Flash video quality and performance on Linux [Text View]

Rgb

05-24-08, 11:39 AM

With the growing availability of Flash based web-video -on-demand like the Youtubes, hulu.com's, nbc.com's, msnbc.com's, comedycentral (Daily Show), and others of the world like

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24798368#24798368

and weekly shows like
http://revision3.com/diggreel/neunzehn/

I find myself watching these on demand sources more often than broadcast cable/sat type video feeds. Who needs to watch anything live broadcast or use PVR's/DVR's when this stuff is all on the web on demand?

I usuallly expand them to fill my 42" 720p LCD in the den. The resolution gets better month by month and year by year, so that's not an issue- anyone with half a brain can see this is where all programming is going, and resolutions/bitrates will continue to creep upwards. Broadcast is dead.

To the point- on my last XP Pro box, fullscreen Flash video is smooth and clean tearing and framerate-wise (again, ignore the temporary short term resolution and low bitrate artifacts issues).

On my Ubuntu and MInt boxes with the current Flash plugin on the same Firefox browser, fullscreen Flash video is jerky, not full frame rate and tearing.

This is with the current Nvidia proprietary driver on a similar class GPU.

I think this is a BIG issue for either Linux Flash, Linux video drivers, or some interaction between the two.

PRMan

05-24-08, 01:39 PM

First, I would never watch on the web when it's available in HD any other way. I can't "ignore the temporary short term resolution and low bitrate artifacts issues" and I don't think most people on here will be very enamored with people saying they are "brain dead" for thinking that HD over internet is a decade away or more.

Anyway, all that being said, I'll offer you some advice anyway. Have you tried installing the Flash 10 Beta into Ubuntu? It's much faster than version 9. Even on an old 1GHz Duron laptop with a really horrible S3 video card, I can now get smooth video in the small window (jerky with version 9). I still can't go full screen, but this thing is really old. I'm just surprised that Ubuntu Hardy breathed as much life into it as it has.

Here are the instructions for installing the Flash 10 Beta:

http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/05/16/test-drive-flash-player-10-beta-in-ubuntu/

waterhead

05-24-08, 04:46 PM

...anyone with half a brain can see this is where all programming is going, and resolutions/bitrates will continue to creep upwards. Broadcast is dead.....

You've got to be kidding. The crap video available from the internet has no where near the picture quality of OTA HD in 1080i.

I recently tried AT&T's U-verse. It is "cable" TV over fiber optic, aka packet TV. The PQ of the HD streams was horrible. And you could only have one HD showing on one box at anytime. This meant having the Packer football game on in the living room and kitchen at the same time was not possible.

Now, this is not the flash media that you are talking about. But U-verse is state of the art TV over the 'net. OTA will be with us, and excel at PQ, for a long time.

Troubleshooter

05-24-08, 07:24 PM

Rgb

05-24-08, 09:56 PM

Wow, I watch tons of stuff from Hulu and Netflix over the net and I really am not complaining about the quality (though I obviously wouldn't bitch if it were better)....and this is on a 119" 1080P calibrated front projection setup. No, it's not HD but come on, the quality is fine and to me, equivalent to SD cable in many cases. I don't think RGB was saying it was as good as ATSC 1080i at all, just that it's finally getting to the point to be a player and will only get better. Do I need to see WKRP streamed to me in 1080?! Maybe I should say that I demand only 1080P since that's what I can view natively and until then it's useless? Waterhouse, I get the feeling you missed his point.

Anyway,

RGB: I know EXACTLY what you're saying. Something changed maybe 6 months ago and I see just what you do. I think that indeed it was the Flash 9 release. It's practically a slideshow in full screen under Linux (even low rez stuff like Youtube) while under MacOS and Windows, it's fine. It certainly used to work fine, doesn't anymore for me either! I'll give flash 10 a shot and hope for the best.

-Trouble

You see the Light! :D

Of course I wasn't implying that current web Flash video feeds were "as good as 1080i OTA"- that's not the point as you so astutely observed ;)

I've been watching 30 Rock from Hulu.com- my belief is that it's quality exceeds SD digital cable, SD analog, and approaches DVD quality (i.e. 480p). While I mentioned the artifacts/bitrate disclaimer, it doesn't mean all the video feeds have artifact issues- watch 30 Rock from Hulu.com- no artifacts that render it "unwatchable" to most normal people. It's basically an alternative to Netflix TV series rentals or subscription for free.

And then there are significant amounts of programming where lower resolution and/or some artifacts don't really matter- talking heads like Daily Show or Olberman at msnbc.com, and similar examples.

Remember, these forums are NOT about HD-only-or-nothing- it's about *optimizing* the video sources you *do* use.

IMO, the Hulu's/nbc.com's of the world are awfully close to the Xvid avi DVD-rip quality bogey.

Anywho, to the point- given the MASSIVE importance of Flash based video feeds now and moving forward, we need to REALLY pound on Adobe to improve and optimize CPU utilization and video playback quality on Linux, to achieve parity with Mac/Win at similar playback parameters (windowed/fullscreen/varied bitrates). Flash video is a linchpin of the media PC moving forwards. The current situation is totally unacceptable. Without good quality FLash video playback at large sizes/fullscreen, the Linux media PC is seriously jeopardized.

Thanks for the Version 10 beta tip- I might not be able to try it for a while, though.

Being forward-looking, it's easy to see that bitrates will only increase, and resolutions increase too, so nipping the FLash issue in the bud now will only help moving forward.

But for a lot of us, if the Discovery Channels, History Channels, Food Networks, and HGTV's of the world pulled a Hulu or nbc.com and started streaming the past 9-12 months of aired programming from their websites at current 30 Rock Hulu.com quality levels, we'd ditch our last cable broadcast subscription in an instant and just use our internet connections.

Rgb

05-24-08, 10:26 PM

Well, from the Flash 10 beta link above:

"Two large complaints about Flash on Linux are fullscreen video and 64-bit support. Neither have been resolved in this release. Playback of fullscreen video (which causes low framerates and high CPU usage) seems to be only slightly improved. I have found that there is a general performance increase."

:(

mythmaster

05-24-08, 11:05 PM

I trust Adobe to resolve these issues about as far as I can pee into the wind.

Rgb

05-25-08, 06:55 AM

I trust Adobe to resolve these issues about as far as I can pee into the wind.

Considering that Flash video has become/is becoming the DE FACTO standard for web video feeds, this is PRIORITY NUMBER ONE for the Linux community to tackle.

Whatever it takes- another ESR rant, an email/letter writing campaign to Adobe, plead with Google to intervene, plead with Shuttleworth (Ubuntu CEO) to intervene, whatever...

Folks, to the majority of PC users (i.e. your niece, Mom, JSP, etc), Flash video performance is more important than Bluray, DVD or avi/x264 video playback, just speaking from experience in the past year building machines for coworkers, family members and friends.

All these non-techie people can easily connect their PC to their new panel TVs (plasma or LCD, 720p/768p/1080p). Having a PC connected to the "TV" (all panels = computer monitor now) is not the HT-geek domain anymore. As I build PC's for these kinds of people, they expect to play their web video at the same quality level as the XP load I just wiped out or refused to load. There is no need to classify "media PC" or "HTPC" anymore- all PC's ought to play audio/video fine from this day forward. There is no distinction in most people's mind any longer. THat's the perception. And perception = reality, whether true or not.

I don't want to discourage readers of this thread- no, I don't plan on halting my Linux buildup and conversion, and don't plan to use Microsoft OS's any longer, but the Linux community needs to prioritize and attack keystone issues like this. At this point, it's more important than BLuRay, more important than 64bit.

The Flash issue is the Linux adoption "wedge issue" at this point, IMO. I've found normal people are ready for Linux in general, but won't accept it if their web video feeds have issues.

The blame rests squarely on Adobe's shoulders, which anyone here can easily demonstrate- try to watch a Flash video feed fullscreen from a web feed, then use a download utility/plug in to grab and save the .flv video stream to your hard disk. Close your browser and then play the .flv file in SMplayer/KMplayer or similar, fullscreen or any window size. It will play smoothly, without tearing or frame drops- at least on the 1GHz P3 I just tested. It's the embedded Flash web media player applets at fault.

mythmaster

05-25-08, 09:58 AM

Rgb

05-25-08, 12:25 PM

I agree with you 100%, rgb, but the real problem here is that no commercial software company in its right mind would release anything for Linux because Linux doesn't have a closed-source commercial application layer available. It's like asking me to publish my credit card number in this forum. I'm not gonna do it. I will, however, donate a few bucks every now and then to the site because it's good PR. ;)

I don't know if you meant the FLash source code or something else, but we've been talking about the FIrefox Flash plugin, which has always been a closed binary.

The issue at hand is for Adobe to simply update that closed binary with better Linux video performance, not release source code (which would be nice, but not necessary to address the current issue).

We just need the closed Linux Flash binary plugin to perform at least as well as the closed Win and OSX Flash binary plugins. This means equivalent CPU utilization and video quality levels re: tearing, frame rate, scaling, etc.

Moving forward, this issue will only worsen, as the resurgence in popularity of ~1Ghz CPU's or lower in the eeePC's of the world and similar sub-notebooks coming out throughout this year, many with Linux pre-loaded, will highlight the importance of FLash video and its performance issues on Linux. On the bright side, these kinds of machines may motivate Adobe to update and optimize the Flash Firefox plugin to appease the makers of these machines.

Troubleshooter

05-25-08, 04:58 PM

We'll have to see how long Flash rules the roost now with Silverlight out and 'Moonlight' for Linux. It was allegedly designed to be cross platform from the getgo. Of course cross platform generally means something quite different to the folks in Redmond. I've found several local radio stations that offer Silverlight streaming but alas when you click on the 'get sliverlight' equivalent button in Linux (right under where it says 'for Windows, Mac and Linux no less!) is brings you to a 404 page not found at a microsoft.com website. I installed it in Windows and it still plain don't work so I end up with the old fashioned wmp stream. Shame that either Adobe or MS run this racket since they both have serious agendas about from whom they make money.
-Trouble

Rgb

05-25-08, 05:30 PM

. Shame that either Adobe or MS run this racket since they both have serious agendas about from whom they make money.
-Trouble

That about sums it up- Adobe hath become the Emperor's Apprentice, a full member of the Sith ;)

...just when we thought streaming video was a done deal in Linux with the mplayer FF plugin, VLC FF plugin, and gnome-gstreamer Firefox plugin, handling all the .wmv, Real and Quicktime video streams, Adobe comes along and mucks it all up :(

Makes you wish all we had was Microsoft video streams again...

...but we don't want Silverlight, either, as MS will just contaminate on line media even further...

Rgb

05-25-08, 05:35 PM

...wouldn't it be funny if MS does a Silverlight plugin for Linux with super-optimized performance in response to Adobe's Flash dominance on the web, and MS wins the web video feed space back...

mythmaster

05-25-08, 07:19 PM

I don't know if you meant the FLash source code or something else, but we've been talking about the FIrefox Flash plugin, which has always been a closed binary.

The issue at hand is for Adobe to simply update that closed binary with better Linux video performance, not release source code (which would be nice, but not necessary to address the current issue).

We just need the closed Linux Flash binary plugin to perform at least as well as the closed Win and OSX Flash binary plugins. This means equivalent CPU utilization and video quality levels re: tearing, frame rate, scaling, etc.

Moving forward, this issue will only worsen, as the resurgence in popularity of ~1Ghz CPU's or lower in the eeePC's of the world and similar sub-notebooks coming out throughout this year, many with Linux pre-loaded, will highlight the importance of FLash video and its performance issues on Linux. On the bright side, these kinds of machines may motivate Adobe to update and optimize the Flash Firefox plugin to appease the makers of these machines.

I understand that the flash plugin is is a closed binary, that wasn't my point. The only reason it's free is to get as many people as possible using it so they can sell their $700 software which will never be released in Linux. So what do they care about us except that we might come up with something better and make it totally free? That's really the only reason we have a Linux binary at all. That, plus, like I said, the misleading PR spin.

So unless we come up with something that actually threatens their profits, don't expect them to do anything other than string us along.

Rgb

05-25-08, 10:28 PM

I understand that the flash plugin is is a closed binary, that wasn't my point. The only reason it's free is to get as many people as possible using it so they can sell their $700 software which will never be released in Linux. So what do they care about us except that we might come up with something better and make it totally free? That's really the only reason we have a Linux binary at all. That, plus, like I said, the misleading PR spin.

So unless we come up with something that actually threatens their profits, don't expect them to do anything other than string us along.

I know the common sentiment of Flash on the slashdot's of the world is that it's the spawn of the devil- I'm tending to agree.

The danger of Flash and Silverlight is their virtual-machine-like design that makes them like a rootkit for browsers.

I wish web video feeds had stuck with plain wmv/quicktime streaming, but I don't know if we'll ever go back :(

The content providers want the control over the user's computer/browser that Flash/Silverlight gives them- unskippable ads and screen bugs/pop up ads during streaming, as well as obfuscation of the video stream for DRM purposes- just downright Evil all the way around :(

Troubleshooter

05-26-08, 07:55 AM

I did some testing juuuust to make sure Compiz isn't the culprit that makes Flash angry. Nope, identical results with or without Compiz.

-Trouble

mythmaster

05-26-08, 10:23 PM

I'll probably get arrested or sued or banned from this forum for this, but here is a small collection (ftp://avsfiles.dyndns.org/music) (P.S., I paid $40 for the Jet Jaguar CD because of its extreme rarity) dedicated to the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom. God bless them all.

EDIT: Listen to Bluetech.

mythmaster

05-28-08, 12:17 AM

Notice that I didn't even ping you, 75.147.65.xxx, let alone scan your ports! I'm not a "bad guy". I'll keep it live until someone important says something about it. There's some good stuff in there.

Sorry to threadjack, rgb, but I wanted to hide that link somewhere un-obvious.

Enjoy, and please remember to support our troops.

Rgb

05-28-08, 08:57 AM

Back on topic-

Did someone say Flash rootkits/malware? ;)

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/05/28/0138247

Mike Castle

05-29-08, 11:09 AM

Have you tried downloading the FLV and using mplayer instead and seeing how that compares?

Rgb

05-29-08, 05:31 PM

Have you tried downloading the FLV and using mplayer instead and seeing how that compares?

That's easy enough for certain Flash video sites like youtube, but how do you easily grab the .flv from any random site with custom Flash media player, like the cbsnews.com's, msnbc.com's and others of the world?

Plus, I stated in an earlier post that yes, if you play an .flv file saved from Youtube, for example, in mplayer, it will play smoothly at any size on just about any CPU down to a P3 600Mhz.

What's at fault is the Flash binary plugin for Firefox on Linux, which runs like stale monkey poo...

mythmaster

05-30-08, 12:23 AM

What's at fault is the Flash binary plugin for Firefox on Linux, which runs like stale monkey poo...
If you can find stale monkey poo that's runny, then there's a monkey somewhere with a serious problem...

mythmaster

05-30-08, 12:46 AM

P.S. You don't really want to watch MSNBC, do you? You might as well queue up some gay scat porn to go along with it, because it's equally as poisoning.

Rgb

05-30-08, 07:39 AM

P.S. You don't really want to watch MSNBC, do you? .

Huh? And miss Olberman? ;)

Rgb

05-30-08, 07:40 AM

If you can find stale monkey poo that's runny, then there's a monkey somewhere with a serious problem...

