Great blog and informed responses...
H.264 Is A Codec; Flash Is A Platform. One Can Not Kill Off The Other
Over the weekend I read another few dozen articles on the whole Apple and Adobe debate and probably read through a thousand comments. Some of the posts I read were really good, but far too many people are comparing codecs (H.264, VP8), platforms (Flash) and languages (HTML5) as if they are all the same thing.
There are lots of posts talking about open standards and making statements on how H.264 is going to kill off Flash. The problem with these statements is that H.264 is a video codec. That's it. It's not a platform of any kind like Flash is. H.264 video has to be played back in a wrapper or by a web browser. The Flash player supports playback of H.264 as long as it has the proper wrapper, which most people either don't know, or simply aren't mentioning. H.264 is not going to put Flash out of business because it can't. It's not a substitute for Flash and is not a platform like Flash. The Flash video platform includes an entire ecosystem for video that includes a player, server and technology for things like content protection (DRM).
If we want to debate the relevance of H.264 to Adobe, then the debate should only be about what H.264 is, a codec. The codec discussion involves H.264, VP6, VP8 and Ogg Theora, the four main video codecs that exist today.....
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