Flash goes high definition

Adobe have announced that the next official release of Flash Player (version 9 - codenamed ‘Moviestar’) will support the H.264 video codec, meaning high definition Flash movies are finally a possibility. Adobe have confirmed that the next Flash Player, currently in beta, will support 480p, 720p and 1080p content encoded with either On2 or H.264.

The bad news is you might have to upgrade your machine to enjoy it. Performance will vary from machine to machine but Adobe estimate that a 2.0 GHz Mac or a 3GHz PC with one or more processors will be needed to deliver the best quality. Another nice little touch is that Flash Player will go beyond FLV files supporting MPEG-4 files too meaning you’ll be able to watch Quicktime videos within Flash. Adobe have also announced that version 9 will support vector rendering, full screen mode with hardware scaling and support for Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA).

This is great news from Adobe although many people may be excluded if their machines are not high-spec enough. It offers some exciting possibilities though - maybe one day we’ll all be watching YouTube clips in high definition.