...but it's not runny- it's stale- i.e. a constipated monkey, which is the state of Flash on Linux. If it were runny, it would be moving more smoothly than fullscreen Flash video in Linux :D

Rgb

05-30-08, 07:43 AM

..kinda poetic justice that an MS-affiliated site like msnbc uses Adobe's Flash vs their own Silverlight...

Rgb

05-30-08, 10:20 AM

Flash issues in Linux appear to be getting more attention-
http://ubuntucat.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/why-is-firefox-in-windows-better-than-firefox-in-linux/

Mike Castle

05-30-08, 11:51 AM

I usually use the Live HTTP Headers plugin for Firefox and watch the GET requests flow by, though that's definitely not a generic solution.

There are a number of FF plugins that enable downloads that may essentially monitor the various fetches the browser does and provides the ability to explicitly download them. Though I just tried one and it didn't work (but then, it didn't work for youtube either, so I figure it's a pretty lame one).

I wouldn't be surprised if you can find a Greasemonkey script that would work for many sites as well, though I suspect those may be more site specific.

Troubleshooter

05-30-08, 12:24 PM

Doesn't "Flashgot" exist pretty exclusively to grab flv's?

-Trouble

Rgb

05-30-08, 01:13 PM

The problem is, I've never found a plugin/utility that works with any random, arbitrary Flash video. These utilities are usually made for the youtubes and similar big video sites, but usually don't work (at least easily) with the cbsnews.com, hulu.com, msnbc.com's, $RANDOMWEBFLASHVIDEO of the world.

Marcus

06-02-08, 02:30 PM

Howdy, just had to interject my experiences. I've noticed that flash video does indeed play terribly from the browser when "full screen" is clicked.

However, by saving the *.fl file and playing it with the default media player (Totem in this case), the very same content plays perfectly in full screen.

I guess the media player is better at flash video than the plugin.

Sure this does nothing for non-video flash content but just wanted to relay my experiences with the video.

Rgb

06-03-08, 11:36 AM

Rgb

07-03-08, 09:38 AM

Sounds like fullscreen video performance (Smoothness and reduced CPU usage) might have been improved in v10 beta2 over the v10 beta1:

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Flash_on_Linux_no_longer_breaks_webpages

"dburanen
Test 1: Try to watch a fullscreen video with compiz.
Verdict: It's not broken anymore!"

"podgey22
Fullscreen performance is better - but it's still really wobbly here @1920*1200"

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/07/turkish_localization_also_wmod.html

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/

If someone tries v10b2, please report full screen Youtube/Hulu/Star Trek TOS at cbs.com/$FLASHVIDEOSITE video playback framerate performance, tearing and CPU utilization. Try it with and without compiz enabled, also at more reasonable resolutions like 1280x720, 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1360x768.

Be sure to have the most recent ATI or Nvidia proprietary drivers installed (point and click with EnvyNG).

Please report what site(s) you tested with.

Troubleshooter

07-17-08, 10:41 PM

Ok finally decided that I wanted to watch some hulu show without rebooting into windows so I installed beta 2...... No Compiz at all involved. Dualcore 3Ghz (E8400) 1080p rez.....STILL SUCKS. Tearing? HA....It's still a slideshow, talking about tearing is unrealistic. ~90% CPU usage in fullscreen. The interesting thing is that it's actually X that is chowing down the CPU. Yeah it's 'better' but still unusable in fullscreen....And they have the nerve to start polling Linux users about video camera use with flash....WTF. Can't speak for stability because after about 30 seconds I was so disgusted that I gave up.

-Trouble

Niteflyte

07-18-08, 02:49 PM

Rgb

07-19-08, 08:52 AM

About same issues here with 64 Bit Quad-Core Q6700 - 4 G RAM - NV 8600GT SUSE 11.0 or Sabayon 3.5 64 Bit at 1080P, but plays smooth on 64 Bit Vista (oh no!).:eek:

Heck, fullscreen Flash video plays smooth on an 800Mhz P3 on XP!?

Obviously a BIG bug in the Flash X implementation....

Rgb

07-20-08, 10:25 AM

I am only guessing, but the problem might be that Flash 9.x and 10.x aren't creating a proper XV video window, but trying to paint the pixels using brute force into a stock X window.

Whatever the deal is, Adobe ought to be ashamed...

It's obvious that Flash video is replacing all other forms of video feeds on the net- Quicktime .mov's, Microsoft .wmv's and asf's, Real video feeds (good riddance ;) ), and plain old mpg and avi feeds.

Again, I think one motivation (beyond web video monopolization) is the obfuscation that Flash provides, making it harder for people to retain control over their computers- harder to download and time/place shift the video embedded in complicated Flash apps and media players.

It's sad that one tech from one company- Flash from Adobe- has the power to render an OS useless or unwanted if it doesn't perform on parity with the duopoly of OSX and Win. :(

After having Linux achieve so much towards OS independence, providing an outstanding desktop and general purpose home computing OS and FOSS apps after years of hard work, it would be a shame for one keystone capability like Flash on the web to cause Linux adoption to halt in its tracks, as average people who watch web video won't tolerate the poor performance.

Again, no- I don't plan to switch from Linux on all my office and media PC's- I've accepted that if media companies don't want me to see/hear/use their material, then I don't *want* to see/hear/use it. If media isn't available in a reasonably open manner, I won't use it anymore. Trust me- your life will be much better :D

Rgb

07-20-08, 02:27 PM

Another observation- it appears the Big Bad Guy is no longer MS (except for the illegal lock on retail pre-installs)- Adobe actually is the most cited impediment to Linux adoption I've seen over the past several years, discounting the gamerz. I ignore the gaming argument now in light of native ports + wine + Cedega + console emulators + Mame + Java/Flash web games + increasing switchover to current and future consoles.

The top complaints as to why someone can't move to Linux I've seen in discussions and blogs are Photoshop CS3 (CS2 and earlier are fine under Wine), video editing with the latest Premiere, and Flash authoring- all Adobe's. :(

The fortunate thing is, I don't know any normal (friends, family, your Mom, etc) home PC or home media PC user who uses/needs any of these apps (and no, pirated copies used casually don't count)- they use simpler photo apps like the many native Linux tools and/or simpler Win apps that run fine under Wine. Same goes for simple home video editing and DVD authoring. I don't know any home user who needs/wants to do Flash authoring, unless they need it for paid professional work (but I know no one who does this).

Rgb

07-30-08, 06:35 PM

re: importance of web video (most of which is Flash)- hate to say I told you so...

http://www.hothardware.com/News/Twenty_Percent_of_Primetime_TV_is_Watched_Online/

http://digg.com/television/Twenty_Percent_Of_All_Primetime_TV_Is_Viewed_Online

If Linux can't play any/all publically available web video feeds as well as Win and OSX, it will be dead in the water :(

For noob readers- Flash video plays fine at the default sizes of most websites- it's when you go to full screen that the poor, jerky performance rears its head in Linux.

Any other video stream type- Quicktime, WMV, MPG, Real- play fine at any size in the popular Linux mplayer, gnome-gecko and vlc browser plugins.

Rgb

08-17-08, 02:59 PM

Appears to be getting more attention...

http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/08/08/17/1649232.shtml

Rgb

08-17-08, 03:36 PM

Between Silverlight DRM

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/overview/mediaDetail.aspx?index=4

and Flash DRM

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/02/adobe-pushes-drm-flash

it appears the march to a web controlled by a few entities (Apple, MS, Adobe + RIAA/MPAA) is upon us :(

Most commercial web video and audio streams will most likely be encrypted and require DRM'd to the hilt browser plugins, as well as mandatory DRM'd audio and video hardware and drivers like Vista or OSX Protected Audio/Video paths, which precludes Linux.

I was initially excited about the explosion of web video feeds- don't know why the DRM issue didn't dawn on me until the Silverlight debacle on nbcolympics.com. Should have seen it coming a mile away.

Farewell web, I barely knew ye...

ythe1300

08-18-08, 09:01 AM

Rgb

08-18-08, 09:30 AM

I will not give up the web that easily, how shall we rebel? is there anyway we can make the Apple code work on Linux, they are alot a like, are they not?

From a practical standpoint, I suspect that there still will be a huge number of free, unencrypted audio/video streams on the web, while the big commercial networks like NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, etc start to implement hard DRM controls like Flash or Silverlight DRM. But this is only pessimistic guessing on my part.

OTOH, the glimmer of hope is Amazon DRM-free music and the explosion of Linux netbooks like the Asus eeePC and hundreds of others coming from HP, Dell, Acer, and lots of other SE Asian manufacturers in the coming months and years.

I don't plan to ever use Win/MS products again- I simply won't watch anything DRM'd on the web. They don't get my eyes or ad dollars, nor anyone I build/maintain computers for (friends, coworkers, family) If I eventually have to live an Amish existance, so be it ;)

New Hampshire's got it right- Live Free or Die (libre media or don't use it).

Troubleshooter

08-18-08, 10:22 AM

RGB - go check out that rel 10rc....says it is 'vastly' improved performance wise in full screen on that adobe blog.

Oh - I live in NH....That concept is being pushed aside by Massachusetts expansion!
-Trouble

Rgb

08-18-08, 02:37 PM

Yes, according to

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/releasenotes.html#fixed

"Linux full-screen optimizations have been made. Please report any additional issues you encounter. "

though I haven't tried it yet.

Anyone?

Download the 8/11/08 FLash 10rc here

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

direct links

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.i386.rpm

CityK

08-18-08, 05:27 PM

I tried but I ran into libcurl etc dependency changes and so just re-installed the old beta version.

I later learned of the libcurl etc changes and symlink hack (see aug 8, 11th: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/), but have not bothered to re-attempt.

Rgb

08-20-08, 07:22 AM

If Adobe/MS wants to put a virtual machine/root kit (Flash and Silverlight/Moonlight) in your browser, they'll have to pay the consequences....

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/08/20/0029220.shtml

Troubleshooter

08-30-08, 10:23 AM

I installed 10rc today on Hardy 32 bit...no libcurl problems. Fullscreen mode......It's better! It's bearable! There's still a bit of glitching and some tearing but it's actually livable now. I would say as of the previous build, it was NOT livable so it's certainly a magnitude better.
Pertinent output from top:

6721 trouble 20 0 294m 117m 38m S 62 5.8 2:37.89 firefox
6389 trouble 9 -11 45012 7240 4108 S 10 0.4 0:25.66 pulseaudio
5885 root 20 0 420m 37m 15m R 10 1.9 0:39.23 Xorg

Hmm not too bad. We're getting somewhere now.

***Update: Well, not so rosy after some further testing. It seems that things get upset over time, at least while watching Hulu. Audio stops and the video gets very choppy after about 10 minutes. This has happened consistently with Hulu, both on TV shows and movies. Initially I thought pulseaudio was the culprit (and I suppose it could still be somehow) but other sound works fine even when flash is playing poorly.

-Trouble

ellen3456

09-11-08, 04:55 AM

Rgb

09-11-08, 11:04 AM

I can't understand fully what you are talking about. But the topic is"Full screen Flash video quality in Linux". I just know AUNsoft flv player supports full screen and 1x, 2x mode when playing flash videos.

We are talking about watching live Flash video streams, like Youtube or Hulu, and using the in-browser Flash player during the realtime streaming to watch in "full screen" mode (usually an icon pick in the browser Flash video window), NOT downloading the .flv (which basically isn't practical from random Flash web video streams) and playing them in a media player later.

mythmaster

09-11-08, 11:38 AM

Thank you for clarifying that, rgb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7lULaE6kv4

Rgb

09-26-08, 09:03 AM

For testing purposes, go to

http://revision3.com/diggreel/

and select any episode. While its playing, press the Fullscreen icon on the lower right next to the volume control in the video window.

On XP, the fullscreen video is as smooth as any SD video played fullscreen with any media player, with low CPU use down to 1Ghz P3's or less.

On linux, the fullscreen mode is choppy, tearing and consumes most/all of your CPU, even dual cores!?

This is probably the single Biggest Deal with Linux adoption right now- everyone I've built machines for asks "can I blow up that YOutube/hulu/nbc.com/$RANDOM_FLASH_VIDEO to fill the screen?" and I have to say "no", knowing that on XP you can. Linux handles everthing else they need/want to do.

And yeah, there's a LOT of unique web programming now to make this a Big Deal for most normal users. Content like fan series

http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/

have now switched to Flash video feeds from their former Quicktime/WMV feeds, which played fullscreen perfectly while streaming in Linux.

Adobe really *is* the Big Bad Guy now :(

I *really* wish Google had a Flash/Silverlight alternative- Google's done good by Linux up to now...

PLease send feedback to Adobe, especially now before they finalize Flash 10.

Rgb

09-27-08, 02:38 PM

It's sad to admit, but the web is basically useless without Flash at the moment, which means Adobe probably has the most power right now over the web, making and breaking OS's and new platforms (netbooks, web phones, etc) in the process :(

Rgb

09-27-08, 03:03 PM

Yep, the end of a useful web under Linux (or really, any OS) is neigh-

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/22/adobe-cripples-flash.html

"Now Adobe, which controls Flash and Flash Video, is trying to change that with the introduction of DRM restrictions in version 9 of its Flash Player and version 3 of its Flash Media Server software. Instead of an ordinary web download, these programs can use a proprietary, secret Adobe protocol to talk to each other, encrypting the communication and locking out non-Adobe software players and video tools. We imagine that Adobe has no illusions that this will stop copyright infringement -- any more than dozens of other DRM systems have done so -- but the introduction of encryption does give Adobe and its customers a powerful new legal weapon against competitors and ordinary users through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). "

MichaelZ

09-27-08, 03:19 PM

Rgb

09-27-08, 05:58 PM

Then again, Adobe security seems to have some "holes" :eek:

Check this out -
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE48P88V20080926

I was just about to post that link. Great minds.. ;)

The point is, this DRM cold war must stop. NO media on publically accessible websites should be DRM'd. Paid, password protected sites- they can do what they want, though I've never subscribed to any DRM'd/encrypted subscription in my life, nor ever intend to do so.

With the ludicrous amount of ads on cable and on the internet, I don't know why anyone willingly pays for cable/sat or internet access...

Moving forward, I don't know whether to be hopeful
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/09/27/1521238.shtml

or fearful of the future of media of the web-

http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/09/27/0038259.shtml

Flash, Silverlight and Java are all virtual machines in your browser, and they can obfuscate things to the hilt and do a whole host of things to your computer against your will.

Everyone's getting what they deserve for blindly accepting these blights on the browser/web landscape...

...and we were doing just fine with quicktime/wmv/avi streaming, having just perfected it with the gecko-mozilla firefox plugin :(

Marcus

09-30-08, 02:30 PM

Heck, fullscreen Flash video plays smooth on an 800Mhz P3 on XP!?

Obviously a BIG bug in the Flash X implementation....

Also great performance with NT2k With a PIII 800.

My more powerful 3 GHZ+ box under linux reeks!

Rgb

10-05-08, 08:22 PM

First, I would never watch on the web when it's available in HD any other way. I can't "ignore the temporary short term resolution and low bitrate artifacts issues" and I don't think most people on here will be very enamored with people saying they are "brain dead" for thinking that HD over internet is a decade away or more.

err, ummm, it only took a little over 4 months ;)

http://www.cbs.com/hd/video.php?cid=&pid=00pIssUW_GecUinpT3nudm6b_654OnBF&play=true&offset=0&show=star_trek_remastered

Real, 720p streaming TV shows are here now...

