Adobe® Media PlayerWelcome to the next generation of entertainment—a customizable, cross-platform desktop player that lets you control when and where you watch downloaded or streaming media

Adobe Media Player is a next-generation desktop media player and management application, providing high-quality video playback of streamed, downloaded, or locally stored video content.

For content providers and media publishers, Adobe Media Player is a powerful new channel for distributing and monetizing video content. With powerful control over branding, advertising, audience measurement, and content integrity, Adobe Media Player provides an end-to-end broadcast solution to Internet TV producers and video podcasters alike.

This white paper provides a general overview of Adobe Media Player to give content producers and publishers a good understanding of how it works and how it can benefit their business as well as their audience.

What is Adobe Media Player?Adobe Media Player is a next-generation, cross-platform desktop media player and feed manage-ment application built on the Adobe AIR™ runtime.

With Adobe Media Player, viewers can:

• Easily find and watch their favorite shows with a simple, intuitive interface that optimizes the user experience

• View content by network, show, or episode

• Subscribe to their favorite shows and have new episodes automatically queued to watch as they become available

• Upload and play personal videos

With Adobe Media Player, content producers and publishers can:

• Easily publish video content

• Provide a branded experience and relevant advertising to maximize brand equity and advertis-ing revenue

• Protect content

• Measure content usage

Technical White Paper

Table of contents1 What is Adobe Media Player?

2 Adobe AIR

2 Adobe Media Player overview

7 Publishing to Adobe Media Player

11 Video delivery options

12 Advertising integration

13 Audience measurement

14 Content protection

15 Glossary

17 Online resources

Adobe AIRAdobe AIR is a cross–operating system runtime that enables developers to use their existing HTML, Ajax, Adobe Flex,® or Adobe Flash® web development skills and tools to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop. Adobe has built Adobe Media Player on AIR for these same reasons—because AIR provides cross-platform compatibility and an efficient development workflow, and it enables viewers to enjoy content both online and offline.

Adobe AIR itself is not an application but a bridge between desktop applications and your operating system (see Figure 1).

A. Operating system

B. Runtime platform

C. Application

D. Viewers

Figure 1. The Adobe AIR hierarchy.

Because Adobe AIR is desktop-based rather than browser-based, it functions both online and offline. AIR applications can even detect the state of your Internet connection and respond accordingly. In the case of Adobe Media Player, this asynchronous functionality allows for offline viewing of content as well as offline caching of viewer data for transmission when connected.

When installing Adobe Media Player for the first time, the installer prompts the viewer to install or upgrade Adobe AIR if the latest version is not yet installed. After the AIR installation is complete, the Adobe Media Player installer runs automatically. There are also opportunities for content publishers to enter into bounty agreements by distributing Adobe Media Player via branded badge installation links from their websites. This enables content publishers to auto-matically subscribe viewers to specific content, but it also enables bounty agreements with Adobe, which allow for special customization and other benefits for initiating Adobe Media Player installations. To enable badge technology on your website, become an Adobe partner. For information on becoming an Adobe partner, contact the Adobe Strategic Alliance Group at ampbizdev@adobe.com.

For more information about Adobe AIR, visit www.adobe.com/go/air.

Adobe Media Player overviewAdobe Media Player provides a common platform to satisfy the needs of content publishers ranging from independent producers to large television networks.

For the consumer, Adobe Media Player provides an organized, intuitive, and visually appealing experience of finding, viewing, and managing video content. It supports the playback of content ranging from low bit-rate videos to high-definition full-screen content. Based on Adobe’s Flash platform video formats, Adobe Media Player can play and manage FLV assets (On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark codecs) and a variety of possible container formats for H.264 codec (such as

.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v, .3gp, and .f4v) that are stored locally on the viewer’s hard drive or delivered via the Internet using either progressive or streaming delivery.

Since Adobe Media Player uses RSS to power the addition of content to the catalog, as well as specification of branding and advertising, it can read and subscribe to normal video RSS feeds and manage those assets on the viewer’s computer. Any publisher can add custom RSS tags that reference basic visual branding assets to their existing RSS feed to have their programming enhanced with the special features of Adobe Media Player, without any extra cost or registration

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with Adobe. Given the flexibility of the RSS format, other aggregators simply ignore the Adobe Media Player specific additions made to the feed and should not be adversely affected.

