Porn Industry Ready To Drop Flash 249
An anonymous reader writes "Here's an interesting new angle to the ongoing Flash-HTML5 debate. Digital Playground, one of the major adult film studios, said it would drop Flash today if all browsers were HTML5-ready (*cough*, IE8, *cough*). The company's founder said, 'Flash brings everything to a crawl and has an impact on battery life. With HTML5, there is no reason to show our content in Flash.' Digital Playground also indicated that it does not expect 3-D to gain mass acceptance any time soon."
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
"We're boned." - Adobe's CEO
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Insert where?
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Hopefully never, at least fully. I'd much prefer real, natural-looking girls to the cosmetic surgery-enhanced freaks that some of the porn stars have turned into today, and would be very disappointed to see it turn into a bunch of Sims-style "animated" bullshit.
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Yeah, but this being 2010, you can just scream 'terrorist' and watch him never make that mistake again.
never gonna work (Score:5, Funny)
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the porn industry caters to workplace browsers?
Believe it or not, there are workplaces (like mine) where the porn industry is a large part of our business...
Re:never gonna work (Score:5, Funny)
Re:never gonna work (Score:4, Funny)
the porn industry caters to workplace browsers?
Believe it or not, there are workplaces (like mine) where the porn industry is a large part of our business...
Get back to work regulating oil drilling, fucker.
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All the jokes aside, can I assume you work for a tier 1 provider?
Re:never gonna work (Score:5, Insightful)
Can I get a job there? I'm sure I'd enjoy the work.
But seriously, I wish people would stop overestimating porn's influence. Its annual revenue is less than 1% of total internet revenue. Its perceived impact on the world (or technology) is no more real than a 12 inch long penis, or the "18 year old" models that are actually 27.
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What? You've never heard of NSFW Wednesdays?
Re:never gonna work (Score:5, Insightful)
Think you have it the other way around ... porn has driven tech industry and consumer electronics for a very long time. No other vendor has the power that PORN does , if porn industry unilaterally decided tomorrow to adopt HTML5 .. in very short time, every computer on the planet would have upgraded their browser. period.
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It happened with the internet, it happened with DVD players, it will happen with 3DTV, and it might happen with Flash.
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The porn industry hasn't led anyone (VHS didn't win because of the porn industry). If anything, they've always been behind the curve. Porn is about quick, ultra-cheap production--sometimes with nothing more than handheld camcorders. The industry held off on going HD for years because it was more expensive and required more work to make the performers not look horrifying.
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Think you have it the other way around ... porn has driven tech industry and consumer electronics for a very long time. No other vendor has the power that PORN does , if porn industry unilaterally decided tomorrow to adopt HTML5 .. in very short time, every computer on the planet would have upgraded their browser. period.
Except Apple phones, of course. No porn allowed, or Flash. It doesn't matter if people want these things or not.
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Oh for crying out loud, you guys need to have your sarcasm meters checked. He was obviously joking.
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This is a popular meme with no factual basis. It began with the claim that the porn industry chose VHS over Betamax and that's why Betamax lost, but that is not the reason it lost. People just like to repeat this because it sounds ironic and amusing to explain to people that some taboo industry is the driver of technology, but the truth is that there is no historical basis to make that claim.
Re:never gonna work (Score:5, Insightful)
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No factual basis? The porn industry did not choose VHS. Sony banned porn on Betamax. This is a known fact, and they almost did the same thing with Blu-Ray. If you think porn was not a factor, then obviously you never saw those walled off areas in just about every video rental store in the 1980s. Rows apon rows of VHS porn, and not a beta tape in sight!
Sony on Betamax:
http://www.mediacollege.com/video/format/compare/betamax-vhs.html
Sony on Blu-ray:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleI
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I totally agree with most of that. Yes, porn does drive adoption of new technology.
As for users though, it's hard to get them to upgrade for arbitrary reasons. Microsoft and Firefox both pushing out updates has been very helpful in recent years. Way back, it was difficult to keep the users happy, with a variety of browsers that had to be supported, sometimes dating back to ancient versions.
It'll be a little while before HTML5 is adopted by everyone, because it
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Not only is the porn industry not some huge driver of technology as is usually claimed, they're actually anti-technology in several ways. For example, they held off on HD for a long time because it made the performers look worse.
Slashdotters just like to trot this meme out because the thought of a taboo industry being the "true" big player pushing technology forward amuses them. It's just not true.
