Adobe has released an Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) that can be used to build Flash-based streaming video players. The framework emerged from Adobe's Strobe initiative and is part of a broader collaborative effort called the Open Video Player project that has brought together Microsoft, Adobe, Akamai, and other key players with the aim of simplifying real-world video delivery on the Internet.

The OSMF provides a preintegrated stack of components for building a streaming video player that runs on top of Adobe's Flash browser plugin. It includes stream loading functionality, user interface classes, and other parts that are needed to build a video player. The roadmap, which has been published at the project's website, lists a wide range of more specialized features that are planned or under active development, such as rich playlist support and a connection plugin for streaming content from Akamai's content delivery network.

OSMF will make it easier for Web developers to create custom streaming video players for Flash. Developers can simply take the components of the OSMF and add or modify it as needed to include additional functionality or give it a custom look and feel. It eliminates the need to manually assemble the streaming functionality when implementing custom players.

There are already a lot of existing commercial and open source video player frameworks for Flash. One example is JW Player, which is widely used on the Internet and has a very broad feature set. The advantage of OSMF relative to these other player frameworks is that it has the potential to become the standard foundation for Flash video players, enabling interoperability by providing a single integration target for third-party components. Its plugin model is designed largely to make that possible.

The source code is available under the terms of the open source Mozilla Public License (MPL). Adobe says that it intends to accept patches from third-party developers, meaning that the project is open to independent contributors. The roadmap will largely be determined by Adobe and its partners, but the company says that the schedule and roadmap will remain transparent and that feedback from the community will be given consideration.

Open framework, proprietary plugin

Although OSMF is open source, the Flash player itself—the browser plugin that is used to run and display the content—still remains proprietary. Flash is increasingly facing pressure from emerging Web standards that have the potential to provide truly open vendor-neutral solutions for delivering streaming video content.

The HTML 5 video element, which is supported in Firefox 3.5 and a number of other browsers, facilitates video playback without requiring any browser plugins. It also makes it possible to build custom player interfaces that integrate better with conventional Web content using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. HTML 5 video is being held back from widespread adoption by Microsoft's lack of interest and an ongoing codec debate, but it has the technical potential to displace Flash in the future.

Popular streaming video websites such as YouTube and DailyMotion are already actively exploring HTML 5 video as an alternative to Flash. The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind the Web-based Wikipedia encyclopedia is planning to adopt the open Ogg Theora codec and HTML 5 video for its new multimedia content. In a recent video interview with Beet.tv, Wikimedia Foundation deputy director Erik Moller highlighted some of his concerns about Flash.

"The typical video that we see on the Web is basically a black box format in a Flash container. I can't easily manipulate it—I need to buy proprietary tools to really do things with it or even to rebroadcast it. So video on the Web isn't as open—it's not as free and as reusable as, for example, an image on a webpage or text on a webpage," he said. "We want to build a completely open, standards-based environment that people can use to remix video. To set, basically, a standard for what an open ecosystem should look like, and to set an example for other organizations as well--both in the educational space, non-profit organizations, and so on."

Adobe's new OSMF will help lower the barriers to entry for companies that want to deliver streaming video today on top of Flash, but it doesn't address the fundamental issue inherent in using a proprietary browser plugin that is controlled by a single vendor as a vehicle for delivering media content.

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