Adobe Media Player is more than a simple RSS aggregator. It has also been tightly integrated with the new features of Adobe Flash Media Server 3 to support sophisticated audience measurement and content integrity features.

Content organizationContent in Adobe Media Player is contained in a catalog and follows this hierarchy:

• Network—A network is defined as an organization that produces and/or distributes several different shows.

• Show—A show refers to a regular, periodic series of any type of video content.

• Episode—An episode is an individual video program of a show.

For example, PBS is a network that produces the show NOVA Vodcast. An episode of NOVA Vodcast is “Dark Matter Mystery.”

The Adobe Media Player ecosystemThe Adobe Media Player ecosystem consists of these primary members:

• Viewers—Consumers of Internet TV shows and other video content using Adobe Media Player

• Content partners—Producers and distributors of Internet TV shows and other video content that is made available for consumption using Adobe Media Player

• Advertising partners—Organizations who advertise to viewers using the advertising options in Adobe Media Player—this group can include brand owners and agencies

• Delivery partners—Adobe has developed a consortium of professional partners, which are organizations that provide infrastructure support to content publishers, including publishing services entities, ad server entities, and ad networks

• Content publishers—Organizations that aggregate their own content or content provided by content publishers

• Facilitator—Adobe facilitates the interactions between these primary ecosystem members

Ecosystem workflowTo show you how each member of the ecosystem works together, here is a usage scenario:

A content publisher produces video content that she wishes to deliver via Adobe Media Player. She associates with an advertising partner to manage and serve advertising content for her programming. Through Adobe Media Player, in-roll video ads as well as banner ads run concurrently with her video content. Adobe Media Player measures viewer interaction with both her content and the associated advertising elements. Measurement is collected and analyzed for relevance by specially configured Flash Media Server 3 servers hosted by the content publisher, the advertising partners, and Adobe. Relevant ad data is sent to the advertising partners and all data is sent to the publisher.

This scenario presents the full implementation of the Adobe Media Player ecosystem. To enable this scenario, the content publisher first establishes a business relationship with Adobe. Her advertising partners then receive only measurement data that is relevant to their advertising initiative. She receives information about how viewers interact with her content. In addition, Adobe aggregates the usage data it receives to determine general viewer consumption trends, as well as to promote featured shows in the Adobe Media Player Catalog. All of this data can be associated with the basic demographic profile of the viewers but will otherwise be anonymous (no names or IP addresses are recorded).

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Exploring the Adobe Media Player interfaceThe Adobe Media Player interface is designed to enable viewers to:

• Find video content easily

• Download or stream videos efficiently and smoothly

• Link to and play back their own personal videos

• Play video content in various screen sizes according to their preferences

Putting content front and center is the main goal. This includes your brand as well as your content. Adobe Media Player provides the stable and consistent playback environment, but your branded content provides the core of the viewer experience.

The interface itself consists of three navigation areas, or pods (see Figure 2):

• Content pod—The main pod is the Content pod, where central application interactions take place, such as video playback, setting options, and navigating through media directories.

• Navigation pod—The Navigation pod at the top of the window is persistent. It provides a clickable breadcrumb-style navigation path from the content the viewer is viewing back to the Home screen.

• Menu pod—The Menu pod enables viewers to make general navigational and functional choices. It always provides options that are up one level from the Content pod.

Figure 2. The three pods of Adobe Media Player.

When viewers first launch Adobe Media Player, they are presented with the Home screen (see Figure 3). From this screen, viewers can access the six main areas of the application:

• Catalog—Viewers can find online content in the Catalog using a keyword search or by browsing by network or genre and add shows to their My Favorites list.

• My Favorites—When viewers subscribe to a show or tag an episode as a favorite, it will be added to this list. When viewers subscribe to a show, new episodes are automatically included in this list as they are published.

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• New Episodes—This area displays new episodes of viewers’ favorite shows, giving them one-click access to their freshest content. This view appears only if new episodes are available.

• Personal Videos—Viewers can gather and play back FLV and MPEG-4 files stored on their computer. In addition, Adobe Media Player will launch as the default application when a viewer clicks an FLV file on their computer, and the file will be added to this list.