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Re:never gonna work (Score:4, Interesting)
The reality is that you have come to your conclusion based on something other than reality. Further reality is that porn producers online were some of the first people to introduce social media and pioneered true network security. Geeks like their porn and have found thousands of ways to distribute it and secure it with many different business models driving it's success. The very first websites online that made profit were porn sites.
The meme didn't come out of nowhere, it is based in reality. While the porn industry doesn't have control over the development of technology they do act as a good guide for what technology will actually get deployed. Hollywood was having lots of problems going HD due to blemishes showing up that couldn't be easily airbrushed like in print media. It was the porn industry that solved the problem and propelled HD into a true platform. The industry was forced at first to adopt HD-DVD but now license restrictions from Sony have been lifted and BD production is in full swing.
I think you are hard pressed to paint the porn industry as anti-technology as that is simply completely utterly not the case. It's a bit like trying to argue that water isn't wet. They didn't hold off HD because they didn't like the platform, they embraced it fully actually and had to wait until they could solve the problems like anyone else that went HD had to do. Even in my industry which is auctions we ran into a lot of problems going HD that held us back for a few years. We're in no way shape or form anti-technology, we just believe that the technology we deploy should help us do our jobs better and reach more people. When the technology matured enough to become beneficial we went and adopted it.
Re:never gonna work (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.cracked.com/article_17300_6-ways-that-porn-runs-world.html [cracked.com]
There's your citation.
Re:never gonna work (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes, that was their only really successful product... that Playstation thing was clearly a complete flop.
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I tried to upgrade a major porn site to ipv6 years ago. Our provider didn't support it. I couldn't get an ipv6 gateway to talk to me about gating it. We just couldn't get it done, and it wasn't because our efforts weren't there.
It looks like there are still only a handful of ipv6 sites out there.
http://www.ipv6.org/v6-www.html [ipv6.org]
http://www.sixxs.net/wiki/IPv6_Enabled_Websites [sixxs.net]
Until there is a good reason to upgrade, it won't happen. Leave the sky
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No, you'd have to get all workplaces to block google images first.
Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
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Of course it does not seem that the p0rn in
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READ: "We realise the iPhone market is massive and we want iPr0n portable"
Add and the iPad makes that portable device useful without squinting
Re:Apple (Score:5, Funny)
The iPad is a HORRIBLE porn viewing device. There's no easy way to set it down to view hands-free and if you're holding it... well... let's just say it's slippery enough as it is without any fluids involved.
Insightful, as well as interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Spot on. Start-ups are already advertising for girls for iPhone 4 FaceTime video sex chat services [yahoo.com]. From a Craigslist ad:
The Porn Industry is never wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
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Regardless of what people may think of them, for some reason the porn industry does seem to have a much better picture of technology and how to utilize it versus the more mainstream market.
Back in the days of VHS and such naturally there are good examples, but even in modern times it's clear. The porn industry was doing online distribution of content long before mainstream media was. The few porn companies that were utilizing DRM early on seem to have dropped the idea. Heck it seems like the de-facto met
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The few porn companies that were utilizing DRM early on seem to have dropped the idea.
This may be due to the fact that porn has a *very* short half-life. People are always seeking to see more, different porn. Not the same peices repeatedly, so there is no point in spending money to lock it up. The money is much better invested in producing more porn.
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The myth that VHS won because of the porn industry has no historical basis. The porn industry is not some huge driver of technology. It's just an ironic claim people like to make because it's amusing.
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Porn dropped DRM because a DVD-CCA license costs $10,000 when I checked a few years ago.
Re:The Porn Industry is never wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
No 3d? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would 3D gain faster acceptance? Who wouldn't want tits to basically jump out of your screen and nearly hit you in the face?
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For tits, yeah, that'd be great. But there are often also dicks.
Re:No 3d? (Score:5, Insightful)
For tits, yeah, that'd be great. But there are often also dicks.
You're over thinking it. From now on all 3D porn is limited to lesbian orgies, I think everyone can agree on that.
Re:No 3d? (Score:5, Funny)
It's not the boobs we're worried about...
Re:No 3d? (Score:4, Funny)
Why would 3D gain faster acceptance? Who wouldn't want tits to basically jump out of your screen and nearly hit you in the face?
I'm already going blind. I don't need a migraine to go with it.
Re:No 3d? (Score:5, Funny)
As someone who has actually seen a 3-d porn movie (in the theater, no less), let me assure that 3-d "money shots" are REALLY NOT something you want to experience.
