Adobe has finally announced support for simultaneous Flash and HTTP video streaming from the Flash Media Server product. This means that devices that don't support Adobe's Flash player or plugin, like iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, will instead get HTTP streaming videos. Same content, same server, easier for broadcasters, easier for users. And it only took years. (Microsoft announced something similar for Silverlight back in November of 2009.)

Adobe has created consistency with Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR running on more devices than any other platform. With Flash, publishers are assured that protection, transport and quality is consistent across MAC, PC, Linux, Android and Blackberry Tablet OS. Apple iPhone and iPad have had a significant impact how consumers experience and engage with video and have changed the industry. Publishers are now faced with a challenge and forced to prepare content for delivery through HTML5 to play in the Apple Safari browser or native Apps. Now publishers can simplify their video publishing and protection workflows with Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 with protected HLS support, audio channel extraction, DVR/PVR live, on demand and variant playlists. One set of content without any preparation or additional storage and deliver safely to both Adobe Flash with HDS and to Apple devices using HLS.

Yes, you can use the same assets (if they are encoded to Apple Specs) and the same server to prepare, protect and deliver both to HLS to Apple devices and HDS (HTTP Dynamic Streaming) to Adobe Flash Player.

Welcome, Adobe.

[Adobe Blog, Adobe PR]

Apple's latest bulletin via the iPhone Developer News feed highlight how we really might see 3G connected SlingPlayer -- and even Hulu -- on the iPhone and iPad without melting the cell towers, courtesy of HTTP Live Streaming:

HTTP Live Streaming provides a state-of-the-art standards-based solution for streaming video over wireless networks. A key benefit of HTTP Live Streaming is the ability to dynamically adjust to varying network bandwidth conditions. It can store multiple video clips of different quality on a server, and then deliver the one that matches what the customer is capable of viewing on the network they are currently accessing.

Your application must use the HTTP Live Streaming protocol if it uses the cellular network to deliver video for any stream with a duration of 10 minutes or more. In addition, applications using HTTP Live Streaming over the cellular network must include a low quality stream of no more than 64 Kbps for your app to resort to when network conditions demand it.

The key here is that HTTP Live Streaming can dynamically increase or decrease video quality as you move from beefy Wi-Fi to 3G, standard or starved. Do we mind getting worse-looking video when the network is being strained? Years of putting up with blocky YouTube cat-on-piano videos likely points to "no"...

HTTP live stream technology is now required for streaming video according to Apple's new iPhone developer RSS feed.

An innovative feature of iPhone OS 3.0 is support for HTTP Live Streaming technology. One of the great benefits this technology delivers is the ability to dynamically adjust to varying network bandwidth conditions. It lets you store multiple video clips of different quality on the server, and then deliver the one that matches what the requesting customer is capable of viewing given the network they have access to. Use of it is now required for all applications which deliver streaming video. You must include a low quality stream of no more than 64 Kbps for your app to resort to when network conditions demand it, along with the higher quality streams you want to deliver to your customers when the network can support it.

See the HTTP Live Streaming Overview in the iPhone Reference Library for details.

We've read about -- and seen -- HTTP Live Streaming before, but with Apple insisting on it, and companies like Elgato using it in EyeTV to allow streaming to the iPhone over 3G, it could be getting interesting. Concerning EyeTV's implementation, TUAW's Erica Sadun says:

Powered by the EyeTV 3.3 update (free to existing owners of EyeTV software), this technology avoids App Store hassles while providing on-demand video access to your home TV recordings and live programming. [...] As an added bonus, since Mobile Safari has access to the iPhone's TV Out capability (third-party apps can't use it, but Apple apps can), you can use a component or composite video-out cable to display your streamed video on any convenient TV.

Win/win?

Huge internet content backbone Akamai is introducing their new on-demand, streaming HD Network, along with support for... the iPhone. Says Macworld:

Akamai worked with Apple to make HD Network video run on the iPhone using the standard H.264 format. The iPhone 3.0 software upgrade, introduced in June, added support for live video. Content providers can use the HD Network to deliver programs for the iPhone through the Safari Web browser or an application offered on the App Store. The videos can play on the phone’s video player, as YouTube videos do now.

We've heard about iPhone 3.0's HTTP Live Streaming capabilities before, and if this uptake is real, we're getting increasingly excited about our iPhone media future...

Techcrunch thinks the move of iTunes to the clouds is inevitable. Back in February there were rumors of something called iTunes Replay, that would allow users to store their media purchases -- which can easily grow to 10s if not 100s of GBs fairly quickly -- on Apple's servers and then stream them down to iTunes, Apple TV, or their iPhone or iPod touch on-demand.

Nothing came of it at the time. Since then, however, Apple has begun building a world-class data center in North Carolina, and baked a new HTTP streaming media feature into both the iPhone/iPod and the Mac.

With cost of hard drive storage still falling, and 2TB soon being realistic capacities for standard home media centers, do we -- or Apple -- really need to think about the "cloud" so much?

We do if we use iPhones, iPod touches, laptops... or upcoming iTablet and like-devices dependent on smaller, still more-expensive solid state storage. Sure local copies for backup are nigh impossible for old curmudgeons like myself to even consider giving up, but syncing, deleting, and otherwise managing content can be a pain in our old curmudgeonly nethers as well.

There's one key area, however, it doesn't address -- bandwidth caps. Sure, they're not an issue for most people in the US, but they are in countries where internet service is both more expensive, slower, and far more tightly capped. (Like where I am, in the distant realm of Canada.)

And even in the US, if cable and DSL companies start losing TV subscribers to iTunes, those prices and lack of caps might just change as well.

Of course, letting us sync and manage our content over WiFi could and should be an alternative. iTunes and Apple TV can already sync over WiFi, and the iPhone can download movies from the iTunes Store over WiFi. Why can't the iPhone browse our PC's iTunes library and transfer media over via WiFi?

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. That's the future. Maybe. This is now. Do you want your iTunes in the cloud?

Apple Insider took a closer look at the HTTP Streaming Media feature that was highlighted as part of iPhone 3.0, but hasn't received a whole lot of attention since:

The real benefit to HTTP Live Streaming is that the server can maintain multiple versions of the clips in different formats. This allows an iPhone user with a WiFi connection to negotiate a higher quality version of the video than if only EDGE were available. Even better, the phone can renegotiate a higher or lower quality dynamically if it improves or loses signal. This enables the watcher to experience the best video quality possible at the current bandwidth available, continually optimized as new segments are requested.

We saw this demoed by ESPN during the iPhone 3.0 Sneak Peak Event. Better still, Apple is proposing it as an open standard, platform and player neutral, which could spur adaption, meaning more content for users.

Check out the full article linked above, and iphone.akamai.com for examples.