On2 Announces Plans to Offer Browser-Based Flash 8 Video Encoding Product
Posted by Sachin Garg on 19th December 2005 | Permanent Link
Press Release: On2 Technologiesannounced that it is developing a standalone product that will allow users to use a web browser to encode Flash 8 video on their own computers. The user can store the resulting video files either on their own PC or upload them to a central server for distribution.
The product will be a strong complement to the browser-based capabilities of On2 Flix Engine, On2’s existing enterprise — class Flash 8 video encoding solution. The new product will be intended specifically for consumer-level “point, click, and publish” applications by supporting capture from consumer video devices such as DV cameras, a customizable user interface, and streamlined uploading of the final encoded video to a publishing service.
“We look forward to working with our customers to add this functionality to their Internet services. Many of our customers have requested an optimized, more feature-rich version of our browser-based encoding product because of the ease of use it will create for the consumer market. It’s a model of simplicity: the Flash 8 encoder is downloaded automatically and becomes an extension of the user’s web browser, enabling them to plug in a camera or drag a video file directly into the browser window for instant encoding and uploading to a publisher, corporate server farm, or blog,” said Douglas A. McIntyre, On2’s chairman, president and chief executive officer.
The new service will allow On2 customers to license the technology and do the serving and streaming from any service they designate.
“This business could rival our On2 Flix Engine business because it allows the workload of encoding Flash 8 video to be moved from the server down to the processor on the user’s machine,” McIntyre added.
The beta testing period for the product will begin shortly with a release target of early to the middle of the first quarter of 2006. The product will also be shipped with the On2 Flix Engine so customers can offer the two products as part of an umbrella service.
Among the features of the new product are:
* One click video capture/encode/upload in Flash 8 format from within any
web browser that supports browser plug-in technology such as Microsoft’s
ActiveX.* Capture and encode video directly from a webcam or DV camera attached to
the end-user’s machine* Encode existing video files on the user’s machine
* Accept 3GP video files submitted from a mobile device
* Automatically uploads files via ftp, http, or other appropriate means to
a designated distribution service* Configuration options can be embedded within the web page containing the
encoder object, including destination address, video data rate, video
size, and other key parameters