video decode. But if Adobe were so incompetent implementing a decent video-decode pipeline (especially when compared to open-source (= much lower resources than Adobe)), what else in the Flash runtime is incompetently implemented? What about CPU usage when processing Flash animations, transitions etc.? Does 10.1 deal with any of that?
And will 10.1 magically fix the innumerable Flash sites out there that have the accessibility and usability problems I outlined earlier?
If it ever gets out of Beta.
The main thrust of 10.1 seems to be sorting out the dire CPU usage on video decode. But if Adobe were so incompetent implementing a decent video-decode pipeline (especially when compared to open-source (= much lower resources than Adobe)), what else in the Flash runtime is incompetently implemented? What about CPU usage when processing Flash animations, transitions etc.? Does 10.1 deal with any of that?
And will 10.1 magically fix the innumerable Flash sites out there that have the accessibility and usability problems I outlined earlier?
10.1 (especially on Windows where it is GPU accelerated) is a revelation when it comes to CPU usage across a broad spectrum of sites, not just video playback. And no, 10.1 won't fix the poorly designed sites that use flash. Neither will HTML5 or anything else if the designers choose to continue to implement the features in those ways.