Re:No 3d? (Score:4, Funny)
You crazy? Some people already got pregnant because of 3D porn [techeye.net]! Won't you think of the children?! So much for abstinence...
Yeah that sounds nice - but using what codec? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, everyone seems to be ready to drop flash for video playback, but what codec will their videos be encoded with?
As it stands today:
- Use h264 and all firefox users will be left off
- use theora and almost everyone will be left off
- use VP8 and most browsers won't support it
- use X and Y browser will not support it.
use flash and... 99% browsers will support it. Having said that, I hate flash, but I guess the world is not ready for HTML5 just yet, mainly because of the codecs issue.
Lets hope VP8 is a success! :-)
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You realize that HTML5 allows a content provider to provide his videos in *all* formats at the same time? The browser decides which one it picks and plays.
Granted. This consumes more space on the server and costs time for encoding. But should it really be that much of a problem?
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Sure, that is a theoretically valid solution, but in practice its probably not possible for most cases. I even doubt google would agree to have more than 1 or 2 codecs for all its videos... but its great HTML5 allows that :)
Even if you could afford having all videos in different codecs IMHO that would be an ugly solution.
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Google already serves most of its videos in the old Flash codec + H.264 + WebM, probably more for mobile too and that's without even counting the multi-resolution encodes for 1080/720p videos.
Re:Yeah that sounds nice - but using what codec? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yep. Exactly :) :)
But that means they are not "dropping" flash, they are just not making it the default player. But it sure is a big step forward. Next step is bye-bye flash
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WebM+Flash fallback
Re:Yeah that sounds nice - but using what codec? (Score:4, Funny)
You will be able to install a third party theora codec for ie. You will presumably be able to get a firefox plugin for h.264. Chrome supports both. Opera users can install a different browser.
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Both IE and Firefox are pulling asshole arrogant moves by not making their HTML5 video playback call a library where codecs can be added. In both cases it is an attempt to promote their codec of choice by making alternatives impossible.
Although we are used to Microsoft doing this crap, it is annoying to see the supposedly "open" Firefox do it too.
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Methinks you haven't been reading the news lately - VP8 (i.e. WebM) will be supported by most browsers.
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even flash will support it.
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A lot of porn producers do use h264. Frankly, not supporting h264 is going to be the end of Firefox, not a reason not to use h264.
The thing most people developing with Flash seem to forget though, is that while 99% of browsers may theoretically support it... it runs like shit on any Mac, it's not available on iPad or iPhone, many business users don't install it in work systems, and many people deliberately don'
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A lot of porn producers do use h264. Frankly, not supporting h264 is going to be the end of Firefox, not a reason not to use h264.
The thing most people developing with Flash seem to forget though, is that while 99% of browsers may theoretically support it... it runs like shit on any Mac, it's not available on iPad or iPhone, many business users don't install it in work systems, and many people deliberately don't install it on their home systems.
So Flash will be the end of Apple!
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A lot of web sites used to use WMV instead of flash. It gave me 4% CPU usage and even worked on Linux.
Flash almost always gives me close to 100% CPU usage.
If it aint broke, don't fix it.
One has to wonder (Score:4, Funny)
I thought I heard Jobs say... (Score:5, Funny)
That the iPad would revolutionize online porn as we know it.
Also, it wipes clean with a damp cloth.
One guy says... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia says this company is pretty influential in the porn industry, though not the only player. I suppose it's sort-of interesting to hear what he thinks. Though there's no real meat to the article, it's almost like an anti-Flash astro-turf.
I think all content producers are generally looking forward to moving to HTML5 video. That doesn't mean that Flash is dead. It could potentially mean that in 3-5 years Flash will not be used for video. Right now, Flash is pretty much the only option. In a year or two, HTML5 video will be a reasonable competitor. After that, well I guess it's up to Adobe to figure out ways of making their product more appealing than the baseline (which is HTML5). But they have a dominant position now, support of major players, and seem committed to improving their product. It's hard to discount them on the word of one porn producer.
Re:One guy says... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think all content producers are generally looking forward to moving to HTML5 video.
Without DRM, most content producers arent even entertaining the thought.
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As a head's up - they're not influential, and they probably wrote their own Wikipedia entry.
Digital Playground may be a large content producer, but it's for the DVD (read: offline) markets.
They don't have a single website that's even a blip upon the radar.