On a positive note, CBS.com's "System Requirements" specs do list Linux as a supported platform for these geekiest of a geeks dream- the TOS Remastered episodes :)

...now, if Adobe gets up to snuff with the Flash 10.x plugin for Linux for smooth 720p streaming fullscreen video, we'll be good to go ;)

Perfect timing, as Wideopenwest in SE Michigan just upgraded speeds- I can get 8Mbps for less than I was paying for 4Mbps last month- with no Comcast-esque caps :)

Rgb

10-15-08, 08:51 PM

Looks like FLash 10 final is out for Linux

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&P2_Platform=Linux

.deb available for Ubuntu 8.04+

Packages for other distros there too.

If anyone tries it, please report installation issues with the .deb and full screen real time streaming video performance. I won't be able to try it for days/weeks from now.

First Flash release day and date with WIn/OSX!

http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/08/10/15/200226.shtml

mythmaster

10-16-08, 03:36 PM

Rgb

10-27-08, 09:16 AM

Rgb

10-27-08, 09:42 AM

Plenty of streaming HD to try-

http://www.cbs.com/hd/

Rgb

10-31-08, 08:10 AM

I just tested an SD Trek TOS episode, Amok Time,
http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek/video/video.php?cid=649539296&pid=1pEmjM0Pj91FWdenlKaVnUB2lg8czpBr&play=true

in full screen realtime streaming, and it looks actually *better* on my Ubuntu 8.10/FF 3.0.3/Flash 10/Nvidia 7050PV box at 1920x1200 vs my XP SP1/FF 2/FLash 9/Nvidia 6150 box at 1920x1080! I saw slight tearing on the XP box, but none on the Ubuntu 8.10 box- buttery smooth on the 8.10/Flash 10 load!

Just need more work on the "HD" 720p feeds...

Rgb

11-18-08, 01:30 PM

Flash 10 benchmarks on Mac OSX and Linux-

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081017-benchmarking-flash-player-10.html

...it appears Flash on OSX isn't much better than on Linux, judging by the CPU utilization numbers for the Macbook Air, which I assume is a single core...

Rgb

11-18-08, 01:31 PM

Adobe starts 64-bit Flash testing with Linux alpha

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081117-adobe-starts-64-bit-flash-testing-with-linux-alpha.html

Looks like Linux is the 64 bit leader!

"Adobe chose Linux as the starting point because 64-bit software is supported pervasively in the Linux ecosystem and because Linux users have expressed the most demand for 64-bit Flash."

Troubleshooter

11-18-08, 02:43 PM

Great, 32 extra bits of crappy performance ;)
-Trouble

zim2dive

12-27-08, 12:50 PM

I tried Flash 10 on Ubuntu 8.10rc last night.

Flash 10 installed automagically via the Firefox auto-installer add-on included with Ubuntu 8.10/Firefox 3.x

Good news- yes, CPU utilization in full screen streaming mode is much lower, and the video is much smoother overall.

However, it is still not on par with XP. I tested Flash 10 on an X2 5000 with 2GB DDR2-866 RAM with Ubuntu 8.10rc/FF 3.0.3, and the video scaling quality is not as smooth as an XP SP1 load with Firefox and Flash 9.x. Pixelization is more pronounced on Flash 10 linux vs Flash 9 on XP viewing the same video in fullscreen streaming.

Tearing and frame drops have been greatly improved, but there is still noticable tearing and some frame rate judder/drops/etc.

Kudos to Adobe for the progress made, but we're not on performance parity with XP yet...

To verify my results, I will change the resolution of the Ubuntu 8.10rc load to 1280x720, which I tested the Xp load with. The Ubuntu load was tested at 1920x1200, which may be too high even for the XP load to remain smooth with full screen Flash streaming. Just be sure to compare apples-apples- equivalent CPUs/browsers/video cards/video drivers/RAM and desktop resolution.

You make it sound tolerable :) I am not seeing anything close to tolerable under Ubuntu at full screen from hulu, The Daily Show, etc. Youtube is ok now (since I set appearance effects to none in Ubuntu).. I have the 8200 IGP. Are you really seeing that much better with the 7050, or not trying hulu, etc?

All the sites that give Flash trouble under Ubuntu are perfect under Windows (As much as it pains me to say that). Just checking to see if there is a performance secret I have not uncovered yet.

Also curious if the performance is equally as bad for ATI graphics, and/or under Solaris (wince Adobe has different drives for Solaris, there is a chance it could be better, or worse, there)

Mike

Mac The Knife

12-28-08, 03:17 PM

Has anyone tried this app:

clive (http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/clive)

"Command-line and fullscreen console program that extracts videos from YouTube, Google Video and other video sites. It supports embedded video extraction, and can be used with an external encoder (e.g. ffmpeg) to re-encode the extracted videos to different video formats (e.g. avi, mpeg, flv). "

IIRC, RGB was looking for a way to capture Flash and if everybody is having trouble with the performance of the Flash decoder, perhaps this is a workaround.

Personally, I almost never watch Flash videos, but I stumbled across this app while looking through the Updates and thought it might be useful to someone else.

tux99

12-28-08, 09:32 PM

zim2dive

12-29-08, 07:59 AM

Rgb

12-29-08, 07:01 PM

I tried it months ago when I wanted to download a few good videos from youtube to keep, works fine, and the difference in performance when playing back the dowloaded flv files with mplayer is huge.
On my oldish P4-2.53GHz with 1.5GB RAM I cannot play flash videos full screen without it looking like a slideshow (I use the latest flashplayer 10), while the same flash video downloaded and played using mplayer takes no more 20% cputime...

Adobe programmers should bury their heads in shame (that's assuming this is not on purpose to put ordinary people off using Linux as their main desktop OS...).

Proof positive that it's the Adobe Flash plug-in's fault, not X11, not Nvidia drivers, etc. It's Adobe's fault for writing poor video code in the Flash plugin binaries for Linux.

I am astounded that this is still the case this late in the game- streaming Flash video is more important to average PC users (wives, Mom's, nieces, J6P), than a whole host of other things, including BluRay playback or latest-greatest gaming.

The Adobe Flash streaming fullscreen video performance issue (and CPU utilization at *any* viewing size) needs to be the TOP priority of the Linux/FOSS community- we need Google or IBM/Intel, or a rant by Linus or ESR to raise the profile of this issue.

There is no excuse for CPU utilization of streaming FLash video to be more than 10-20% higher than Flash on XP (it can probably be *lower*)...

Rgb

12-29-08, 07:30 PM

You make it sound tolerable :) I am not seeing anything close to tolerable under Ubuntu at full screen from hulu, The Daily Show, etc. Youtube is ok now (since I set appearance effects to none in Ubuntu).. I have the 8200 IGP. Are you really seeing that much better with the 7050, or not trying hulu, etc?

All the sites that give Flash trouble under Ubuntu are perfect under Windows (As much as it pains me to say that). Just checking to see if there is a performance secret I have not uncovered yet.

Also curious if the performance is equally as bad for ATI graphics, and/or under Solaris (wince Adobe has different drives for Solaris, there is a chance it could be better, or worse, there)

Mike

Yes, SD Flash streams *are* tolerable on my 7050PV/X2 5000 rig/Nvidia 177.80 driver. Since downgrading to 2Mbps internet, I can't really test the HD feeds, which need 2.5Mbps min, probably more like 3Mbps or higher. BUt CPU utilization is still unacceptably higher than an equivalent XP rig, and some tearing is still visible at full screen during live streaming.

zim2dive

12-29-08, 08:44 PM

Yes, SD Flash streams *are* tolerable on my 7050PV/X2 5000 rig/Nvidia 177.80 driver. Since downgrading to 2Mbps internet, I can't really test the HD feeds, which need 2.5Mbps min, probably more like 3Mbps or higher. BUt CPU utilization is still unacceptably higher than an equivalent XP rig, and some tearing is still visible at full screen during live streaming.

... my tipping point is being able to watch 'The Daily Show' episodes full screen (1920x1080), at the lowest video rate (selected by the Settings button on the flash window)... I can't get there :( YouTube is fine (altho full-screen YT really is only 1/4 screen or so?.. large black border)

If only we could use mplayer or vlc as an in-Firefox player...(since I can't find any evidence of flash video downloading working for many sites like hulu or TDS)(I can't even get TDS to play reasonably at small-screen size.. neither from their web site directly, nor from fancast.com)

Rgb

12-29-08, 09:37 PM

... my tipping point is being able to watch 'The Daily Show' episodes full screen (1920x1080), at the lowest video rate (selected by the Settings button on the flash window)... I can't get there :( YouTube is fine (altho full-screen YT really is only 1/4 screen or so?.. large black border)

If only we could use mplayer or vlc as an in-Firefox player...(since I can't find any evidence of flash video downloading working for many sites like hulu or TDS)(I can't even get TDS to play reasonably at small-screen size.. neither from their web site directly, nor from fancast.com)

The shortsightedness exhibited early in the thread is quite amazing re: the relevance and importance of Flash video streams as a fundamental video source now and moving forward.

I don't like the power Adobe has now, and I don't like the ability of in-browser Flash players to obfuscate the video stream so well, which probably means stronger DRM moving forward for Flash video.

But, c'est la vie, we've got to deal with it at the moment- makes you long for plain old wmv, mov, and mpg streams, doesn't it ;)

I don't ever plan to use anything but Linux on my personal property ever again, so if something doesn't work on Linux, I won't use it/do it anymore.

But the Grand Plan of the media providers is to stream to locked up virtual machines like Flash and Java.

One way to reduce CPU might be to set your desktop resolution lower- like 1280x720 rather than 1920x1080, and let your monitor scale the image. The lower resolution may reduce CPU usage for your during full screen playback.

Also, it could be the driver version or GPU you're using- try a 7xxx series Nvidia GPU or even 6xxx or 5xxx- you can get cheap PCIe cards at 3btech.net or geeks.com, or even newegg. Or borrow one locally or try one from a local brick and mortar with return policy.

Rgb

12-29-08, 09:48 PM

zim2dive

12-29-08, 09:59 PM

Some good news-

I just played this
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=212885

fullscreen at 1920x1200 on my X2 5000/7050PV/Nvidia 177.80 driver rig, and the streaming video was very watchable, and the CPU's stayed around 85% fullscreen, and about 50% in the browser window. In fullscreen, the video was not as smooth as the original smaller size in the brwoser, had a slight strobe effect (looked like about 15-20fps vs 30fps), but most normal people would think it was very watchable.

I think something is wrong with your setup- be sure to disable Compiz
System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects->None,

and that the Nvidia driver is active.

I am using Flash 10.xx, not 9.xx

I have already changed that setting to None.. it took that for me to even get YouTube to be watchable at full-screen. With my 8200 IGP, I cannot find any other setting to tweak.. I don't have the nvidia decoder ring to know how my 8200 should stack up against your 7050, but it seemed like the 8200 generally got good reviews (for IGP), and I know under Windows, it performs very well.

I am using adobe-flashplugin 10.0.15.3-1intrepid2 (per Synaptic) and flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound, and have scrubbed thru Synaptic to be as sure as I can that I have no competing drivers... I have honestly changed very little from the default Intrepid install, so far sticking with 177.80 as the driver, b/c the 180.xx drivers cause me to crash&hang like crazy.

I did briefly experiment with dropping my display resolution, to decrease the pixel count.. maybe I didn't do something right, but I didn't seem to see any improvement.

so maybe its something specific to the 8200 ... I just did the link the TDS and am watching 1-2 fps screen redraws as the 30-seconed Verizon ad takes 1-2 minutes to play (its as if they did not implement a frame-drop.. so they buffer up and choke it)

Rgb

12-29-08, 10:03 PM

I have already changed that setting to None.. it took that for me to even get YouTube to be watchable at full-screen. With my 8200 IGP, I cannot find any other setting to tweak.. I don't have the nvidia decoder ring to know how my 8200 should stack up against your 7050, but it seemed like the 8200 generally got good reviews (for IGP), and I know under Windows, it performs very well.

I am using adobe-flashplugin 10.0.15.3-1intrepid2 (per Synaptic) and flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound, and have scrubbed thru Synaptic to be as sure as I can that I have no competing drivers... I have honestly changed very little from the default Intrepid install, so far sticking with 177.80 as the driver, b/c the 180.xx drivers cause me to crash&hang like crazy.

I did briefly experiment with dropping my display resolution, to decrease the pixel count.. maybe I didn't do something right, but I didn't seem to see any improvement.

so maybe its something specific to the 8200 ... I just did the link the TDS and am watching 1-2 fps screen redraws as the 30-seconed Verizon ad takes 1-2 minutes to play (its as if they did not implement a frame-drop.. so they buffer up and choke it)

I don't have flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound, so maybe that's causing your problem- try removing it in Synaptic or from the commandline and trying again- you may not hear anything, but you can see the effect on video performance.

Rgb

12-29-08, 10:12 PM

I just tried the Daily SHow link above again after the CD rip stopped, and at 1920x1200, it's smoother than it was while ripping-still not "perfect", but appears to be full frame rate except for momentary "micro judder" every few seconds, maybe due to my slow internet speed of 2Mbps. CPU is about 70%

zim2dive

12-29-08, 10:19 PM

I don't have flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound, so maybe that's causing your problem- try removing it in Synaptic or from the commandline and trying again- you may not hear anything, but you can see the effect on video performance.

Curiously, I still have sound (and did not before doing the install)... so I un-installed everything under the Synaptic search term flash.. and only re-installed flashplugin-nonfree (10.0 r15 according to Firefox)... still miserable performance.

Rgb

12-29-08, 10:21 PM

Curiously, I still have sound (and did not before doing the install)... so I un-installed everything under the Synaptic search term flash.. and only re-installed flashplugin-nonfree (10.0 r15 according to Firefox)... still miserable performance.

As a sanity check, I would try a 7100GS, 7300GS or similar PCIe card to rule out the GPU. Also, be sure the video memory in the BIOs is set to 256MB or higher on your IGP.

zim2dive

12-29-08, 10:29 PM

As a sanity check, I would try a 7100GS, 7300GS or similar PCIe card to rule out the GPU. Also, be sure the video memory in the BIOs is set to 256MB or higher on your IGP.

I have tried BIOS with both settings.. Auto and Manual/256.

According to the 2nd post here, my 8200 should easy equal or beat a 7050... http://www.gamespot.com/forums/show_msgs.php?board_id=314159272&topic_id=25399770

Trying cards is problematic for me b/c I need a low-profile which limits my options... if I *knew* it would be a success, I would do this in a second, but the majority of the reports I find scattered on the net suggest bad performance all around... also very few low-profile cards with HDMI, and I have no other (built-in)digital audio out, tho I could go for a USB stick if push came to shove...

Rgb

12-29-08, 10:36 PM

I have tried BIOS with both settings.. Auto and Manual/256.

According to the 2nd post here, my 8200 should easy equal or beat a 7050... http://www.gamespot.com/forums/show_msgs.php?board_id=314159272&topic_id=25399770

Trying cards is problematic for me b/c I need a low-profile which limits my options... if I *knew* it would be a success, I would do this in a second, but the majority of the reports I find scattered on the net suggest bad performance all around... also very few low-profile cards with HDMI, and I have no other (built-in)digital audio out, tho I could go for a USB stick if push came to shove...

This probably won't do anything, but try adding

Option "UseEvents" "True"

to the "Device" section of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (edit with sudo), see

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=18119&sid=c81f9b66606d290bdd7632d0b3856517

If you're using Kubuntu, I would try Ubuntu or Xubuntu, too. While you're at it, try the Mint 6.0 LiveCD- it should have Flash already installed- you may have to enable the Nvidia driver in Mint.

zim2dive

12-29-08, 10:52 PM

This probably won't do anything, but try adding

Option "UseEvents" "True"

to the "Device" section of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (edit with sudo), see

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=18119&sid=c81f9b66606d290bdd7632d0b3856517

If you're using Kubuntu, I would try Ubuntu or Xubuntu, too. While you're at it, try the Mint 6.0 LiveCD- it should have Flash already installed- you may have to enable the Nvidia driver in Mint.

