Media - Technologies for Delivery

Being on the front end of media, we have witnessed it being shaped and reshaped as new technologies enter mainstream usage. Media codecs, such as h.264, have become the main mediums for online video presentation. With purpose of offering great quality without sacrificing a lot in conversion, these codecs have revolutionized the way the online video conversion is done.

Flash Player has really become the dominant delivery vehicle for displaying online movies and giving a user the most experience without paying a dime for it. We have seen more technologies enter into the market including Silverlight, and even a more recent HTML5. And, of course, we can’t forget about the Java players, but we barely see these utilized for video purposes, although most people have Java installed on their systems. Each has its own benefits, in my opinion Flash is still the number one technology for media on the web.

According to Rich Internet Applications Statistics [ found on www.riastats.com ], the pie charts below depict the version of 3 technologies utilized by the markets:

According to W3Schools Web Statistics [ found on www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp ], there is still considerable portion [ over 25% ] utilizing browsers that do not have support for Silverlight and much larger portion that do not support HTML5. So, a fairly large chunk is not ready for what’s ahead when it comes to newer technologies. This status will definitely change as seen in the trend:

Since the facts support that Flash is the way to go for most media delivery, we just need to consider one more thing, which is the version. If we look at the Adobe’s own version penetration [ found on http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html ], as of December 2009, about 95% of the computers that have Flash on it have the Version 10 installed - which is the latest version when this entry is written.

It is safe to conclude when it comes to media, using flash and its latest technologies [ and codecs ] is a safe route. Of course, at Local Color Media, we already knew this and have been utilizing Flash as the medium for presentation since the first day.

What puzzles me is that a lot of companies are still using “native” embeds that call for a particular software to be present on users computer such as QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or much rarer these days, Real Player. This was the way to bring media on the forefront, but the cavemen [ and cavewomen ] that still try to make those embeds are slowly learning that it may not be the best practice.

However, according to Forrester Research, audience really doesn’t care about what technology is being used to convey the message as long as it’s easy of usage and doesn’t require steps [ such as installation ]. So, when choosing the vehicle you just need to consider User Interface and ability to for your target market to view your software.

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