Having invested their all in what is a rapidly dying industry (Porn DVDs) - I wouldn't take a thing this guy says with a grain of salt.
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It doesn't matter what the content providers package their video in.
If it's not the default format for youporn.com, then nobody cares.
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That very much does mean Flash is dead. Other than video, there's no sane reason to use Flash as a developer.
Sure, you can use it for laying out websites -- but since a good, and growing, percentage of potential site visitors either can't use the site at all, or can only do so at risk of crashing their br
Fortunately (Score:5, Funny)
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Okay, seriously, do N900 users have some inferiority/persecution complex that compels them to crowbar the fact that they use an N900 into every topic they can, regardless of whether or not it actually even vaguely fits the discussion at hand?
Nope, actually both N900 users are very quiet and restrained people. The N900 fanboys who can't afford it but pretend they've own one are quite obnoxious though.
..Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, this is just nonsese.
1. Digital Playground are nobodies in the online porn market. Yes, they produce a lot of content, but it's all for the DVD market.
2. One studio saying something isn't representative of an entire industry. It's actually called a 'Press Release'
3. The vast majority of adult sites allow you to pick your poison in terms of video. Streaming is normally done via flash [.x/h264 mp4 being the norm], and allowing downloads in AVI/DivX/WMV/MPEG formats.
4. What porn does provide is a solid statistics cross-section of internet users - and from the figures I see, flash usage is 96% or higher. The vast majority of purchasing users aren't high tech, they don't use noscript, they don't think flash is evil.
5. Porn (and any commercial) sites aim to make their sites as available to as many people as possible. Forcing users to upgrade browsers, attempting to change browsing habits, etc, is only going to lower the bottom line.
Did they do battery tests? (Score:2)
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Flash will not use a GPU's hardware video acceleration, will not use it's decoding acceleration (on cards that have that), and perhaps more importantly, also does not use the dedicated DSPs which an increasing number of mobile devices use to avoid doing video decoding on the CPU. Instead, everything is one on the CPU, which is typically much less efficient at those tasks.
As a real-world ex
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In short, studies are not needed here - it is common sense that flash will kill the battery on many devices, and it can also be easily observed.
mistaking what one thinks is "common sense" for a benchmark is what separates amateurs from professionals.
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err, not true with flash 10.1, tho i dont think the n900 will get a update.
And if my aunt had a dick she'd by my uncle... (Score:5, Informative)
I work in the Adult Industry on a Content Management System [elevatedx.com] for paysites. We just demonstrated support for the iPad at the recent Xbiz show using H.264.
It's fine and dandy that one company has proclaimed that they'd get rid of Flash given the chance. That doesn't say much for the rest of the industry, now, does it?
I know there are a lot of Open Source Advocates on Slashdot, but let's face it: Paysite operators are in the game to maximize their profits. This is done by:
a) Reaching as many people and devices as possible.
b) Decreasing bandwidth
c) Minimizing disk space and hardware.
They don't care about the war between WebM and H.264. They only care about having their sites work with as many people as possible. In this case, HTML5 brings iPad support to their sites.
The problem here ultimately is that the codec war with HTML5 is still undecided. If you're going to use HTML5's video element exclusively, you're going to end up being FORCED to use two formats of video for all the browsers - one for WebM and one for H.264.
That's all well and good, but multiple formats takes up space. Granted a lot of pay sites offer multiple download options like WMV, DivX and Quicktime, but when it comes to watching a full movie in a browser, only one format is needed here - H.264. Let the browsers that support H.264 use the video tag. Let browsers that don't use a Flash player backup.
This still won't change after WebM has support within Flash because of the iPhone and iPad. As the mobile arena heats up, WebM will start to appear lacking without Apple support. Even though the iPhone is a small percentage of the total phone market, it says a lot when the CEO has one and wants his websites to work on it.
So in sum - flash isn't going anywhere. It will remain as a backup player for 5 years mininum.
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How much porn is served these days in GIF format?
Flash could disappear in a couple of months with a couple of browser rollouts.
HD-DVD (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:2)
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We're all paying for porn on the Internet.
Between the costs for regulatory compliance and extra bandwidth, and the demand pressure from porn-addicted users, the price of an average internet connection is bound to be higher than if porn just wasn't an issue.
And then there's the cost of dealing with the malware served up by porn sites. It might live somewhere else, but there aren't many "somewhere else's" that could proliferate like porn does and still get enough traffic to make them a proper honeypot.