• Downloads—Episode downloads that are in progress or downloads that have failed are displayed in this area. This view only appears when downloads are in progress or have failed.

• Options—Viewers can set preferences for how their content usage and demographic informa-tion is shared with networks and advertisers as well as set various playback and performance options.

Figure 3. The Adobe Media Player Home screen.

The Home screen also features several ways for viewers to discover content, such as a live rotation of featured shows, recently added listings, featured networks, and popular genre links.

Icons are used extensively in Adobe Media Player to indicate the status of media and subscrip-tions. Table 1 shows what each icon means.

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Icon Indicator Description

Downloading Episode is in the process of downloading and appears in the download queue

Paused download Download is paused

Failed download Download has failed; either viewer is offline or there is an error

Watched This episode has been watched or skipped (percentage indicates percent of content that has been viewed)

Streaming, online A streaming episode that is viewable because viewer is online

Streaming, offline A streaming episode that is not viewable because viewer is offline

Expiring soon The episode expires soon (rights-managed content)

Expired The episode has expired and is no longer available (rights-managed content)

Error There is an error with download or playback

Local file Downloading is complete; the episode is viewable online or offline

Unwatched count The number of new episodes of a show

Table 1. Adobe Media Player status icons.

The Adobe Media Player interface is carefully designed to incorporate many smooth transitions and motion elements, creating a flow from one content area to another. This eliminates the need to spawn any new windows, keeping the viewer oriented on the content, not the structure of the application itself.

Key benefitsTable 2 shows a quick list of key benefits that Adobe Media Player offers content producers and advertisers as well as viewers.

For content producers and advertisers For viewers

4 Content delivery in FLV (VP6) or MPEG-4 (H.264) video formats 4 Easy creation of their own personalized content collection

4 Subscription-driven delivery, ensuring audience retention 4 Ability to include contents of their hard drive

4 Industry-standard file formats for both content and advertising 4 Content discovery through flexible search

4 Easy branding and advertising tools, including banners, in-rolls, and bugs.

4 Access to a range of compelling content from leading networks and independent producers

4 Customizable interface elements and backgrounds for easy brand integration

4 Support for both online and offline viewing

4 Measurement of key usage and audience data 4 Ability to watch at their preferred playback size, from original to full-screen

4 Several levels of content protection available 4 HD-quality playback support, even at full-screen

4 Favorites badge for your website, offering a branded start screen 4 Simple and intuitive user interface

4 Automatic downloading of new subscribed content

Table 2. Adobe Media Player key benefits.

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System requirementsThe following are the system requirements for Adobe Media Player:

Windows®• Intel® Pentium® 4 2.33GHz or faster processor

• Microsoft® Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista® Home, Business, or Ultimate

• 1GB of RAM and 64MB of VRAM

Mac OS (PowerPC®)• PowerPC G5 1.8GHz or faster processor

• Mac OS X v10.4.9–10.4.11 or 10.5.1–10.5.2

• 1GB of RAM and 64MB of VRAM

Mac OS (Intel)• Intel Core™ Duo 1.33GHz or faster processor

• Mac OS X v10.4.9–10.4.11 or 10.5.1–10.5.2

• 1GB of RAM and 64MB of VRAM

Video playback requirementsTable 3 shows the specific requirements for video playback within Adobe Media Player.

Video quality Windows Mac OS

240p (YouTube) • Intel Pentium III 450MHz or faster processor

• 1GB of RAM

• PowerPC G3 500MHz or faster processor

• 1GB of RAM

480p (NTSC/DVD)—24fps • Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent 2.33GHz or faster processor

• 1GB of RAM and 128MB of VRAM

• PowerPC G5 2GHz or faster or Intel Core Duo or equivalent 1.83GHz or faster processor

• 2GB of RAM and 128MB of VRAM (Intel)

• 2GB of RAM and 256MB of VRAM (PowerPC)

720p (HD)—24/30fps • Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent 3GHz or faster processor

• 1GB of RAM and 256MB of VRAM

• Intel Core Duo or equivalent 2.4GHz or faster processor

• 1GB of RAM and 256MB of VRAM

1080p (HD)—24fps • Intel Core Duo or equivalent 1.8GHz or faster processor

• 2GB of RAM and 256MB of VRAM

• Intel Core Duo or equivalent 3GHz or faster processor

• 2GB of RAM and 256MB of VRAM

• 1,024x768 or greater screen resolution is recommended in all instances.