I'm using Ubuntu 8.10.. I've done my experiment straight out of the box install, and then changing piece by piece. Changing the Appearance to None has been the only noticeable improvement, but even that only helped for YouTube...

I added the line to xorg, and alas your prediction was correct.. I will look in to the Mint idea tomorrow...

Rgb

12-30-08, 08:41 AM

Here's something else to try/play with just for sh*ts and giggles re: Flash performance testing-

Download PuppyLinux 4.1.2
http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads/official-releases/puppy-linux-412

Verify the iso is good with md5sum, burn and reboot with thte CD- it runs 100% from RAM and won't touch your hard drive.

On the Puppylinux desktop, download the Flash .pet file- .pet's are the equivalent of .debs on Ubuntu/Debian or .msi's on Windows. Just double click to install Flash- try the Flash 10 .pet first.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=27978

You should now be able to play Flash video sites in the included Seamonkey browser, but fullscreen won't work yet due to the default window manager used in Puppy. Change the window manager to IceWM per the last post in

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=33929&sid=feef6e153ce0b996610917d335e529da

which is nothing more than using Puppy's Synaptic equivalent and clicking on IceWM and installing it. If you can't install IceWM from the package manager, just download the .pet from

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/pet_packages-4/

and click to install.

Restart with IceWM by exiting to the commandline prompt and typing

xwin icewm

and test fullscreen Flash video performance with IceWM running.

This complete exercise should take no more than 10 minutes, including downloading and burning Puppy, since its so small.

Daily Show SD playback in the browser window looked perfect, and fullscreen looks watchable, about half framerate or higher at 1920x1200 with some visible tearing, but quite amazing for no proprietary video drivers installed, i.e. using a plain old Xorg video driver ;)

zim2dive

12-30-08, 08:56 AM

Rgb

12-30-08, 09:09 AM

Rgb,

thanks I can try those things, but I think I just found the smoking gun.. following a most counter-intuitive step, I rolled back from the 177.80 drivers (that are the recommended by the Hardware driver panel in Intrepid) to the 173.14.12 alternate drivers it offers.

On the plus side, Video now seems good.. huhlu in HD seemed almost watchable...

BUT.. I lost all audio via HDMI, and that is my only current built-in option.. so maybe I will look at USB sticks after all...

So instead of upgrading to 180.x... I get the expected performance by rolling back to 173... this is almost Microsoft-logic :)

Shoulda tried the obvious first- i.e. earlier video driver revs ;)

What is your mobo make/model number?

You could just use analog audio out for the time being, since most (all?) Flash streaming video is just stereo or mono anyways.

If you still want a good, well regarded USB sound card, the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage is probably the way to go

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829118107&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Sound+Card-_-Turtle+Beach/Voyetra-_-29118107

That's what you get for trying to be on the bleeding edge with HDMI audio out ;)

I think it will take a few more months before HDMI audio out is simpler and de-bugged for Linux- maybe with Jaunt and/or another round or two of Nvidia driver updates.

I just ordered an MSI K9N2GM-FIH
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130164

to go with my first quad core, a Phenom 9600 Agena
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103244

but I don't expect to/want to use HDMI audio, since I don't have HDMI inputs on my receiver, and plan to use the SPDIF out with a home-made coax RCA jack connected to the mobo header.

I suspect your mobo has an SPDIF header, too.

zim2dive

12-30-08, 09:29 AM

Shoulda tried the obvious first- i.e. earlier video driver revs ;)

What is your mobo make/model number?

You could just use analog audio out for the time being, since most (all?) Flash streaming video is just stereo or mono anyways.

If you still want a good, well regarded USB sound card, the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage is probably the way to go

Not sure? I have an Acer X1200.. ie. its a pre-built machine.. I didn't cobble it together myself. The service manual floating around the net says it has the MCP78 chipset and says: MB WMCP78PV W/O SPDIF

Yep, the Turtle Beach was what I was leaning towards.. played with one of those for a while when I was hoping to get a 2nd audio output from my Mac Mini (turns out dual audio-out is not supported.. I wanted one 2-ch output and one 5.1 output, since my HT rcvr does not support digital inputs to its Zone 2)

Rgb

12-30-08, 09:33 AM

Rgb,

So instead of upgrading to 180.x... I get the expected performance by rolling back to 173... this is almost Microsoft-logic :)

...no, that's Computer Science/Software Engineering logic- the nature of the beast, i.e. regressions, bugs, etc :D

Rgb

12-30-08, 09:40 AM

Not sure? I have an Acer X1200.. ie. its a pre-built machine.. I didn't cobble it together myself. The service manual floating around the net says it has the MCP78 chipset and says: MB WMCP78PV W/O SPDIF

Yep, the Turtle Beach was what I was leaning towards.. played with one of those for a while when I was hoping to get a 2nd audio output from my Mac Mini (turns out dual audio-out is not supported.. I wanted one 2-ch output and one 5.1 output, since my HT rcvr does not support digital inputs to its Zone 2)

I assume its
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/acer-aspire-x1200-u1520a/4505-3118_7-33229227.html

20 geek demerits for you! Next time build your own- those commercial boxes use too many proprietary parts and skimp on basics like SPDIF outs. You might want to crack open the case and see if you're lucky- they may have left an SPDIF header on the motherboard, though if it doesn't show up in the sound control panel (as IEC958 control), you probably don't have SPDIF on the mobo.

20 lashes with gold-tipped TOSlink cables for the newcomer :D

zim2dive

12-30-08, 09:51 AM

I assume its
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/acer-aspire-x1200-u1520a/4505-3118_7-33229227.html

20 geek demerits for you! Next time build your own- those commercial boxes use too many proprietary parts and skimp on basics like SPDIF outs. You might want to crack open the case and see if you're lucky- they may have left an SPDIF header on the motherboard, though if it doesn't show up in the sound control panel (as IEC958 control), you probably don't have SPDIF on the mobo.

20 lashes with gold-tipped TOSlink cables for the newcomer :D

Yeah yeah :) It was my first PC (leaving the Mac fold) at home (spent 90% of my time in the Terminal and made good use of the package managers). Unix at work for 15 years, but still not fully literate on all the ins and outs of assembling a PC.. it seemed a reasonable foot in the door.

And of course, just to be irritating, the 5 channels of output are 5 mono jacks... as in headphone hacks.. so I'd probably have to spend as much getting those cables as I would a USB adaptor :) The front headphone jack does work at least ;)

zim2dive

12-30-08, 09:57 AM

quantumstate

12-30-08, 10:15 AM

Nah, xorg points to the nvidia driver.

You might experiment with removing the alsa modules and testing video only with a higher driver.

Rgb

12-30-08, 10:17 AM

One question tho.. there are 2 variables in the results

a) 173 vs 177/180
b) digital audio

Xorg is what I see in top as choking.. does that definitively point at nvidia?

ie.. what if 177 enabled audio and it was alsa that was choking.. would that show up in top? (ie. alsa under 173 presumably isn't getting any audio to process)

The Nvidia drivers are written to support specific Xorg versions, so yes, there is an interaction effect between the Nvidia driver rev and Xorg server rev.

If you want to experiment more, try the 177.x driver with Pulseaudio disabled, iei killall pulseaudio

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=997082
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=885078

or permanently disable it

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=852518

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio

Rgb

12-30-08, 10:19 AM

And of course, just to be irritating, the 5 channels of output are 5 mono jacks... as in headphone hacks.. so I'd probably have to spend as much getting those cables as I would a USB adaptor :) The front headphone jack does work at least ;)

Cables are practically free-

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021804&p_id=665&seq=1&format=1#largeimage

zim2dive

12-30-08, 10:44 AM

Cables are practically free-

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021804&p_id=665&seq=1&format=1#largeimage

I think I'd need 5 mono -> RCA cables... and then no sub? bleh.

So I have dis-assembled and taken pictures... each ~2M (warning)...

here is the rear panel as-is http://joustingwindmills.com/x1200/rear_panel.JPG
here is the mobo removed, and the shielding removed to expose the audio pinout http://joustingwindmills.com/x1200/audio_smt.JPG .. there seem to be three holes there for SPDIF
here is the audio connector stackup with the empty SPDIF section http://joustingwindmills.com/x1200/jack_front.JPG

Looks the the path of least resistance would be to wire to those 3 pins but not be in the audio stackup?

(and or just go get the Turtle Beach USB...)

jimwhite

12-30-08, 11:03 AM

Rgb

12-30-08, 12:02 PM

I think I'd need 5 mono -> RCA cables... and then no sub? bleh.

So I have dis-assembled and taken pictures... each ~2M (warning)...

here is the rear panel as-is http://joustingwindmills.com/x1200/rear_panel.JPG
here is the mobo removed, and the shielding removed to expose the audio pinout http://joustingwindmills.com/x1200/audio_smt.JPG .. there seem to be three holes there for SPDIF
here is the audio connector stackup with the empty SPDIF section http://joustingwindmills.com/x1200/jack_front.JPG

Looks the the path of least resistance would be to wire to those 3 pins but not be in the audio stackup?

(and or just go get the Turtle Beach USB...)

YOur mobo still might have an SPDIF header, which will look like a two or three pin connector, labeled JOUT SPD or SPDIF, or SPO or similar.

zim2dive

12-30-08, 02:22 PM

zim2dive... MOST of the time, the rear audio jacks (1/8") are dual channel (stereo?) jacks with 4 of them carrying L/R Front, L/R Rear, L/R Side, Cen/Sub. The Fifth is usually a Microphone or Line input. When being a PC noobie, ESPECIALLY when coming from the dark side, you might want to crack open the manual

that would make more sense, yes :) Still braindead vs. just including spdif..

EDIT: just checked the manual... imagine my shock when there was no useful info there... just a picture with no words, showing connections from 3 audio jacks to a chalk outline rcvr.. of course it also showed the non-existent spdif port being connected. So much for documentation.

zim2dive

12-30-08, 02:24 PM

YOur mobo still might have an SPDIF header, which will look like a two or three pin connector, labeled JOUT SPD or SPDIF, or SPO or similar.

I can't find any such header, nor even a no-pop'd set of pads for the header :( I think my only way would be to solder into the 3 thru-holes and ohm-out the ground, and flip a coin on the other 2.... stopped 4 places over lunch looking for the USB stick.. all carry it web, but none had it in stock B&M...

Troubleshooter

12-30-08, 02:29 PM

You don't have an old soundblaster or something floating around? I had one back before 2000 that even had spdif.

zim2dive

12-30-08, 02:54 PM

You don't have an old soundblaster or something floating around? I had one back before 2000 that even had spdif.

No.. its my 1st PC.. also would need low profile (or a hacksaw to happily cut the backplate :) )

I will try to dig out my 1/8" stereo to RCA adaptors.. I found 1.. I thought I had at least 2 :( and wait to see what the nVidia folks have to say for themselves... bug report filed there. Mostly I'm happy to finally seemingly have a true culprit, vs. the many reports from other folks many of whom had no issues (using different GPUs)

Rgb

12-30-08, 04:24 PM

No.. its my 1st PC.. also would need low profile (or a hacksaw to happily cut the backplate :) )

I will try to dig out my 1/8" stereo to RCA adaptors.. I found 1.. I thought I had at least 2 :( and wait to see what the nVidia folks have to say for themselves... bug report filed there. Mostly I'm happy to finally seemingly have a true culprit, vs. the many reports from other folks many of whom had no issues (using different GPUs)

...put that thing on Craigslist and take the cash to buy some real parts from newegg :D

zim2dive

12-30-08, 04:36 PM

...put that thing on Craigslist and take the cash to buy some real parts from newegg :D

I was waiting to see more 9400 based systems on the market... (course I see some mixed reports there as well)... also waiting to see that EEE B204(?) come out and see what it can/not do with its IGP. Had to get the Mac Mini on the used market before the new ones were introduced and that live.com 30% cashback was just too good to pass up on this system (which looked like everything I could possibly need.. on paper...)

For now, waiting for cables from monoprice and do 6-ch ext-in to my rcvr, and to see if nVidia can get its 8200-head out of its nether-regions and figure out what they botched in between the 173 and 177 driver changes....

zim2dive

01-08-09, 10:59 AM

If only we could use mplayer or vlc as an in-Firefox player...(since I can't find any evidence of flash video downloading working for many sites like hulu or TDS)(I can't even get TDS to play reasonably at small-screen size.. neither from their web site directly, nor from fancast.com)
FYI, just stumbled across this greasemonkey script...

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24999

let you swap out the flash player, at least for Youtube...

can't test it much at work (Windows laptop), but I can confirm it letting me use VLC instead of Adobe (have to install the Mozilla plugin from the VLC installer).

Rgb

01-08-09, 11:06 AM

FYI, just stumbled across this greasemonkey script...

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24999

let you swap out the flash player, at least for Youtube...

can't test it much at work (Windows laptop), but I can confirm it letting me use VLC instead of Adobe (have to install the Mozilla plugin from the VLC installer).

Awesome find!

...now if there were only scripts to replace Flash at any random website, like Daily Show, cbs.com, etc...

Rgb

01-10-09, 10:55 AM

FYI, just stumbled across this greasemonkey script...

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24999

let you swap out the flash player, at least for Youtube...

can't test it much at work (Windows laptop), but I can confirm it letting me use VLC instead of Adobe (have to install the Mozilla plugin from the VLC installer).

I tested the HQtube greasemonkey script yesterday at Youtube- works perfectly with the default totem gstreamer browser video player in Intrepid!

I suspect it would be possible to edit the script to work with other Flash web feeds, like Daily Show, cbs.com, etc, but I didn't try it...

Rgb

01-10-09, 11:07 AM

Repeated from
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1106461

With 6xxx and 7xxx Nvidia GPU's you should see CPU utilisation as shown in the attached System Monitor screen grabs, which I tested today with the Digg Reel and Daily Show streaming feeds from their sites on my X2 4200/ 1GB/ 7100GS/ Apevia X-M500 rig.

This is Flash 10.x, not 9.x. Flash 9.x numbers would be worse (i.e. more CPU, perhaps clipping). Ubuntu Hardy defaults to Flash 9.x, while Intrepid defaults to Flash 10.x. This X2 4200 rig is using Nvidia driver 177.82

http://revision3.com/diggreel/steaming/

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=215298

Full screen Flash streaming video CPU usage is the left half of the CPU History, "normal" size Flash window in the browser on the right half.

Neither core is clipping. I am getting the same visual performance (but not CPU efficiency) as I did in XP, which also had occasional tearing during fullscreen Flash video playback while streaming (i.e. using Adobe's video playback plugins) on an equivalent X2 4200 rig.

Since X2 4200's (and faster) and 7xxx GPU's are practically free now, I don't consider this a showstopper for people moving to Linux any longer, though Adobe still needs to improve their Flash video algorithms to reduce CPU utilisation on Linux (and OSX).

