Skyfire For Android Enables (Some) Flash Video 69
harrymcc writes "Skyfire, a browser formerly available only for Windows Mobile and Symbian, is releasing a beta for Android. The most notable feature: It can identify Flash video on Web pages and convert it to HTML5 and H.264 on the fly, so it'll play on Android phones. It doesn't support all video, and may be rendered somewhat superfluous when Adobe ships Flash Player 10.1 for Android — but it's an impressive trick."
What could go wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What could go wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
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This is a pretty obvious thing to do, no? I mean, a quick Google will pull up one liner scripts using mencoder to do FLV to H.264 conversion. A script to do this on the server side, run it through mencoder, and return the result would be what, a 10 liner script? Unless they are doing something more complicated than that, which I doubt. And a bit of logic in the browser itself to translate FLV references.
Of course, it's got to use a lot of CPU cycles on the server side to do this at any sort of scale, bu
Re:What could go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, it's got to use a lot of CPU cycles on the server side to do this at any sort of scale, built into a browser. But I guess if you are making enough money off your browser, then cool.
That depends on whether they're really "transcoding". Most Flash these days is H264 anyway, so it might just be doing something to bypass Flash and give the device access to the video stream. Of course, most sites are going to start doing this anyway (giving HTML5-capable browsers the ability to bypass Flash and go straight to the video), but this might work as an interim solution.
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FLV container stream -> demux to h.264 stream + aac stream -> mux to MP4 container stream
No transcoding required, unless the original video contains a video or audio stream in a format that the device cannot natively play.
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Flash uses mp4 files for h.264 already, not flv.
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That depends on whether they're really "transcoding". Most Flash these days is H264 anyway, so it might just be doing something to bypass Flash and give the device access to the video stream.
Sounds very reasonable, and also immediately explains why it "doesn't support all video" as the summary indicates.
It is not a discharger (Score:4, Interesting)
If vendor of device is wise and OS is open enough to talk to chips, H264 will be possibly decoded on chip. Just like my Nokia does while running flash embedded video. Of course, it is a video and video does have some load on battery, just like if I launched a m4v from its file browser.
Please don't get brainwashed by Steve. Today, a Mac Mini having Nvidia 9400, Flash 10.1 does play 1080P HD video with 4% CPU, if it is running Windows. If it runs OS X, it uses a lot of processing power since until 10.6.3, there was no way to talk to GPU to do its job.
3 years late and no backwards support (Score:2)
GPU decoding H264 on hardware does exist since... 2007? Well, it was first advertised by ATI at that time. It is 2010 now, it is the very exact same chip, nobody invented any magical hack or anything, it was always there sitting idle as you say driver support needed and Apple wasn't supplying.
After they figured people comparing Windows Flash video using absolutely comical CPU thanks to always present but not used GPU acceleration support, they magically added support in 10.6.3 resulting in very strange situ
Re:lol (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair flash is a piece of shit on all platforms. It only exists because it makes creating content brain dead easy.
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but... but.... I'm shocked!
First the summary tells me that Android phones don't already support Flash, and now you tell me that Flash is a "piece of shit"?
I thought Flash was some kind of perfect standard for video and it was already supported on every platform in existence. After all, that's why everyone is so pissed at Apple for failing to support Flash, right? The only reason any device might not support Flash right now is if the manufacturer is evil?
Re:lol (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought Flash was some kind of perfect standard for video and it was already supported on every platform in existence. After all, that's why everyone is so pissed at Apple for failing to support Flash, right?
Just because Flash sucks doesn't mean that "I can't get the content I want" is better.
The only reason any device might not support Flash right now is if the manufacturer is evil?
That's a Red Herring. Adobe would love to provide Flash support for the iPhone, but Apple won't allow it. That's what matters, not whether Adobe was quick-on-the-draw to get support to Android.
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In the market targeted by Flash Builder (aka Flex) HTML5 will simply not work. We're talking about large businesses that dont want to migrate from IE6.
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Very fair, and true. Flash sucks, but some sites really suck with browsers that don't support it, or don't work at all. I'd prefer not to see it anywhere, but I like having the option to have Android support, at least. The good news I wasn't expecting: this will supposedly run on Android 1.5 and up, meaning those of us with "old school" G1s running 1.6 Donut can actually try it, which I
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To be fair flash is a piece of shit on all platforms. It only exists because it makes creating brain-dead content brain-dead easy.
Fixed that for you.
And only on devices with Android Market... (Score:2)
Adobe said it would be available only on Android Market, which I understand is apparently not available on many Android devices.
Even though Firefox (fennec) is available as a apk (so far), it will not do me any good unless Flash is available that way as well.
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Really? There are very few Android devices that do NOT have access to Android Market.
It is true that the devices need to meet certain requirements before they are allowed access etc and be blessed with everything Android, but as far as I know, almost all current Android devices (particularly phones) do this.
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Is it a security nightmare like opera? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would rather not have someone recording every page I visit, which is what opera does with its man-in-the-middle attack is a feature browser.
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You have nothing to worry about. No one cares that you visit slashdot, and if you get good kharma, you can even turn off the ads.