• Due to performance issues, H.264 is not supported on PowerPC based Macs.

Table 3. Video playback requirements.

For the most up-to-date requirements, visit www.adobe.com/products/mediaplayer/viewers/systemreqs.html.

Publishing to Adobe Media PlayerGetting your content into Adobe Media Player should be straightforward and simple. Adobe has put a wealth of services and partners in place to streamline the publishing process. Your workflow will depend on the level of customization, monetization, and branding you require. This section compares the capabilities and limitations of each format, so you can decide the best approach for setting up your feeds.

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Feeding content to Adobe Media PlayerYou can add content to Adobe Media Player two ways:

• Feed—Create a feed of a video show and its associated episodes in the form of a plain RSS feed.

• Enhanced playlist—Create a feed of a video show in which each episode is referenced by an Adobe Media Orchestration Document (AMOD). AMODs contain the logic for orchestrating and delivering additional media content, such as preroll ads, banner ads, and overlays.

Enhanced playlists and feeds are very similar; they are both RSS documents. While a feed uses a simple URL for each episode, paired with static branding elements, an enhanced playlist specifies an AMOD for each episode, providing specification for dynamic advertising along with branding elements. Your choice will depend on your advertising, branding, and measurement requirements and are compared in the following sections.

FeedsA feed is a plain Real Simple Syndication (RSS) file. It represents your show and its associated episodes, along with basic branding elements. Figure 4 outlines the typical information con-tained in a standard feed.

Figure 4. Typical information in an Adobe Media Player RSS feed.

RSS feeds for Adobe Media Player can be created and customized using Media RSS, Atom 1.0, or RSS 1.0 or 2.0 syndication formats.

• For Media RSS, see http://search.yahoo.com/mrss.

• For Atom, see www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4287.txt.

• For RSS 1.0, see http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/spec.

• For RSS 2.0, see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html.

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Enhanced playlistsAn enhanced playlist is similar to a feed; it is also an RSS file. However, instead of referencing simple video URLs in the media enclosures, enhanced playlists reference Adobe Media Orches-tration Documents. AMODs enable you to orchestrate the entire viewer experience at the episode level—specifying not only the sequence of episodes, but also what advertising and branding elements will appear alongside the content.

Figure 5 outlines the typical information contained in an enhanced playlist.

Figure 5. Typical information in an enhanced playlist.

The Adobe Media Player AMOD format is based on SMIL 2.1, an XML-based presentation format that offers sophisticated content orchestration within the application. Adobe Media Player relies on a subset of SMIL 2.1 modules. For more information on SMIL, refer to the complete SMIL 2.1 specification at www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-SMIL2-20050107.

Customizable elementsSpecific branding elements are available to all publishers. Table 4 provides an overview of the various branding elements and their placement. For more details or for information about network branding, refer to the Adobe Media Player Content Developer Kit, which is available at www.adobe.com/devnet/mediaplayer/articles/adobemediaplayer_cdk.pdf.

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Asset type Element type Dimensions (pixels) Relevant screens Function

Show logo URL to image 250x250 My Favorites, New Episodes

Defines the show logo

Show background URL to image 1,024x576 New Episodes, Video Player

Defines background image for the show

Show banner URL to image or SWF 686x60 New Episodes, Show pod Defines a rectangular banner that represents the show

Show half-banner URL to image 234x60 Episode list when viewing from My Favorites

Defines a half-size rectangular banner that represents the show.

Table 4. Branding elements available in Adobe Media Player.

Figures 6 and 7 show the main content area and various branding elements in Adobe Media Player. In this example, the main content area displays the episode listing (see Figure 6) and an FLV, F4V, or MPEG-4 file (see Figure 7). In a feed, this area is referred to as the content region. If you are using an enhanced playlist to specify the content, you can include in-roll ads as well as video.

Figure 6. Branded show with multiple episodes.

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Figure 7. Branded episode playback screen.