There is no need for anything more than a 7xxx GPU on Linux for video playback at this time- put the extra money into the fastest dual core or quad core CPU you can afford instead. The new VDPAU stuff for GPU-assisted decoding of x/h264/VC1 and other codecs is still in the early development stages. All motherboards I've mentioned have a PCIe 16x slot, so when the VDPAU (Nvidia) and XvBA (ATI) stuff is ironed out, you can upgrade the GPU to a VDPAU/XvBA-capable one

http://blog.mymediasystem.net/avchd/vdpau-gpu-list/

when the time comes. Putting the money into more CPU Ghz and cores can make up for the lack of GPU assist in current Nvidia/ATi drivers at this time.

Rgb

01-10-09, 06:21 PM

zim2dive

01-10-09, 09:14 PM

More good news- the HQtube Greasemonkey script makes full screen Youtube CPU utilization basically nil- about 10% CPU at worst!

Again, this is using the totem/gstreamer plugin- other Firefox video player plugins (VLC/mplayer) may be even better.

Clearly demonstrates the ridiculously poor video decoding/scaling algorithms used by Adobe in the Flash video player...

can you make it actual full-screen? (or just most/screen)

Also keep in mind that I was able to full-screen Youtube even with 177/180. Need to see if this script can be hacked to also work for hulu HD or The Daily Show since those are the ones that send Flash/177/180 in to the tank. (it makes we wonder too if the vlc-plugin can't stream to a file instead of screen :) but not sure the plugin has the same ability as the full version...

Rgb

01-12-09, 07:03 PM

can you make it actual full-screen? (or just most/screen)

Also keep in mind that I was able to full-screen Youtube even with 177/180. Need to see if this script can be hacked to also work for hulu HD or The Daily Show since those are the ones that send Flash/177/180 in to the tank. (it makes we wonder too if the vlc-plugin can't stream to a file instead of screen :) but not sure the plugin has the same ability as the full version...

Full screen on a 1920x1200 monitor/desktop.

zim2dive

01-12-09, 07:22 PM

Full screen on a 1920x1200 monitor/desktop.

Cool, I will have to play with this later in the week (when I have some time).

I got an email from nvidia, the have the bug report (on the 8200 performance) and are beginning to look into it.

EDIT: these are 2 of the links that will bring my 8200 to a shuddering/stuttering halt using 177/180, but work fine with the older 173.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=213366
http://www.hulu.com/hd/45918

Rgb

01-16-09, 07:10 PM

Cool, I will have to play with this later in the week (when I have some time).

I got an email from nvidia, the have the bug report (on the 8200 performance) and are beginning to look into it.

EDIT: these are 2 of the links that will bring my 8200 to a shuddering/stuttering halt using 177/180, but work fine with the older 173.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=213366
http://www.hulu.com/hd/45918

The Daily Show link plays fine for me after the swirling logo and Jon Stewart starts. The logo is herky jerky, but it could be my 2Mbps "slow" internet and/or ComedyCentral's server bandwidth.

The HD Hulu Office episode link plays fine re: framerate, but has significant tearing when played full screen, which could be the time of day (net congestion) or my sslow internet speed.

The SD Office eps at Hulu play perfect on my current 2Mbps internet connection (no pausing to buffer) and have no tearing fullscreen after the internet "rush hour" ;)

The SD version of the Office episode you linked to looks better than my clean analog cable, and basically looks like the DVD releases to my eyes (except for occasional visible compression artifacts, still better than SD digital cable/sat which have worse compression artifacts) at full screen on my 42" 720p LCD at 8-10'. I have no need for the HD version.

zim2dive

01-16-09, 11:09 PM

The Daily Show link plays fine for me after the swirling logo and Jon Stewart starts. The logo is herky jerky, but it could be my 2Mbps "slow" internet.

The Hulu link plays fine re: framerate, but has significant tearing when played full screen, which could be the time of day (net congestion) or my sslow internet speed.

Oh, if I could only get to where "tearing" was my problem :) That would be a major improvement :)

MichaelZ

01-17-09, 07:54 AM

Rgb

01-17-09, 12:38 PM

FWIW, I was having a problem with flash in Firefox and I noticed in the plugins that there were a couple of versions and all of them enabled. After disabling all the extras everything came back around. How does one get rid of these plugins?

You shouldn't install Flash + Gnash + swfdec Flash alternatives or different Adobe versions at the same time- only install one.

Most people will just want the current proprietary Adobe Flash plugin (FLash 10.x), that should auto-install when you hit most pages with Flash (with the exception of Youtube)- a dialog pops up in Ubuntu 8.04/8.10 asking which Flash player you want to install. Just select Adobe's.

The others (Gnash, swfdec) are attempts at FOSS Flash alternatives, but aren't there yet to handle random Flash sites. Hopefully they will be viable alternatives in the useful future, but we'll have to see...

MichaelZ

01-17-09, 03:16 PM

You shouldn't install Flash + Gnash + swfdec Flash alternatives or different Adobe versions at the same time- only install one.

Most people will just want the current proprietary Adobe Flash plugin (FLash 10.x), that should auto-install when you hit most pages with Flash (with the exception of Youtube)- a dialog pops up in Ubuntu 8.04/8.10 asking which Flash player you want to install. Just select Adobe's.

The others (Gnash, swfdec) are attempts at FOSS Flash alternatives, but aren't there yet to handle random Flash sites. Hopefully they will be viable alternatives in the useful future, but we'll have to see...

I had two Adobe Flash plugins both ver 10 but one was a release candidate. Weird.

Rgb

01-17-09, 05:12 PM

I had two Adobe Flash plugins both ver 10 but one was a release candidate. Weird.

At minimum, you should be able to go to Tools->Add-ons->Plugins and Disable the Flash you don't want in Firefox, but it sounds like you did that.

Someone else might know how to safely remove the unwanted Adobe Flash version without hurting the "good" version.

Rgb

01-30-09, 03:26 PM

It appears there's a growing awareness of the VAST imbalance of power represented by Adobe's virtual monopoly on streaming web video-

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/01/mozilla-contributes-100000-to-fund-ogg-development.ars

"Open Web standards have evolved considerably over the years and browser compatibility is better than ever, but one important area where standards are just starting to catch up is support for streaming video. Proprietary browser plugins are used extensively across the web to play video from popular sites. This creates serious lock-in risk and gives proprietary software vendors like Adobe a lot of control over the medium.

Although alternatives such as Microsoft's Silverlight are beginning to change the game and force Adobe to open up, there still isn't a viable, vendor-neutral, standards-based alternative that can shift the balance of power over to end-users and tear down some of the walls that limit how video content is experienced on the Web. Mozilla and the Wikimedia Foundation have launched an initiative to help improve the quality of open, standards-based video technology."

zim2dive

02-11-09, 08:23 PM

180.29 from nVidia looks like it fixes the 8200/8300 issues with Flash

mythmaster

02-12-09, 11:13 PM

180.29 from nVidia looks like it fixes the 8200/8300 issues with Flash

Glad to hear it!

My $0.02:

Fullscreen HD Flash playback (e.g., http://www.hulu.com/hd/52482) is nearly perfect (no tearing, but occasional video stuttering -- audio is perfect) and completely watchable.

System specs:
Phenom 9850 (4 x 2.5)
4 GB
Nvidia 9400GS 512MB
180.29
32-bit Kubuntu Intrepid w/ stock Flash

Rgb

02-13-09, 07:32 AM

Glad to hear it!

My $0.02:

Fullscreen HD Flash playback (e.g., http://www.hulu.com/hd/52482) is nearly perfect (no tearing, but occasional video stuttering -- audio is perfect) and completely watchable.

System specs:
Phenom 9850 (4 x 2.5)
4 GB
Nvidia 9400GS 512MB
180.29
32-bit Kubuntu Intrepid w/ stock Flash

So much for HD-over-internet being "a decade away" ;)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=13938489&postcount=2

What is your real world internet/ISP speed? Please report test results from

http://www.giganews.com/performance.html

http://www.speedtest.net/

zim2dive

02-13-09, 08:03 AM

So much for HD-over-internet being "a decade away" ;)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=13938489&postcount=2

What is your real world internet/ISP speed? Please report test results from

http://www.giganews.com/performance.html

http://www.speedtest.net/

I get 5-7Mbps down, ~384k up (on speedtest)

Should have time this weekend to do some real watching and give the new driver a good test (one guy over at nvnews says he sees "periodic" CPU usage, cycling up to 100% then back down)

mythmaster

02-13-09, 10:04 AM

So much for HD-over-internet being "a decade away" ;)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=13938489&postcount=2

What is your real world internet/ISP speed? Please report test results from

http://www.giganews.com/performance.html
17666 kbps

http://www.speedtest.net/
http://www.speedtest.net/result/410250960.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

I have a 12Mbps connection. :cool:

Rgb

02-13-09, 10:36 AM

17666 kbps

http://www.speedtest.net/result/410250960.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

I have a 12Mbps connection. :cool:

From your results, it looks like you have a 17Mbps-24Mbps connection!?

mythmaster

02-13-09, 11:34 AM

From your results, it looks like you have a 17Mbps-24Mbps connection!?
Pretty crazy! :D

http://www.speedtest.net/result/410302722.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

Rgb

02-13-09, 12:15 PM

Pretty crazy! :D

http://www.speedtest.net/result/410302722.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

Any evil behavior from your ISP (I assume Cox from the test result) like throttling, blocking bt, bandwidth caps etc?

mythmaster

02-13-09, 12:52 PM

Any evil behavior from your ISP (I assume Cox from the test result) like throttling, blocking bt, bandwidth caps etc?

None that I can tell so far. BT works, although I think I read somewhere that cox *used* to block it. No bandwidth caps that I know of. Not sure what throttling is.

I'm happy with the cable service -- 70-something hd channels, tons of free vod. I haven't tried firewire, but I'm just going to assume it's encrypted and pick up an ota card. Plenty of stuff to watch online.

Troubleshooter

02-13-09, 02:00 PM

mythmaster

02-13-09, 05:53 PM

When you pay for say a 12mbit connection and speedtest comes back with way more, it's likely that the cable co uses something like what Comcast calls 'Speedboost'. That lets a small amount of data through at a high rate and throttles down to your norm, generally after a few seconds. Makes speed tests look mighty impressive ;)

-Trouble
Well, that's obviously what's going on...don't know that I'd consider it "evil" though. I'm paying for 12, so as long as I average that then I'm happy.

Also, OT, but I just checked the epg and I'm actually getting 100 hd channels. Pretty sweet. I might have to break down and try out the hd-pvr -- I wonder if 1080i works better with vdpau...

Troubleshooter

02-14-09, 07:06 AM

Hey, never said it was evil! Just filling in on the magic. ;)

-Trouble

mythmaster

02-14-09, 10:54 AM

Hey, never said it was evil! Just filling in on the magic. ;)

-Trouble

I was referring to what rgb said:

Any evil behavior from your ISP (I assume Cox from the test result) like throttling, blocking bt, bandwidth caps etc?

zim2dive

02-16-09, 03:49 PM

Rgb

02-20-09, 10:25 PM

Anyone test the native 64bit Flash 10 alpha yet?

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/releasenotes_64bit.html

Perhaps better CPU utilization, tearing, etc?

You need to use the AMD64/64bit Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu, or other 64bit linux distro of course ;)

ATI, Nvidia results?

sharkcohen

02-21-09, 07:17 PM

Rgb

02-21-09, 07:48 PM

I've been running it since it came out, works great.

What video GPU are you using? Driver version?

What is your CPU utilisation when playing streaming Flash video full screen?

sharkcohen

02-23-09, 01:50 AM

sharkcohen@sharkdesk:~$ uname -a
Linux sharkdesk 2.6.24-19-rt #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Wed Jun 4 16:31:35 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
sharkcohen@sharkdesk:~$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version
NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 173.14.05 Mon May 19 00:03:22 PDT 2008
GCC version: gcc version 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)
sharkcohen@sharkdesk:~$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/cards/0
Model: GeForce 8800 GT
IRQ: 16
Video BIOS: 62.92.24.00.00
Card Type: PCI-E
DMA Size: 40 bits
DMA Mask: 0xffffffffff
Bus Location: 01.00.0

Watching an HD Survivor clip at cbs.com at fullscreen:

top - 23:17:12 up 1 day, 4:23, 5 users, load average: 1.26, 0.92, 0.62
Tasks: 1 total, 0 running, 1 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 19.6%us, 0.6%sy, 0.0%ni, 79.5%id, 0.0%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.1%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 2041312k total, 1905756k used, 135556k free, 144776k buffers
Swap: 2096472k total, 140680k used, 1955792k free, 532612k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
7086 sharkcoh 20 0 1400m 603m 43m S 63 30.3 394:03.89 firefox

I get a small amount of tearing, but the performance is so much better than flash 9.

Rgb

02-25-09, 10:25 AM

It appears we're not alone- Windows users still complain about FLash video performance, too

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1079256

sharkcohen

02-25-09, 07:12 PM

I'm using Flash 10 on my IBM T60 laptop, Windows XP Pro. It performs worse than my x86_64 Ubuntu box and the 64 bit Flash 10 beta :o

k_ross

03-03-09, 09:40 PM

Testing the new 180.29 nVidia driver that un-cripples the 8200...

What kind of CPU % #'s do you guys get with other GPUs?

Playing full-screen, 1920x1080, Firefox, Flash 10.0.15, at thedailyshow.com, full episodes, I see

Firefox bounce from 80-125% (dual core)
Xorg pretty steady at 30%

I've set Flash to "Low Quality" via the settings.

Now granted, even this was impossible before 180.29.. just not sure I see anything to be impressed with in this driver other than it does uncripple the 8200.

thanks,
Mike

I just have a SDTV, so my resolution is set to 800x600. But I can play all fullscreen Flash content I've thrown at it with each CPU core not going over about 60%, including thedailyshow.com and hulu.com/hd

I couldn't do this until I adjusted the cpufreq settings, which controls dynamic scaling of the CPU clock based on load and other criteria. On Debian, the default governor is the "ondemand" governor, with up_threshold set to 95, which means it won't up the CPU clock until the load hits 95%. This wasn't working well for me. I would get jerky video and tearing. I set it to 50, and that works well for me. I also set the minimum frequency to 1.8 GHz instead of the default 1.0 GHz. Now I have perfect Flash playback (well as perfect as Flash can be).

I have an AMD 5050e (2.6 GHz dual core), nVidia 8200 IGP using 180.29 driver. Debian Lenny 32-bit, Flash 10.0r15 according to Iceweasel plugins, and 10.0.15.3 according to www.adobe.com/software/flash/about

To those having video playback problems, maybe check your CPU clock while playing, and see it it's being scaled up appropriately. Use cpufreq-info to check.

Hope this helps!

-- Kevin

zim2dive

03-03-09, 10:14 PM

I just have a SDTV, so my resolution is set to 800x600. But I can play all fullscreen Flash content I've thrown at it with each CPU core not going over about 60%, including thedailyshow.com and hulu.com/hd

I couldn't do this until I adjusted the cpufreq settings, which controls dynamic scaling of the CPU clock based on load and other criteria. On Debian, the default governor is the "ondemand" governor, with up_threshold set to 95, which means it won't up the CPU clock until the load hits 95%. This wasn't working well for me. I would get jerky video and tearing. I set it to 50, and that works well for me. I also set the minimum frequency to 1.8 GHz instead of the default 1.0 GHz. Now I have perfect Flash playback (well as perfect as Flash can be).

I have an AMD 5050e (2.6 GHz dual core), nVidia 8200 IGP using 180.29 driver. Debian Lenny 32-bit, Flash 10.0r15 according to Iceweasel plugins, and 10.0.15.3 according to www.adobe.com/software/flash/about

To those having video playback problems, maybe check your CPU clock while playing, and see it it's being scaled up appropriately. Use cpufreq-info to check.

