Adobe Systems announced the Open Screen Project, supported by a group of industry leaders, including Intel, Samsung and Cisco. The project aim is to unify content delivery across several mediums from the internet, to mobile phones and other consumer electronics. Adobe will open access to Adobe Flash technology by removing restrictions on the use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications, publish the the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player and last, but not least, remove the licensing fees on Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices.
Flash is a format that the digital signage industry has been using for its: a) small file-size, b) ability to display dynamic information, c) low cost to create due to an abundance of animators/programmers from the internet industry. It may not be great for complex animations in 1080p due to its poor CPU performance at higher resolutions, but it does its job well when you want to create a "digital poster".
A lot of digital signage software companies and hardware media player manufacturers push the format--with or without licensing. I've tried quite a few software suites and some obviously pay for the licensing (they usually only support up to version 7) and others play dumb by leaving it in the hands of their licensee to download and install the player.
The question that remains is if this "Open Screen" project will allow the use of the Flash player for digital signage. It doesn't really seem that Adobe and its partners are really looking at the industry that much (although I'm sure Cisco is); the focus of the project seems to be facilitating content delivery as the lines between home computer and consumer electronics, such as TV's and mobile phones, are becoming more blurry.
Its hard to say now where digital signage fits into this Open Screen Project; their next release should have the user agreement that makes it more transparent. For now, I'm just waiting to see what SaaS digital signage provider creates a Rich Internet Application (RIA) to interface with their service.
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Flash is a format that the digital signage industry has been using for its: a) small file-size, b) ability to display dynamic information, c) low cost to create due to an abundance of animators/programmers from the internet industry. It may not be great for complex animations in 1080p due to its poor CPU performance at higher resolutions, but it does its job well when you want to create a "digital poster".
A lot of digital signage software companies and hardware media player manufacturers push the format--with or without licensing. I've tried quite a few software suites and some obviously pay for the licensing (they usually only support up to version 7) and others play dumb by leaving it in the hands of their licensee to download and install the player.
The question that remains is if this "Open Screen" project will allow the use of the Flash player for digital signage. It doesn't really seem that Adobe and its partners are really looking at the industry that much (although I'm sure Cisco is); the focus of the project seems to be facilitating content delivery as the lines between home computer and consumer electronics, such as TV's and mobile phones, are becoming more blurry.
Its hard to say now where digital signage fits into this Open Screen Project; their next release should have the user agreement that makes it more transparent. For now, I'm just waiting to see what SaaS digital signage provider creates a Rich Internet Application (RIA) to interface with their service.
2 Comments Add this link to... Bury
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Here's the Open Screen Project home: http://www.adobe.com/openscreenproject/
A video featuring Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch directed towards developers: http://www.adobe.com/openscreenproject/developers/