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Wait... am I the only one that actually watches these movies all the way to the end?
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You can spend 15 minutes on a free porn site with downthemall and collect more porn than my buddies and I had combined when we were teenagers 20 years ago. And it will be waaaaaaaaaaaaay dirtier.
Just watch, this is going to represent a MAJOR generation gap between those of us who were teenages prior to the Internet, and those who grow up afterwards.
When we were kids, porn was a very timid and meager thing, maybe a playboy or if your dad was really a perve, a Hustler here and there. We had no video, no hardcore sex, no girl/girl, no monkeys, donkeys, etc.
Now kids get instantaneous access to unlimited depths of perversion at a whim. This is going to have VERY real results in sexual expression
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Controlling content via flash (Score:2)
Unfortunately, this argument is falling away for Adobe as it can be noted porn sites push downloadable and unrestricted content as it turns out consumers want that.
The one area where streaming is an advantage is for those that wish to skip to certain points in the film and are not interested in the rest of the film.Flash and HTML5 allows easy seeking obviously.
The last nail (Score:2)
If that wasn't a death kiss, nothing is. As i predicted, in 2 years flash will be a distant ( bad ) memory. And its Adobe's own damned fault really, they had the market, but threw it away by being pig headed.
I still don't get it (Score:2)
I guess I'm just dense. But I still don't understand the big deal about HTML5 and how it makes Flash go away. Yes, I hate Flash, but HTML 5 doesn't magically play video all by itself. You still have to have some sort of player/codec installed on your computer. Everyone doesn't have h264, theora or whatever. Almost everyone has Flash. I fail to understand how HTML 5 changes this.
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Because instead of having a Turing-capable, complete independent virtual machine sitting in a browser just to look at a few pictures, I can just have a "link" to a bog-standard video that plays just like the old "embed" tags for a standardised video codec that people can include direct in the browser. Instead of the security nightmare of constant Flash updates, forced toolbar installations, breakage of old Flash sites just because you upgrade to new Flash versions, integration with webcams, microphones and
Shouldn't that headline be.. (Score:2)
Porn Industry Ready To Drop Trou and Flash?
iPad ready porn (Score:3, Informative)
Many porn sites are already iPad ready. I've heard (cough cough) that the experience is much better.
http://youporn.com/ [youporn.com]
http://pornhub.com/ [pornhub.com]
http://extremetube.com/ [extremetube.com]
A big part of this is how cheap and easy it is to do HTML5+H.264 video. The video editing tools all have H.264 encoders, including batch encoding at least in Final Cut, and a standalone encoder is $29. Of course any HTML coder can learn the video tag. Flash is unreasonably complicated by comparison and also $599 a seat.
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Or, more to the point, all of these sites were already using mp4/h264 as their format of choice, and for flash, using out of the box players (jw player / flow player)
It comes down to increasing / maintaining hold on of their audience.
It has nothing to do with cost - especially for for YouPorn and the ilk.
They run *nix based encoding systems built of ffmpeg / mplayer - did you really think they were sitting down cutting each clip in FinalCut?
The entire YP staff base is about 6 guys in total, with about 3 bei
Re:iPad ready porn (Score:4, Informative)
Looking at it the other way, Flash SWFs import the very same h.264 file that you can serve raw. Adding h.264 support is as easy as serving up the file you already had without the Flash wrapper. It's a no-brainer.
is HTML5 better on battery life? (Score:2)
FTA: "Flash brings everything to a crawl and has an impact on battery life"
I've heard similar sentiments in other quasi-news tech articles, but haven't all actual test done so far found that HTML5 is about the same as flash on battery life and cpu usage? where does the idea that it will be better in these areas than flash come from? I think HTML5 has merit as a standard, but whats with the marketing spin?
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On a Mac, at least, CPU usage is about double for the same H.264 file played through Flash as through a tag. This is especially noticeable on machine like mine, where 720p videos play just fine in a browser, but 720p Flash videos stutter.
"No Reason?!" (Score:2)
Adaptive bitrate streaming?
Sparse Caching in CDNs?
Standardization of Codecs - knowing that the browser that's play the video will have the codec you need?
Being able to fast-forward (think: Moneyshot) without downloading the whole video first?
HTML5 is a very weak video solution.
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How soon can I claim that flash has gone the way of Betamax and HDDVD(A)?
However long it takes will be too long--even if it was tomorrow.