Hope this helps!

-- Kevin

Thanks for the info. I just played with cpufreq-info and used cpufreq-set to set governor mode to performance (and my CPU freq stayed at 2.7GHz). CPU #s were still ~100% or more for full-screen at Hulu and TDS. :(

EDIT: also I appear to have NO hw acceleration.. performance is about the same if I disable HW accel in the Flash settings. I used Legend of the Seeker from Hulu HD as a test. Peaked at 170% of cpu.

k_ross

03-04-09, 12:53 AM

I just did some testing with a 1600x1200 monitor plugged in (the highest resolution monitor I have). Legend of the Seeker got slightly jerky at places with High Quality. At Low Quality, it was plenty smooth. 480p content at hulu.com plays fine at High Quality at 1600x1200.

HW acceleration definitely makes a difference for me. With it enabled, while watching Legend of the Seeker, X usage rarely goes over 1%. With HW accel disabled, X hovers between 30 and 40%, as reported by htop.

But on The Daily Show, X usage is always around 30-40%. They must be doing something that causes Flash to not use HW accel.

I'm a little confused reading the output of htop. At the top, it shows each CPU core somewhere in the 70% range. However, in the list below, you can see one Iceweasel at 100%. This is while playing Legend of the Seeker fullscreen.

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/2272/htop.png

EDIT:

Here's roughly the same output with top instead of htop:

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/3711/top.png

zim2dive

03-04-09, 07:57 AM

I just did some testing with a 1600x1200 monitor plugged in (the highest resolution monitor I have). Legend of the Seeker got slightly jerky at places with High Quality. At Low Quality, it was plenty smooth. 480p content at hulu.com plays fine at High Quality at 1600x1200.

HW acceleration definitely makes a difference for me. With it enabled, while watching Legend of the Seeker, X usage rarely goes over 1%. With HW accel disabled, X hovers between 30 and 40%, as reported by htop.

But on The Daily Show, X usage is always around 30-40%. They must be doing something that causes Flash to not use HW accel.

I'm a little confused reading the output of htop. At the top, it shows each CPU core somewhere in the 70% range. However, in the list below, you can see one Iceweasel at 100%. This is while playing Legend of the Seeker fullscreen.

Good info.. thanks! Ack, I was paying attention to the firefox cpu %.. will do again and watch the X %.

I'm just trying to confirm that nvidia's drivers have now uncrippled (since 180.29) the 8200 to the point where the 8200 owners suffer injury only from the poor Flash performance and not any additional injury from lingering nVidia issues.

Just out of curiosity.. are you doing your screen grabs from another machine? (is there a way to monitor top on the same machine when full screen? (is there a version of top with some form of persistance of the max values)

thanks,
Mike

quantumstate

03-04-09, 07:58 AM

The 100% for Iceweasel is 100% of one core equivalent, and it's using both cores.

htop can't possibly capture all that's going on, as it changes every nanosecond, so the process CPU usage adds up to more than the bars in this case.

Thanks for the cpufreq tip!

quantumstate

03-04-09, 08:06 AM

zim2dive, you can set the <Alt>D hotkey to change desktops in KDE, and put Firefox on Desktop 2. Run some Flash, switch to fullscreen, then <alt>D to go to Desktop 1 and take your readings. I always run Myth in Desktop 2, NX in 3, and VirtualBox in 4.

top is too primitive for persistence, but you can run a graphing utility like ksysguard.

zim2dive

03-04-09, 09:02 AM

Just noticed there is a newer version for 64-bit.. released Feb 24 2009.

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

(I'm running 32-bit)

the 32-bit version (from the normal download area) is dated 2/2/09, so it's got to be newer than what I'm using.. will give it a shot to see what version it is and if there is any improvement.

k_ross

03-04-09, 01:40 PM

I'm just trying to confirm that nvidia's drivers have now uncrippled (since 180.29) the 8200 to the point where the 8200 owners suffer injury only from the poor Flash performance and not any additional injury from lingering nVidia issues.

For me at least, it seems on par with Windows performance now. Supposedly, 180.35 gives better performance, but that version causes problems on my machine, so I'm sticking with 180.29 for now.

Just out of curiosity.. are you doing your screen grabs from another machine?

Yes, I used ssh from my laptop.

-- Kevin

zim2dive

03-05-09, 08:11 AM

Did some testing over the past 24 hours...

went to the Apple store and played with one of the new Minis. C2D @ 2 GHz.
Also tried
- Ubuntu 8.10
- Vista Home Premium... both on my 2.7GHz Athlon 5200+

both machines had 2G memory. I used the beginning of episode 1 of legend of the seeker fro hulu/hd. opens with a mountain fly-over and then a horse chase.. lots of motion. I made sure to let video buffer up so that it was not a connection issue.

Mac OS X: 140% cpu, no visible frame drops, no tearing.
Vista: wasn't sure how to measure cpu % (I thought task manager would nullify the full-screen window). Mild frame drops, no tearing
Ubuntu 8.10 (with nvidia 180.29). Frame drops and tearing.

So linux came out on the bottom. What surprised me was that OS X came out on top, assuming its not completely unfair to say that it needed 30% LESS cpu MHz to do so ?

so I did some digging and found http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2008-q1-2008/HDTV-Playback,377.html which suggests often that the 2.7 GHz 5200+ may only compare to a ~2.13GHz C2D, which makes this all more of a wash other than me seeing tearing only under linux.

Rgb

03-05-09, 09:27 AM

mac os x: 140% cpu, no visible frame drops, no tearing.
.

140% cpu?

zim2dive

03-05-09, 11:44 AM

140% cpu?

yes. run top.. you will see (dual-core machine.. it can go to 200%)

zim2dive

03-05-09, 08:51 PM

Continuing to experiment.. I picked up an 8400 GS and installed it tonite.

Again, playing Season 1, Ep 1 of "Legend of the Seeker" on hulu.com/hd, as my test case.

Using 180.29 driver, Ubuntu 8.10

With normal setting, at full screen (1920x1080 display), video is jerky at the beginning of this video (horse chase, lots of motion), little/no tearing.

Watching with top, cpu % is ~130% (dual core 2.7GHz Athlon 5200+)

Out of curiosity, in Flash, I DISABLED HW acceleration... I now see more tearing, BUT in general the video is smoother ?!?! When I say tearing, I mean I think I see parts of one frame at the top of the screen, and a different one at the bottom.

I also didn't see any cpu% increase, which makes me conclude there is little/no HW acceleration occurring (and the GPU is irrelevant)? (at least not on Hulu HD)

Just an FYI.

Rgb

03-05-09, 09:02 PM

I also didn't see any cpu% increase, which makes me conclude there is little/no HW acceleration occurring (and the GPU is irrelevant)? (at least not on Hulu HD)

Just an FYI.

The only way we get hardware accel in the Flash browser players/websites is if Adobe enables VDPAU in their Flash binary...

...ain't it nice to have yet another Big Bad Guy to fret over? :D

But seriously, this is the kind of thing that the long time FOSS advocates/"evangelicals" have been saying- the slippery slope of accepting closed proprietary non FOSS blobs into Linux. We are ending up back where we started, locked into the closed Nvidia's, Adobe's, et al and their whims :(

k_ross

03-05-09, 10:46 PM

The only way we get hardware accel in the Flash browser players/websites is if Adobe enables VDPAU in their Flash binary...

That's not true. Flash uses OpenGL for scaling the output to fullscreen.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/05/flash_uses_the_gpu.html

Unfortunately, they are doing YUV-to-RGB conversion in software, instead of letting the video hardware do that. And of course, they are decoding the compressed video in software, too.

Rgb

03-06-09, 12:47 AM

And of course, they are decoding the compressed video in software, too.

That's the part that VDPAU would help with, using the GPU instead of the CPU ("software").

zim2dive

03-06-09, 08:14 AM

On the plus side, I may have reached acceptable playback last night (egads, I'll have to find something new to b!tch about :) :) )

Latest Flash 10.0.22.57? and I reduced the settings inside Flash on hulu/hd to lowest. cpu was still ~120%, but it seemed smooth (for a 5 minute viewing) and I wasn't noticing the tearing. I find that lowest quality on HD hulu is still MUCH better than highest quality on the non-HD section (lots of artifacts/blocking).

In the meantime, I've put ye ole X1200 up on craigslist. If/when it sells, I'll be swapping to an Intel mobo and looking for 2.8G+ there which should give me a ~50% boost vs. my dual-core AMD (learned the hard way).

I also added a treadmill and 2 gerbils to provide extra power to the system...

mythmaster

03-06-09, 04:06 PM

I also added a treadmill and 2 gerbils to provide extra power to the system...
I thought hamsters were better qualified...

Anyway, I've achieved a slight performance increase (still tearing on seeker) by stopping powernowd with the good old:
sudo /etc/init.d/powernowd stop

mythmaster

03-06-09, 05:53 PM

Well, the tearing obviously doesn't have anything to do with cpu overload. Adobe needs to get their act together.

This is while running "Seeker" fullscreen on the other desktop:

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/4002/screenp.th.png (http://img261.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenp.png)

zim2dive

03-06-09, 06:02 PM

Well, the tearing obviously doesn't have anything to do with cpu overload. Adobe needs to get their act together.

I also emailed Hulu at their "feedback" addr... can't hurt.

mythmaster

03-06-09, 06:16 PM

I also emailed Hulu at their "feedback" addr... can't hurt.

We can chime in over here, too --> http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1152

zim2dive

03-07-09, 10:25 AM

We can chime in over here, too --> http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1152

Yes, even if you don't comment, register and VOTE the issue up the priority chain.

mythmaster

03-08-09, 12:32 AM

After doing some opengl testing, I want to give flash the benefit of the doubt and say that since it uses opengl video accel, my card probably isn't quite up to the task.

I used "tropics demo" from unigine to benchmark --> http://unigine.com/download/

Here are the results from my 9300 GS using the same settings as the person with the 9800 GT who posted at nvnews (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1951528&postcount=36):

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7192/tropicsdemo.png

So, I'm guessing that something like a 9500 GT or better should work fine for flash hd -- which really sucks since you only need an 8200 for smooth vdpau, and if you have no desire to play "left 4 dead", then why should you have to spend the extra $$ on a card JUST so you can watch hulu's 6 hd features??

I'll vote for the vdpau feature request over at adobe and, hopefully, others will, too.

Rgb

03-08-09, 09:39 AM

I'll vote for the vdpau feature request over at adobe and, hopefully, others will, too.

Specific link where we can provide VDPAU request/"vote" to Adobe?

zim2dive

03-08-09, 11:18 AM

Specific link where we can provide VDPAU request/"vote" to Adobe?

Follow the link 3-4 posts back from mythmaster

you might have to register/login 1st and then on the left side you will see Operations

Attach file to this issue
Attach screenshot to this issue
Clone this issue
Comment on this issue
Voting:
You have already voted in support of this issue. Unvote if it is not important to you

click on Voting.

Rgb

03-08-09, 11:50 AM

My vote just made it 3!?

Everyone- please register for an account and submit your vote on the Flash performance issue, VDPAU or not-

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1152

Rgb

03-08-09, 12:40 PM

I added a new issue at Adobe to address the point of this thread-

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1692

Please vote for it.

I thought a separate issue was important, as we need the Flash binary optimized on Linux, regardless of VDPAU- i.e. the excessive CPU usage/tearing/frame drops shouldn't be there whether VDPAU is enabled or not, since the non-VDPAU mplayer plays downloaded .flv's far better with far less CPU than the Flash plugin. VDPAU would be a bonus, but the basics must be fixed first.

mythmaster

03-09-09, 03:49 AM

My vote just made it 3!?

Everyone- please register for an account and submit your vote on the Flash performance issue, VDPAU or not-

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1152

I added a new issue at Adobe to address the point of this thread-

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1692

Please vote for it.

I thought a separate issue was important, as we need the Flash binary optimized on Linux, regardless of VDPAU- i.e. the CPU usage/tearing/frame drops shouldn't be ther whether VDPAU is enabled or not, since the non=VDPAU mplayer plays downloaded .flv's far better with far less CPU than the FLash plugin. VDPAU would be a bonus, but the basics must be fixed first.

Voted and Watching.
-- Leroy Johnston :D

zim2dive

03-15-09, 11:05 AM

I got the new parts in and assembled. I decided to try Jaunty Alpha 5 (6 just came out) instead of going back to Intrepid. Enabled all the repos, and installed all the updates, and installed the latest Flash driver... and off we go to hulu hd.

Again, I don't seem to see any? difference regardless of the HW accleration setting in Flash.

I remembered that compiz would probably be on by default. What turned out to be mildly interesting (ie. I don't understand it yet), was cpu usage with compiz

- on: 75% firefox, 25% Xorg
- off: 100% firefox, 1% Xorg

so the net cpu usage was essentially the same. I dunno. Maybe Jaunty has newer Xorg that helps fix the Flash vs. compiz issue?

More feedback later, but so far so good. The Hulu part seems smooth. I did see some bad flickering/tearing in the commercials? but not during the show. Off to install some more stuff.

EDIT: for comparison, I ran the same test using Safari on OSX 10.5.6 (don't ask).. almost exactly the same cpu usage.

mythmaster

03-18-09, 11:43 PM

Rgb

11-18-09, 07:12 AM

Now up to 59 votes and 40 watching!

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1692

Rgb

11-18-09, 07:15 AM

VDPAU request has 47 votes, 23 watching-

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1152

Rgb

11-18-09, 07:20 AM

Flash 10.1 beta testing

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1197316

Rgb

11-18-09, 09:07 AM

Another important milestone in resolving this issue-

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1692

it has been elevated to "Internal Review" status!

The VDPAU and VA-API issues are still in "Open" status.

VDPAU-
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1152

VA-API
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-3146

Do current/recent versions of mplayer and/or VLC use VA-API? I know recent mplayer builds can use VDPAU.

I want to re-emphasize that the poor FLash video performance/excessive CPU utilization issue and VDPAU are not linked.

We want Flash to use less CPU and play well on *all* GPU's, regardless of VDPAU or not. VDPAU on supported GPU's is certainly wanted, but remember- even the non-VDPAU enabled mplayer plays captured .flv/h264 web video with FAR less CPU, tearing and other artifacts of poor decoding performance.

tux99

11-18-09, 09:25 AM

That's good news, I hope Adobe gets their act together soon.

Rgb I agree with you, the 'the poor FLash video performance/excessive CPU utilization issue' is the primary problem.
VDPAU support would be the icing on the cake, but it shouldn't distract from the main issue that the flash plugin is a lot more inefficient at playing back FLVs than any other software media player like mplayer or vlc.

Rgb

11-18-09, 09:43 AM

Kinda funny that there wasn't an issue/bug in Adobe's system calling out the problem until I added it in March 2009!?

Yes, there was the VDPAU request posted 12/8/08, but like we both stated, VDPAU is needed going forward, but is NOT the solution to the high CPU/poor video performance issue on Linux (and OSX for that matter).

I think the omission was similar to a psychological effect where someone needs help in a crowded public place, but is ignored ;)

We want/need low CPU usage on ALL recent vintage GPU's, VDPAU or not- all those Intel 9xx GPU's in netbooks and notebooks, all the ATI GPU's in recent vintage notebooks, etc- heck, basically any GPU going back to the Nvidia FX5200/ATI Radeon 9xxx series at the least.

Lower CPU usage will significantly increase battery life on the portable machines, and significantly lower heat and power usage on the ITX and other media PC form factors we use.