Video delivery optionsYou can use two different methods to deliver video through Adobe Media Player: standard progressive download and streaming. Regardless of the method you choose, viewers will have a virtually identical viewing experience. Your choice will depend on your budget and the level of protection your content requires.

Progressive downloadProgressive download—the method most used by current podcasters and other online publish-ers—downloads and stores video on the viewer’s computer. Progressive delivery is often used for videos embedded in web pages, where a short period of time is required to cache the beginning of the media file before it starts playing. When a viewer plays a video that has not been previously downloaded (and therefore is not listed in My Favorites or Personal Videos), Adobe Media Player buffers the beginning of the video until a sufficient amount of data is received before playback begins. Adobe Media Player calculates an appropriate buffer time based on the rate the data is being received and the total length of the video. Once the video has been downloaded, subse-quent viewing does not require any buffering.

Progressively downloaded files are usually delivered through a content delivery network (CDN) using the standard HTTP protocol. In this case, Adobe Media Player establishes a direct connection with the CDN’s servers to retrieve the content.

Streaming deliveryIn addition to download delivery methods, Adobe Media Player can also deliver streaming video via the RTMP or RTMPE protocols supported by Adobe Flash Media Server 3. The user experi-ence will be virtually the same as with downloaded content, except that streamed video cannot be viewed offline. Because of the inherent security features of streamed content, it is never stored on the viewer’s computer.

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Offline experienceAdobe Media Player caches progressive video, advertising, and branding artwork at the time of download to provide viewers with an equally rich experience should they view your show offline. If the AMOD specifies a dynamic advertisement to be loaded from a URL, Adobe Media Player displays cached replacement artwork instead. The aim is to provide as close to an online experience as possible when offline.

One major advantage of Adobe Media Player is its ability to collect and cache measurement data at the time of viewing, whether the viewer in online or offline. Because it is built on the Adobe AIR platform, when the viewer goes back online and launches Adobe Media Player, the collected anonymous measurement data is then securely uploaded in the background to the appropriate recipients. For more information about measurement data, see the “Audience Measurement” section of this white paper.

Supported file typesThe video formats supported by every delivery method in Adobe Media Player are listed in Table 5.

Asset type Container Usual audio format pairing

Sorenson Spark FLV Nellymoser/MP3

On2 VP6 FLV Nellymoser/MP4

H.264* MPEG-4, MP4, M4V, F4V, 3GPP, MOV AAC+/MP3

* H.264 playback in Adobe Media Player supports most popular profiles, including Base, Main, and HiP. The new F4V format will be a subset of MPEG-4 ISO 14496-10 and AAC+ (ISO 14496-3).

Table 5. Supported video formats.

For more information on H.264/AAC support, refer to the Flash Player 9 Update FAQ, available at http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Player:9:Update:H.264.

Advertising integration Using AMODs, you can create enhanced playlists that enable you to monetize your video content by delivering advertisements alongside your content.

If you would like to integrate advertising into your video content, you must complete an advertising enablement agreement directly with Adobe. You can conduct a 30-day trial of the advertising feature before formalizing a business agreement. For information on setting up an advertising trial, see www.adobe.com/go/learn_amp_adtrial. For information on becoming an Adobe advertising partner, contact the Adobe Strategic Alliance Group at ampbizdev@adobe.com. Once you establish your agreement with Adobe, the advertising that you specify in your enhanced playlists is enabled for playback in Adobe Media Player.

To set up delivery of advertising alongside your video content, follow these steps:

1. Establish a formal business agreement with Adobe.

2. Have an existing relationship with an advertising delivery network. You sell and place the ads that are delivered alongside your content. Adobe does not sell ads; it facilitates ad delivery through Adobe Media Player, giving you complete control over ad specification and monetization.

3. Create AMODs to reference your content and advertisements, and then include references to these AMODs in an enhanced playlist.

4. Publish the enhanced playlist to the Catalog.

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With enhanced playlists and AMODs, you can:

• Specify advertisements that appear around your content as banners

• Add overlay advertisements that appear over the lower right corner of the video

• Sequence preroll, midroll, and postroll advertisements to deliver commercial-like experiences interspersed with your video content—these can be specified as skippable or unskippable

• Use a measurement pixel—an invisible single-pixel image—to monitor ad delivery in ways partners do today on the web

For more information about integrating advertising with your content in Adobe Media Player, refer to the Adobe Media Player Content Developer Kit, which is available at www.adobe.com/devnet/mediaplayer/articles/adobemediaplayer_cdk.pdf.

