Flash for Linux -- It's Not for Users [LWN.net]

Flash for Linux -- It's Not for Users

Posted Feb 16, 2007 20:51 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670)
In reply to: Flash for Linux -- It's Not for Users by pheldens
Parent article: Flash for Linux -- It's Not for Designers (internetnews.com)

I never had any problem just clicking the 'download' button in Google Video and playing the resulting avi in xine/mplayer.

Is that avi a flash video? Somehow I doubt it.

I know youtube uses flash, in youtube I have to use Video Downloader and the resulting file is a flv file (which mplayer plays perfectly by the way, probably illegally where software patents are an issue). But flv is a horrible movie format, both in quality and functionality.

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Flash for Linux -- It's Not for Users

Posted Feb 17, 2007 6:00 UTC (Sat) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

Google video's primary interface at this time is FLV (VP6??) served via flash methods played by the flash video player with flash interface.

They have, as you say, always provided AVI enclosed files (the files identify themselves as encoded by XVID) which are superior in bandwidth, quality, and cpu overhead. However, this is a minority feature. Some videos have it turned off (???) and it's labelled "download", and most people just watch the video in flash "without downloading". (Yes, I know obviously streaming and downloading are the same thing but users and media companies seem intent on pretending otherwise.)

I'm not sure how Google stores the files internally, and whether it converts once or on the fly.

I would, btw, not describe mplayer's flv playback as "perfect". It's certainly adequate though.