Rgb

11-18-09, 09:52 AM

Made this thread sticky based on its high priority in Linux-land at the moment.

Also renamed the thread to emphasize it's not relegated to "fullscreen" video playback in Flash.

Rgb

11-18-09, 10:00 AM

Lots of great discussion and contributed comments in the Adobe bug system-

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1692

I encourage everyone to register in order to be able to view the comments/discussion there- that means you, quantumstate :D

Like mythmaster said in the other thread, use an anonymous proxy like Tor and a throwaway email account if privacy is an issue, but this issue needs attention and priority.

Please pass the link on to others who may not have an active interest, whether tech saavy or not, informing them to cast their vote.

quantumstate

11-18-09, 12:07 PM

It's not so much about that.

I'm not about trying to pry corporations to do right. Fsck 'em. Corrupt. I'll do with what there is until there's a FOSS solution.

tux99

11-18-09, 01:16 PM

It's not so much about that.

I'm not about trying to pry corporations to do right. Fsck 'em. Corrupt. I'll do with what there is until there's a FOSS solution.

I quite agree with you point of view, ideally it would be better to boycott flash completely, but try explaining that to my wife, who likes watching internet videos which are usually Flash based, on her netbook (running Mandriva Linux because my home is 100% Microsoft free)...

Rgb

11-18-09, 01:48 PM

It's not so much about that.

I'm not about trying to pry corporations to do right. Fsck 'em. Corrupt. I'll do with what there is until there's a FOSS solution.

A technical CS-type coworker wrote this to me this morning-

"The better way would be hoping Adobe will not fix this or any other serious bugs, resulting in its eventual obsoleteness (this is guaranteed to happen anyway. Let's get busy helping out the open standards instead)."

To which I responded-

"Agreed on all points, but it feels good...exposing Adobe for their poor wares ;)

Yes, from a principles and Big Picture/long term POV, stuff like Flash are deposed by more open, better alternatives. But in the short run, the Flashes of the world pose a BIG hurdle to normal, everyday users who would otherwise switch to Linux from Windows in a heartbeat.

We currently squeak by with Flash 10.x because fast...multicore CPU's on the desktop are common and cheap now (somewhat making up for the inefficient Flash code on Linux), but the netbook and Atom/Ion issues are big ones in media playback right now."

In summary, in the the long run, FOSS and open standards tend to win, but in the short run, day-to-day practical real world of the Mom's, wives and J6P's of the world, we are forced to grouse and submit bug reports and work with these companies in a temporary detente to resolve showstopper issues like this.

It's sad, but the web is basically useless without the closed, proprietary Flash at the moment- hopefully open standards like HTML5 and similar (or open sourcing Flash) will resolve this going forward, but for the time being, we have Yet Another Big Bad Software company to hound :(

quantumstate

11-18-09, 02:32 PM

zim2dive

11-18-09, 03:07 PM

I quite agree with you point of view, ideally it would be better to boycott flash completely, but try explaining that to my wife, who likes watching internet videos which are usually Flash based, on her netbook (running Mandriva Linux because my home is 100% Microsoft free)...

I generally don't pay attention, but the FOSS folks are as bad as the (joke) vegetarian conference where they ended up serving no food b/c they could decide what to serve that wouldn't offend the pescetarians, vegans, etc....

There was that flurry about gnash supporting va-api, and then if I read the details correctly, they started infighting about whether some part of how they did get it working somehow ran afoul of other FOSS principles... back to the point of having no easily installable binary for use.

tux99

11-18-09, 03:12 PM

I generally don't pay attention, but the FOSS folks are as bad as the (joke) vegetarian conference where they ended up serving no food b/c they could decide what to serve that wouldn't offend the pescetarians, vegans, etc....

There was that flurry about gnash supporting va-api, and then if I read the details correctly, they started infighting about whether some part of how they did get it working somehow ran afoul of other FOSS principles... back to the point of having no easily installable binary for use.

Just because an ideal is noble and valid, that doesn't mean that all it's followers are immaculate.

Basically don't ditch a valid idea like FOSS just because some developers of FOSS software have disagreements and infights. Same goes for vegetarians, or religions (but I don't think this is the place to open that can of worms...).

zim2dive

11-18-09, 08:01 PM

Just because an ideal is noble and valid, that doesn't mean that all it's followers are immaculate.

Basically don't ditch a valid idea like FOSS just because some developers of FOSS software have disagreements and infights. Same goes for vegetarians, or religions (but I don't think this is the place to open that can of worms...).

LOL.. no, I'm just saying its annoying that the gnash solution may not make it out into widespread use...

Lost Dog

11-18-09, 10:21 PM

I always overpower my systems, within standards of economic and green-power reason. Brute-force it, and get by with the proprietary solution for now. Pirate Acrobat, so I can edit their damned proprietary PDFs. They brought this on themselves, and I'm sure it pays off for them, but I'm not playing.

???? This statement baffles me. It's like saying you and won't own a car on principal due to global warming but will steal one and drive it because you need to get to work.

There are a number of open source .pdf editors for linux. No need to steal (even if the company needs a swift kick to the junk).

tux99

11-18-09, 11:06 PM

There are a number of open source .pdf editors for linux. No need to steal (even if the company needs a swift kick to the junk).

Copyright infringement is not the same as stealing, that's what the IP mafia would like you to believe. :rolleyes:

But I agree that there are several good options under Linux for making pdf files so there is no need to use Acrobat.

quantumstate

11-19-09, 12:04 AM

???? This statement baffles me. It's like saying you and won't own a car on principal due to global warming but will steal one and drive it because you need to get to work.

There are a number of open source .pdf editors for linux. No need to steal (even if the company needs a swift kick to the junk).
No, it's like Safeway accumulates a monopoly on food, charging confiscatory prices. You have no choice but to eat food. This is a hypothetical case of piracy. And so by principle (if not common law) the illegality of bypassing that system is diluted by a proportional amount. The sword cuts both ways, Exxon.

And sure I can make PDFs all day long, and I do with OO and the print driver. The problem comes when I must edit a PDF supplied by others. There are online editors sure, but I have tried those and they either mess up various documents in varying ways, or they error and fail altogether. They do not work for the kind of work I do.

An unconstrained monopoly is a form of piracy. Our grandfathers recognized this and passed strong legislation (Sherman Antitrust Act et al), but today's Republicans see this as outdated and antiquated and have gutted its provisions. The result is the Public Good is raped for all its worth and our economy is desiccated for all but the top 5%. No one realizes it, but the reason for this worst recession since the Great Depression is the pervasive dismantling of reasonable regulation and passage of legislation actually authored by the industries it was supposed to affect, from 2001-2005. The reason we don't see boarded up buildings is because the load is being borne by job losses. The economic pain is being borne by the labor force, not by the financiers who created the problem. And believe me, this was done intentionally.
{gets off soapbox}

Rgb

11-19-09, 09:18 AM

No, it's like Safeway accumulates a monopoly on food, charging confiscatory prices. You have no choice but to eat food. This is a hypothetical case of piracy. And so by principle (if not common law) the illegality of bypassing that system is diluted by a proportional amount. The sword cuts both ways, Exxon.

And sure I can make PDFs all day long, and I do with OO and the print driver. The problem comes when I must edit a PDF supplied by others. There are online editors sure, but I have tried those and they either mess up various documents in varying ways, or they error and fail altogether. They do not work for the kind of work I do.

I think what you are practicing is a form of civil disobedience

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)

sound dropouts

11-22-09, 11:23 PM

An unconstrained monopoly is a form of piracy. Our grandfathers recognized this and passed strong legislation (Sherman Antitrust Act et al), but today's Republicans see this as outdated and antiquated and have gutted its provisions. The result is the Public Good is raped for all its worth and our economy is desiccated for all but the top 5%. No one realizes it, but the reason for this worst recession since the Great Depression is the pervasive dismantling of reasonable regulation and passage of legislation actually authored by the industries it was supposed to affect, from 2001-2005. The reason we don't see boarded up buildings is because the load is being borne by job losses. The economic pain is being borne by the labor force, not by the financiers who created the problem. And believe me, this was done intentionally.
{gets off soapbox}

The current recession was caused by an overabundance of monetary stimulus from 2001 through 2005, and by a large fiscal stimulus through war spending, leading to rampant over-speculation and an uncontrolled boom. De-regulation on the other hand has led to the 6 fold increase in real economic output since the 70s, and is in no part responsible for the current economic predicament.

Rgb

12-18-09, 05:10 PM

Up to 124 votes...

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1692

(..and put the kibosh on the non-Flash related talk ;) )

mythmaster

12-18-09, 05:16 PM

Also, the VA-API feature request has been assigned to a developer:

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-3146

Rgb

01-11-10, 07:27 AM

When the ARM chips really take off in new smartphones, MID tablets and netbooks this year, this should be good news for generic accelerated GPU API development for Flash (Old press release, but ARM netbooks, smartbooks and Cortex MIDs haven't hit the market in numbers yet. Note bold item):

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200811/111708ARMAdobeFlash.html

Support for Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR to Bring Rich Internet Applications to ARM Powered Devices

ADOBE MAX 2008, SAN FRANCISCO AND CAMBRIDGE, — Nov. 17, 2008 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and ARM [(LSE:ARM); (Nasdaq:ARMH)] today announced a technology collaboration to optimize and enable Adobe® Flash® Player 10 and Adobe AIR™ for ARM Powered® devices, ranging from mobile phones to set-top boxes, mobile Internet devices, televisions, automotive platforms, personal media players and other mobile computing devices. The collaboration is expected to accelerate mobile graphics and video capabilities on ARM platforms to bring rich Internet applications and Web services to mobile devices and consumer electronics worldwide.

The joint technology optimization is targeted for the ARMv6 and ARMv7architectures used in the ARM11™ family and the Cortex™-A series of processors and is expected to be available in the second half of 2009. The partnership stems from the Open Screen Project, a broad Adobe sponsored initiative of industry leaders - including ARM - to deliver a consistent runtime environment across multiple devices by taking advantage of Adobe Flash Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR. The initiative is set to address the challenges of Web browsing on a broad range of screens, and remove the barriers to publish content and applications seamlessly across screens. For more information, visit
www.openscreenproject.org .

“Video created for the Adobe Flash Player is the leading video format on the web today, and this collaboration with ARM is another important step towards bringing the complete web experience to mobile devices worldwide,” said Gary Kovacs, general manager and vice president, Mobile and Devices at Adobe. “We are pleased to work with ARM and the other industry leaders in the Open Screen Project, to make browsing and applications as rich and powerful in mobile as they are on the desktop.”

“ARM believes this partnership will develop optimized Adobe Flash and AIR implementations that will run on billions of devices from our partners such as pocket-sized mobile devices, mobile computing platforms, set-top boxes, digital TVs and automotive infotainment,” said Ian Drew, vice president, Marketing, at ARM. “The Adobe Flash Player enables consumers to enjoy games, movies, animation and interactivity on the Web. The combination of Adobe Flash and ARM’s low-power processor IP and Mali™ GPUs will ensure a fantastic Internet experience for consumers on the world’s leading 32-bit architecture.”
Broad support from industry-leading companies

“Mobile users deserve a richer, faster Web experience with extended battery life. ARM technology together with Broadcom's low power VideoCore multimedia processor will turbo charge Adobe Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR performance using OpenGL ES 2.0 and other open standards,” said Mark Casey, vice president and general manager of Broadcom's mobile multimedia business unit. “The Adobe ARM initiative is an exciting opportunity for Broadcom to enhance the consumer experience on mobile and consumer devices.”

“The ARM architecture is poised for explosive growth among mobile Internet centric devices and into the consumer Netbook market,” said Glen Burchers, director of Global Consumer Marketing for Freescale, “The addition of Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR optimized to ARM with support for HW acceleration is a significant move toward this end. Freescale intends to fully support this exciting combination.”

“NVIDIA is working with ARM and Adobe to ensure Adobe Flash technology takes full advantage of NVIDIA Tegra computer-on-a-chip solutions through open standards such as OpenGL ES 2.0,” said Michael Rayfield, general manager of NVIDIA's mobile business. “ARM CPU technology, tightly integrated with NVIDIA's ultra-low-power GeForce GPUs and media acceleration, enhances the ability of Adobe Flash technology to provide the full Web experience and compelling user interfaces in the palm of your hand.”

"ARM technology powers billions of electronic devices today, including the vast majority of smartphones, mobile Internet devices, set-top boxes, digital TVs, portable navigation and personal media devices. The agreement will enable ARM and Adobe to deliver an optimized Adobe Flash Player 10 for the ARM architecture as well as industry-standard API support for GPUs and hardware accelerators. The collaboration is also expected to lower power consumption for mobile devices running Flash Player 10 and AIR content.

Adobe Flash Player 10 for ARMv6 and ARMv7 architecture-based hardware is expected to be available royalty-free to partners participating in the Open Screen Project. Flash Player 10 for ARM processor-based devices will be made available to OEMs by Adobe."

Rgb

01-21-10, 11:08 AM

Good news for Flash-haters-

YouTube Offers Experimental Opt-In HTML5 Video

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/01/introducing-youtube-html5-supported.html

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/01/21/1441210

Whether you are a Google hater or not, this is a Good Thing nonetheless.

Notwithstanding the privacy issues Google has, they often do good things like this.

FOSS needs a big, powerful allies to counter the Adobe/Flash/MS's of the world, and Google (along with IBM, Intel and others) have helped push open web standards, open drivers and OS's.

Mac The Knife

01-21-10, 01:35 PM

djb61230

01-21-10, 04:36 PM

A quick test on ubuntu 9.10 playing the same video on YouTube revealed chrome with html5 using 8-10% CPU and firefox using flash was 25-27%.

Not surprising of course, but not an exhaustive study. :D

killsforpie

01-21-10, 08:19 PM

I tried using chromium after opting in the beta but all videos still say my browser isn't supported. Did you have to do any trickery to get the videos to work? Using Opensuse 11.2 and Chromium 4.0.303.0

tux99

01-22-10, 02:54 AM

^^^ Unfortunately, Firefox is not one of the supported browsers for the beta testing, only Safari, Chrome and IE(w/Chrome framework).

It will be interesting to see if HTML5 is less of a resource hog than Flash.

In other words, apart from Safari (which is irrelevant as it only works on Macs), it only works with Google's Chrome browser/framework.

Why am I not surprised, given that Youtube is owned by google? :rolleyes:

Therefore Google is replacing a third party proprietary solution (Adobe Flash) with their own in-house solution (which stinks worse than Adobe Flash, due to the privacy implications of chrome)... big deal...

I wouldn't consider this great news, at least not until this works with all major browsers (Firefox, Opera) without requiring Chrome frameworks or similar proprietary Google code.

zim2dive

01-22-10, 07:00 AM

In other words, apart from Safari (which is irrelevant as it only works on Macs)

You linux kids need to get out every once in a while.. it runs on PC too :)

But yes, I was disappointed to not see Firefox on the list.

Rgb

01-22-10, 07:43 AM

In other words, apart from Safari (which is irrelevant as it only works on Macs), it only works with Google's Chrome browser/framework.

Why am I not surprised, given that Youtube is owned by google? :rolleyes:

Therefore Google is replacing a third party proprietary solution (Adobe Flash) with their own in-house solution (which stinks worse than Adobe Flash, due to the privacy implications of chrome)... big deal...

I wouldn't consider this great news, at least not until this works with all major browsers (Firefox, Opera) without requiring Chrome frameworks or similar proprietary Google code.

Another way to look at it is we gain an open standard (HTML5) vs a proprietary one (Flash) plus fix the performance issue playing web video (lower CPU), for the short term tradeoff of Chrome only at the moment.