Audience measurement Adobe Media Player offers a rich set of tools for understanding how viewers are interacting with your content, both online and offline. You can anonymously measure common actions such as feed updates, ad views, download status, and how the viewer navigates and views your video content. This built-in functionality makes Adobe Media Player even more valuable as a content distribution channel.

What data is measuredAdobe Media Player measures the following classes of data:

• Content usage (such as play, pause, scrub, and view full-screen)

• Subscription events (such as subscribe, unsubscribe, and update)

• Demographic information, when entered by viewers (such as gender, age, and country/postal code)

This measurement data is linked to specific publishers, shows, and episodes and is delivered to the appropriate ecosystem partners.

To protect viewer privacy while providing you the data you need to develop optimized user experiences, Adobe Media Player measurement follows strict guidelines, including:

• Maintaining strict viewer anonymity—Adobe Media Player does not capture or transmit personally identifiable information such as IP addresses

• Providing the viewer with clear and flexible ways to opt in or out of measurement

• Measuring only what is relevant

• Transmitting measurement data only over secure connections

• Using measurement data as a way to enhance the viewer relationship with content publishers and advertisers

• Providing all partners with an accurate measurement system

Note: If you are using an enhanced playlist with AMODs, you can require that viewers opt into measurement to view your content.

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How data is collectedMeasurement data in Adobe Media Player is similar to standard server-side web traffic logging except that it is asynchronous. In Adobe Media Player, client-side measurement data is stored temporarily on the viewer’s computer in an encrypted cache. The data is then uploaded to a measurement application running on Flash Media Server, which is hosted by the content publisher or by the ecosystem provider who has requested the information. Data is delivered in W3C log files to provide you the flexibility to integrate and analyze it in the analytic tool of your choice.

The following is a high-level overview of the measurement process:

1. Set up Flash Media Server and install the Flash Media Server Receiver application on the server. If you are using a CDN or Content Publishing Service (CPS) to deliver your video content, it must have this application installed on its Flash Media Servers to enable measure-ment.

2. Add measurement and reporting information to your feeds or enhanced playlists.

3. When an event is captured, Adobe Media Player creates a record for the event and stores this record on the viewer’s computer.

4. Adobe Media Player periodically checks whether there are any newly generated event records to transmit to the Receiver application.

5. When acknowledgments of data transfer are sent from the Receiver application, Adobe Media Player deletes the event records that are successfully received.

Reporting optionsAdobe Media Player supports reporting of measurement data using either feeds or enhanced playlists. Adobe recommends using enhanced playlists for reporting because this is where most interaction occurs. Enhanced playlists also provide content protections, ensuring that no one can modify the playlist content, by removing ads for example.

In addition, feeds can only include single reporting endpoints. Enhanced playlists can include single or multiple reporting endpoints, ensuring that each ecosystem partner receives relevant measurement information. For example, you can set up an enhanced playlist to report ads to one endpoint (such as the ad vendor), and report everything, including ads, to another endpoint (such as the publisher). This provides you with the most flexible implementation of the robust reporting in Adobe Media Player.

For more information about measurement in Adobe Media Player, refer to the Adobe Media Player Content Developer Kit, which is available at www.adobe.com/devnet/mediaplayer/articles/adobemediaplayer_cdk.pdf.

Content protection Adobe Media Player, working with Flash Media Rights Management Server, provides robust and flexible content protection for your video content and playlists.

Two methods of content protection are available in Adobe Media Player:

• Content integrity—Enhanced playlists specifying streaming and downloadable content with associated advertisements are protected to prevent viewers from breaking apart content and ads. Digital signatures are put in place to verify incoming video feeds, protecting your ad-based model. This protection is transparent to the viewer and requires no viewer action.

• Identity-based licensing—Adobe Media Player securely associates downloaded content with viewers to prevent content sharing. Viewers are required to provide credentials, such as username and password, to access the content the first time it is viewed. The credentials are then saved on their local computer, so they may view the content later, even when they are offline. You can also specify an expiration date for your content.