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While probably no-one cares whether or not I visit /., that doesn't mean I like to tell just everybody that I am a regular reader/poster. If they ask me I will tell, but not need to tell them beforehand. And that's what we're talking about here.
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A man-in-the-middle attack doesn't have a legally binding privacy policy.
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I would rather not have someone recording every page I visit, which is what opera does with its man-in-the-middle attack is a feature browser.
Like your ISP's DNS server?
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Which is why I do not use their DNS servers.
Actually I don't use them because they go down more than a Thia hooker, but it would be another reason not to use them.
Is it really Transcoding? (Score:3, Insightful)
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I suspect it's stripping and repackaging it. (could be wrong, but I don't think a raw h.264 stream is streamable)
Which would mean, naturally, that it won't work for other codecs, but h.264 is the majority of flvs these days, so sounds OK.
The CPU to actually transcode would be crazy, I can't imagine they're doing that...
Re:Is it really Transcoding? (Score:4, Informative)
It is neither, it works per proxy server.
Like Opera Mini, earlier versions of Skyfire for Windows Mobile and Symbian were proxy browsers that compressed Web pages on the server side before transferring them to the phone. With this Android edition, the Skyfire folks are shifting strategy. Android’s Webkit-based rendering engine is already capable of displaying Web pages swiftly and accurately, they figure, so they’re not trying to duplicate it. Skyfire for Android uses the same Webkit rendering that Android’s default browser does–but rolls it into a browser with a bunch more features.
The most notable of these new capabilities is Flash video playback. For that, Skyfire still uses a proxy approach: When you come to pages with Flash videos, it identifies them, compresses them, and converts them to H.264 and HTML5, then transfers them to your phone for playback.
Would have been too cool if they had managed to do it on the client. I'd have wanted it as a Firefox plugin ...
Cool, how can I block it? (Score:4, Interesting)
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You think that Google, the advertising giant will support this? Maybe as some sort of app/plugin, but I strongly doubt that any Flash blocker will emanate from Mountain View.
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Last I checked... (Score:3, Informative)
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Indeed it has full support for Flash and Silverlight in the Windows Mobile version. However if you've ever used it substantially, it becomes apparent that the backend for WinMo is basically implemented using screen-scraping. The Skyfire client is basically just a clever image viewer.
From the sound of it they're implementing something more advanced (probably their own WebKit derived renderer) for the Android backend. Although I wonder if they're still delivering images, or just sending a special markup like
Android does support Flash? (Score:4, Interesting)
I just kind of assumed with all those bashing the iPhone for not supporting Flash that Android did it out of the box.
Is there any mobile that supports full Flash well?
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yes. it's always just around the corner, isn't it?
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The very fact that we're discussing why Flash isn't already on these mobile devices is a good indicator of why Jobs hates flash. Adobe has gotten extremely lax when it comes to innovation, security, and keeping current with technology, all due to the fact that they had no competition in the Flash arena. Now that HTML5 is a serious threat (and it is a serious threat when sites like Youtube, Facebook, Hulu, etc. are all talking about supporting h.264 streaming instead of Flash), we're suddenly seeing them act
Re:Android does support Flash? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Nokia N900 supports Flash in it's own browser, or Firefox, or Chromium. Unlike iWhatever or Android there are no limits put on you. Oh, and you have root access, and can develop in whatever you want, and don't have to ask anyone for any permission, to do anything.
So there!
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The big question is WHY?!
Adobe wants to get Flash on the iPhone. Yet Jobs has spurned Flash. Yet Adobe keeps trying.
All that effort could've been better spent getting Flash working on open devices, like Android. Instead Adobe just wants Apple to support Flash. Hell, didn't Jobs give Adobe a challenge to show Flash working well on any device?
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Uh oh. (Score:5, Informative)
From the license agreement:
When you use the browser, Skyfire has access to, and in many cases will monitor, your Browser Usage.
also
Personal information collected by Skyfire may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Skyfire Labs, Inc. or its agents maintain facilities. By using Skyfire products and services, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country.
I understand that to work Skyfire needs to translate some stuff from Flash to HTML 5, but the word "monitor" is a little scary. Also I don't appreciate the fact that the GPS turned on before I even got a chance to read the terms of use.
So... speaking personally... I'm not accepting.
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Did it over ride your settings to turn on GPS, or did you not have it disabled?
Skyfire... (Score:3, Insightful)
What skyfire does, as near as I understand it, is route all traffic to skyfire servers, which then convert the whole shebang, in real time, to what they then send to your phone. I've played flash games, seen web video, etc, all sans any trouble at all. It wasn't the most user-friendly browser initially but it has improved dramatically recently. It still won't zoom as easily as opera, for example....
However, you should be aware of the middle man, and in using it you are implicitly trusting them with everything you do through them, and some might have a problem with that.
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Sounds interesting, I'll probably try it whenever I need flash support for something, and use my standard browser the rest of the time when I don't.
To be clear... (Score:2)
Now just to be clear, Skyfire is not to be confused with Jetfire...