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Note: You can always add a basic level of content protection by utilizing streaming delivery. Streaming itself offers some protection by not caching the video file on the viewer’s computer. Additional security is offered via Adobe protected streaming technology through Flash Media Rights Management Server. For more information, visit www.adobe.com/products/flashmediarightsmanagement.

Encrypting content for Adobe Media PlayerTo use the content protection features of Adobe Media Player, you must apply policies to content and playlists. A policy defines how viewers can view content (including security settings, autho-rized viewers, and usage rights). Policies are by managed through Flash Media Rights Manage-ment Server. Using Rights Manager in Flash Media Rights Management Server, administrators can create, list, update, and view details of policies. When policies are applied, encryption and signing enable you to maintain control of your content, no matter how widely it is distributed.

Using three tools: Rights Manager, Media Packager, and Playlist Signer (provided with Flash Media Rights Management Server), you can create policies, apply policies to video files, encrypt the files, and sign AMODs. For an overview of content protection using Flash Media Rights Management Server or for detailed information on securing video content, visit www.adobe.com/go/learn_amp_protect.

GlossaryAdobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime): A cross-platform tool that lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML, Ajax, Flash, and Flex to build and deploy RIAs to the desktop.

Adobe Media Player: Brings the best of both the broadcast television and web video worlds to your desktop—providing high-quality content both online and offline, with a wide range of business model possibilities.

Advertising: To generate revenue opportunities, you can include advertising in your enhanced playlist in Adobe Media Player.

AMODs (Adobe Media Orchestration Documents): Enhanced playlist capabilities are provided by AMODs, which use a selection of SMIL 2.1 formats to deliver sophisticated content experiences.

Bandwidth: The amount of throughput of a server or a client computer. Usually measured in megabits per second (Mbps) or kilobits per second (kbps). A typical wired Ethernet connection is 100Mbps and Wi-Fi is 54Mbps. Server and client bandwidth limits determine how much video can be served or received.

Banner region: The advertisement area located above the video playback area in Adobe Media Player.

Branding: Customization of the Adobe Media Player user interface. To assist you in building brand value, Adobe Media Player provides an array of branding placements within the video playback window.

Buffer: The amount of video stored in RAM on the client computer. The larger the buffer, the smoother the video will play back. Buffer is never written to disk.

Catalog: The view in Adobe Media Player where viewers can browse networks, featured content, and shows and add shows to My Favorites.

CDN (Content Delivery Network): Companies that offer streaming services and bandwidth so customers do not need to set up and install servers of their own.

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Codec: Short for code/decode. The format in which a video or audio file is encoded. Flash uses Sorenson Spark, On2 VP6-S, On2 VP6-E, and H.264 codecs for video, and Nellymoser, MP3, and AAC for audio. The decoding part of the codec must be present in the player to play back video using a specific codec.

Content: Video or audio data in the Adobe Media Player Catalog.

Content region: The video playback area in Adobe Media Player.

CPS (Content Publishing Service): Companies that offer specialized services to help you deliver your content to Adobe Media Player.

DRM (digital rights management): Encoded video that can be sold and protected against stealing and unauthorized sharing.

Encoder: Software that compresses or transcodes video from one format to another.

Enhanced playlist: Extends the basic feed by providing the ability to include additional media assets, such as branding and advertising assets. Enhanced playlists utilize AMODs. (Note: You can implement simple branding in the feed without using AMODs. Enhanced playlists support dynamic branding options.)

Enhanced RTMP: The next-generation RTMP protocol that increases security and performance.

Episode: An individual instance of a show. For example, a show may have up to 20 episodes per season.

F4V: An Adobe file format for storing media content based on MPEG-4 Part 12 (ISO/IEC 14496-12), which supports H.264 and HE-AAC codecs. It is used to deliver audio and video for playback in Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Media Player, and Adobe AIR.

Featured content: Video content that is featured in the upper view of the Catalog. You require a business relationship with Adobe to get your content featured in the Catalog.

Feed: A plain video file or RSS feed.

FLV: An Adobe file format for storing video content that supports Sorenson Spark and On2 VP6 codecs. It is used to deliver video and audio for playback in Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Media Player, and Adobe AIR.

FMSP (Flash Media Solution Provider) program: A partner program that helps promote a strong ecosystem around the process of developing video content for the web based on Adobe Flash technology. For more information, visit www.adobe.com/go/fmsp.

FVSS (Flash Video Streaming Service) providers: A provider program made up of select CDNs.

H.264: A high-quality video codec that is also known as MPEG-4 Part 10 or MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC).

Home screen: The default screen that appears when viewers open Adobe Media Player.

Internet TV: Traditional television shows made available for viewing over the Internet. Also includes Internet-only television-style content that is not distributed over other media, such as cable, broadcast, or satellite.

My Favorites: A customized list of favorite shows that each viewer selects. When viewers add shows to My Favorites, Adobe Media Player automatically downloads new episodes. Viewers can set the number of episodes to download; Adobe Media Player automatically downloads the latest episode by default. Download options are set with the Options view, accessible from the Adobe Media Player Home screen.

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Network: An organization or content publisher that produces or distributes different shows in Adobe Media Player. Like featured content, the creation of a network requires a business relationship with Adobe.

On2 VP6: A video codec available for playback since Flash Player 8 that offers high-quality, lightweight full-screen playback. VP6-S is a simplified version of the codec that is ideal for delivery of high-quality video to older computers (available in Flash Player 9 or later). VP6-E, the original codec that shipped with Flash Player 8, is slightly higher quality and thus requires more processing power for playback.

Pods: The entire Adobe Media Player experience takes place in one window that is divided into three major sections, called pods, which include a Navigation pod, a Menu pod, and a Content pod.

Progressive download: A technique for delivering video over the Internet that enables video files to start playing before they are fully downloaded to the viewer’s computer.

QOS (quality of service): The quality of the viewer’s playback experience.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed: A technology for delivering digital content, commonly including blogs, news feeds, or podcasts. When viewers add a show to their favorites, they subscribe to the show’s RSS feed.

RTMP (Real Time Message Protocol): Adobe’s proprietary method of communication between Flash Player clients and Flash Media Server.

Show: A regular, repeated series of any type of video content, like a television show.

Solution provider: Consulting or enablement organizations that provide advanced knowledge of video delivery on the Flash platform and its integration over multiple devices.

Sorenson Spark: The original video codec in Flash Player 6 and 7. An encoder for this codec is also built into Flash Player, allowing for webcam broadcast and archiving when used with Flash Media Server.

Streaming video: A method of delivering video content over the Internet to viewers who can view it while it is being transmitted. Streamed video is never cached on the viewer’s computer.

Transcoding: The conversion from one video format to another. Usually transcoding enables you to change the codec. Each time a file is transcoded, quality is lost.

UGC (user-generated content): Media content created by users and made publicly available over the Internet.

VOD (video on demand): A term used to describe the delivery of prerecorded streaming video.

Online resourcesFlash on.™ (Adobe video showcase) www.adobe.com/flashon

HD video with Adobe Flash www.adobe.com/products/hdvideo

Adobe HD gallery www.adobe.com/products/hdvideo/hdgallery

Understanding the difference between progressive download and streaming video www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/flv_download.html www.adobe.com/products/hdvideo/supported_technologies/streaming.html

Exploring Flash Player support for high-definition H.264 video and AAC audio www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/hd_video_flash_player.html

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AAC-HE version 2 www.adobe.com/products/hdvideo/supported_technologies/heaacv2.html

H.264 www.adobe.com/products/hdvideo/supported_technologies/h264.html

Streaming through firewalls and proxies: From the client’s perspective www.adobe.com/devnet/flashcom/articles/firewall_streaming.html

Flash Media Encoder 2 www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/flashmediaencoder

Adobe’s FVSS partners www.adobe.com/go/fvss

Flash Media Solution Provider program www.adobe.com/go/fmsp

Flash Player 9 update FAQ http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Player:9:Update:H.264

A streaming media primer www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/pdfs/AdobeStr.pdf

Understanding and using high-definition video www.adobe.com/designcenter/productionstudio/articles/prs1ip_hdprimer/prs1ip_hdprimer.pdf

About the authorLisa Larson-Kelley is a developer, consultant, and teacher on subjects related to electronic media. She coauthored the book Flash Video for Professionals (Wiley, 2007). Her blog is at www.flashconnections.com.

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