I am certain that Chromium and/or a Firefox plugin and/or FF natively will support HTML5 based video feeds like the new Youtube going forward.

Sometimes we need to pick our battles, and compromise temporarily. If we only take a purist, all-or-nothing approach (100% FOSS, completely devoid of privacy issues), we won't make any progress.

By having a BIG player like Google do HTML5, that makes EVERYONE take notice. Perhaps a competitor will soon offer their site in HTML5 WITHOUT the Chrome restriction. But SOMEBODY has to take the first step, a chicken and egg thing.

Once the HTML5, anti-Flash ball starts rolling, THEN we can fight the Chrome-only battle, and the Chrome privacy battle...

This move by Google/HTML5 should provide the big kick in the pants to Adobe to rapidly improve Flash- another win (if it happens).

zim2dive

01-22-10, 07:56 AM

I'm stepping outside my knowledge area here.. but the impression I got from the Slashdot article

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/01/21/1441210/YouTube-Offers-Experimental-Opt-In-HTML5-Video

was that Firefox was not supported b/c FF was not paying the h.264 licensing fee.... it was not that anything Google was given an advantage other than Google and Apple already paying these licenses.

So it was much less some plot to promote Chrome and more (as RGB said), replacing one closed prorietary standard with a more open one (but still not free)

At least that was how I interpreted the (many) comments at Slashdot.

Rgb

01-22-10, 08:24 AM

Like I said, the ball is rolling...

http://vimeo.com/blog:268

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/01/22/021257/Vimeo-Also-Introduces-HTML5-Video-Player

Good posts:

"Google recently acquired On2, makers of the Ogg Theora (aka VP-3) codec which was released into the public domain and then taken over by xiph.org.

On2 have codecs VP-7 and VP-8 which have equivalent (if not better) quality than h.264.

It would not be surprising if Google made those codecs available, since they aren't patent-encumbered, and Google is heavily invested in HTML5 --and likes open standards.

This would be the ideal outcome. h.264 is a really bad option."

"Google has no incentive to go theora either, as it means transcoding all their stuff - and they clearly already have a h.264 license anyway.

The authoring tools for .ogg are not there either.

So really, open source people can whine all they want, it will make no difference - Firefox can buy a license, or they can become irrelevant. Or maybe start their own video hosting to compete, but my bet is that will be more expensive than a h.264 license.

Or hell, they can just use whatever codecs are available on the host platform.... and get back to what they should be worried about - writing a web browser, rather than getting involved in a codec war they have no chance winning"

"This will of course benefit ChromeOS and will force Microsoft into implementing html5 and H264 negating its strategy of killing adobe and becoming king of the online video."

Rgb

01-22-10, 08:30 AM

Basically, our choices moving forward re: web video standards/openness of the web are: Adobe/Flash, Microsoft/Silverlight, or HTML5/(Google Chrome for the short term).

Which do you choose?

Anyone can see that FF plugins/Addons will soon be available to cover the short term compatibiltiy issues with the current HTML5/h264 implementation, and in the longer run, it will open up even more, or Theora can supplant h264.

I'm certain that FF Addons/plugins will allow mplayer/vlc/xine/$WHATEVER_MEDIA_PLAYER_BACKEND to handle the HTML5 video streams, not requiring any proprietary codecs for normal end users at home. The current vlc/mplayers that handle x264 mkv's should do the job. Just need a FF Addon to hook it up to the HTML5 calls.

The BIG DEAL here is getting to HTML5, any way possible in the short term.

I support Google and this move simply to quash Flash and Silverlight on the web (at least for the bulk of web video feeds- Flash can stick around for Flash games ;) ).

I'll beat up Google for privacy issues and making it FF compatible right after we kill Flash and Silverlight :D

tux99

01-22-10, 08:40 AM

djb61230

01-22-10, 11:39 AM

Mac The Knife

01-24-10, 04:51 PM

Yeah I read about the codecs issue too.
What I don't understand is why this is such a big issue, surely all that mozilla/firefox needs to do is pass the stream on to a plugin like mplayer or similar.

That way Firefox doesn't have to pay any licenses and mplayer is not based in a jurisdiction where US patents apply anyway (and can handle almost every codec available).

Also I wonder how DRM is handled? Surely they haven't approved a standard without an option to use DRM on the video stream?

Unfortunately, according to Mozilla's vice president of engineering, Mike Shaver's blog (http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/), there's even a fee for "distributing" H264 content. :(

He doesn't answer the DRM question, but the distribution fees make it a moot point from Mozilla's point of view.

zim2dive

01-25-10, 01:06 PM

I'm not sure there's anything on YouTube that I want to watch.. but for those that do, MiniTube was just updated... YouTube without the miserable Flash browser plugin (still Flash tho??)

http://flavio.tordini.org/minitube

Tijs_Verwest

01-27-10, 12:12 PM

tux99

01-27-10, 02:51 PM

Flash on linux on linux is sh*t :rolleyes: , firefox stops working when i enter sites with a lot of flash banners ( not porn sites btw xD) and i CANT use the facebook chat because my computer explodes :mad: and its not my pc's fault, i got 2 gb of ddr2, geforce 9300 and e5300 2.6 ghz

Use Adblock Plus, I find that doubles the loading speed of most web sites, especially those full of flash ads. Also Opera seems to be better at displaying flashy web pages more efficiently.

Tijs_Verwest

01-28-10, 12:07 PM

Use Adblock Plus, I find that doubles the loading speed of most web sites, especially those full of flash ads. Also Opera seems to be better at displaying flashy web pages more efficiently.

but i want to read those ads xD , they interest me, they're not ads of american visas , porn or poker xD

Rgb

02-06-10, 08:48 PM

Good comments/discussion in the Adobe blog-

http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/02/open_access_to_content_and_app.html#comment-2137153

Of note recently (on OSX performance, hopefully they are working on the same for Linux):

"Now regarding performance, given identical hardware, Flash Player on Windows has historically been faster than the Mac, and it is for the most part the same code running in Flash for each operating system. We have and continue to invest significant effort to make Mac OS optimizations to close this gap, and Apple has been helpful in working with us on this. Vector graphics rendering in Flash Player 10 now runs almost exactly the same in terms of CPU usage across Mac and Windows, which is due to this work. In Flash Player 10.1 we are moving to CoreAnimation, which will further reduce CPU usage and we believe will get us to the point where Mac will be faster than Windows for graphics rendering.

Video rendering is an area we are focusing more attention on -- for example, today a 480p video on a 1.8 Ghz Mac Mini in Safari uses about 34% of CPU on Mac versus 16% on Windows (running in BootCamp on same hardware). With Flash Player 10.1, we are optimizing video rendering further on the Mac and expect to reduce CPU usage by half, bringing Mac and Windows closer to parity for video."

tux99

02-09-10, 09:35 PM

http://blogs.adobe.com/emmy/archives/2010/02/flash_bug_repor.html

Adobe is apologizing for flash crashing the whole browser... :rolleyes:

After experiencing more than 10 years of flash induced crashes of Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/Seamonkey I find that quite funny...

Alledgedly this particular bug causing a browser crash is solved with 10.1 beta, is 10.1 beta available for Linux?

Edit: nver mind I found it:
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

zim2dive

02-11-10, 01:49 PM

Heh, Apple's stubborness on Flash may be the tipping point... (non-Flash Hulu rumor)

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/10/hulu_to_make_videos_available_on_ipad_without_flash_rumor.ht ml

Rgb

02-14-10, 09:29 AM

In addition to the nbcolympics Silverlight lockin, here is another example of MS trying to use Silverlight as a Windows lock-in tool-

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/Home.aspx

Examples like the NBC olympics on the web, Netflix streaming, and webapps like worldwidetelescope clearly demonstrate how MS+Apple are together trying hard to make Windows and OSX the only "authorized" methods to use the web.

Given the cash and power of MS+Apple, the only way to defeat them and ensure more open web standards are powerful players like Google.

Mac The Knife

02-14-10, 04:20 PM

FYI,

A couple of days ago, I installed the Novell Moonlight 2.99.0.2 beta add-on in Mozilla (3.5.7) which is supposed to work on the Olympics material.

I tested it on the NBC website and I was able to watch Belbin and Augustino's performance at the US Nationals, but I haven't gotten around to trying it on any Olympics material. BTW, it did download some additional codecs to play the Belbin clip.

I'm not that interested in the Olympics, so I'm not sure when (or if) I'll get around to trying it out on the stuff it was actually released to support.

Rgb

02-15-10, 03:44 PM

FYI,

A couple of days ago, I installed the Novell Moonlight 2.99.0.2 beta add-on in Mozilla (3.5.7) which is supposed to work on the Olympics material.

.

My opinion on Moonlight is that it's Wrong in principle and practice. Using it is a vote against open web standards.

tux99

02-15-10, 04:09 PM

My opinion on Moonlight is that it's Wrong in principle and practice. Using it is a vote against open web standards.

Moonlight is FOSS (unlike Flash) and the standards it's based on are less closed than Adobe Flash standards.
If you are against Moonlight, then you should certainly not use Adobe Flash either.

Mac The Knife

02-15-10, 04:31 PM

My opinion on Moonlight is that it's Wrong in principle and practice. Using it is a vote against open web standards.

The intent of my post was just to point out the Moonlight does appear to be working for those of us who aren't willing to wait decades until the patents expire.

After all, until Theora gets tested in court, there's no such thing as an "unencumbered" open standard video codec. And if Theora were to lose, then it'll be decades until the patents expire and make a truly unencumbered video codec possible.

Rgb

02-15-10, 07:46 PM

The intent of my post was just to point out the Moonlight does appear to be working for those of us who aren't willing to wait decades until the patents expire.

After all, until Theora gets tested in court, there's no such thing as an "unencumbered" open standard video codec. And if Theora were to lose, then it'll be decades until the patents expire and make a truly unencumbered video codec possible.

True re: the video codec issue, but the use of a virtual-machine-like plugin for media streaming (Flash/Silverlight/Moonlight) vs an HTML5 video tag is another.

Rgb

02-15-10, 07:47 PM

172 votes...

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1692

Rgb

02-15-10, 07:50 PM

Heh, Apple's stubborness on Flash may be the tipping point... (non-Flash Hulu rumor)

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/10/hulu_to_make_videos_available_on_ipad_without_flash_rumor.ht ml

WOW- Something Good coming out of Apple (i.e. pushing HTML5 and knocking Flash). ;)

...kinda makes up for their DRM, iTunes lockin, closed platforms, overpriced hardware...NOT! :D

indubitable

02-16-10, 06:35 PM

tux99

02-17-10, 05:46 AM

I just read that article, thanks for the link, IMHO it's complete BS, he's just trying to justify flawed/inefficient code. Other media players do more than just display the stream too with a much lower cpu load, just look at all the elaborate overlays XBMC has to change video and sound settings during playback, not to mention subtitles and simpler OSDs like mplayer, xine and most other video players have.

If he's the main or only Linux Flash developer and that's the way he thinks, then we can forget about any major improvements regarding video playback in Flash on Linux.

waterhead

02-17-10, 07:10 AM

I read that too, and all of the comments.

He sounds like a typical engineer, unable to relate things in laymen's terms. He seems to see only problems, and no solutions. Even when solutions are suggested by other (seemingly) knowledgeable people, he resorts to a stock reply:
"The Flash Player solves a different problem than your favorite video player."
It seems to me that this is a problem that Flash created! Also, his statement that since IE is used by 59% of internet users, the remaining 41% is a minority and can be ignored.

How many businesses are willing to alienate 41% of their customers?!! If the sites that use flash are made aware of this, they may WANT to stop using flash. 41% may be a minority, but it still represents a large amount of profits for a business.

The bottom line that I got from this:

Flash is flawed, fixing it would most likely mean a complete rewrite if it. This would make it incompatible with exiting flash web sites, and they would have to be rewritten. Adobe is not willing to do this, or assign the resources needed to fix it.

I now avoid sites that rely on flash. They have already lost my business. Even on this site, the flash ads are blocked by my browser. There is no profit to be gained if no one can see it!

mythmaster

02-17-10, 07:25 AM

I've been tolerant up to this point, but I'm just about ready to boycott all things Flash, especially if Adobe's developers are going to be whiny, excuse-making bitches that don't know their ass from a hole in the ground like this jerk.

I'll give them all of this year to get their act together, but then I'm launching an international boycotting campaign if they keep up this neglectful attitude.

Rgb

02-17-10, 07:36 AM

I read that too, and all of the comments.

He sounds like a typical engineer, unable to relate things in laymen's terms. He seems to see only problems, and no solutions. Even when solutions are suggested by other (seemingly) knowledgeable people, he resorts to a stock reply:

!

Agreed in general- the Linux Flash developer is whiny with excuses for all the flaws.

He is *not* a typical engineer. Good engineers want/like to solve problems for users.

He came across to me as a typical computer science elitist, NOT a software *engineer*.

His "solving a different problem" excuse is absolutely laughable.

If the entire PLANET is complaining about the performance of your code, then YOU AREN'T SOLVING THE RIGHT PROBLEM, plain and simple.

Adobe NEEDS to replace him- put him in a deep dark research lab somewhere, and get someone WHO WANTS TO SOLVE USER PROBLEMS, not some abstract-model computer science project.

Rgb

02-17-10, 07:45 AM

Saw this today via Slashdot, Adobe's (only?) Linux developer wrote a very testy article about why Flash can't use hardware acceleration under Linux:

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html

What slashdot story are you referring to?

I found this, another good discussion with good points made how HTML5/CSS/AJAX/Javascript can basically do everything Flash does:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/16/2051217/Next-Flash-Version-Will-Support-Private-Browsing

"Does HTML5 provides for the same level of rich client platform development as Flash/Flex? With numerous widgets just like in Motif/MFC, just easier to use? (MXML just shines in GUI development, far beyond of what Motif/MFC/AWT/Swing offer).

Sure. HTML combined with CSS and Javascript / AJAX will do 80-90% of what Flash is used for.

Does HTML5 allows you to play video with some advertisement in a running text over it?

Sure. Just use a CSS layer.

Does HTML5 protects your video site from hotlinking? I.E. can you make sure that nobody can embed your videos into their pages and make sales while you pay for the bandwidth?

This is a HTTP issue and server side security issue. It is trivial to grep a Flash file for the raw SWF download location most times.

Sorry, HTML5 'video', 'audio' tags and other dings and wistles... you have your place (probably on YouTube), but you ain't gonna replace Flash anytime soon. Especially not on commercial sites (like pr0n tubes), not for RCP development either. World needs a full-blown rich client platform for the browsers and so far Adobe has been the only one who were able to provide a cross-platform, browser-independent solution. And they did it quite well, despite of some quirks. Sun with JavaFX has failed... would you like MS to take over with their Windows-only Silverlight technology?

Hardcore Flash games I can see and some super heavy duty flash "applications", but so often this can be done in HTML with CSS / AJAX. The designers are normally just clueless and have no wish to learn code or how stuff works after taking their 1-week Adobe course and getting accreditation as a "web developer".
<END QUOTE>

Highlights security/privacy issues with Flash- Flash cookies just bit me a week ago.

Rgb

02-17-10, 07:55 AM

This post sums it up succintcly:

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html

" Posted by: Andreas Rønning | January 29, 2010 3:00 PM

Mike,

you're being US-centric in calling Firefox et al. "minority browsers". There's a world outside the USA, and that's where MSIE is the minority browser:

http://www.webmasterpro.de/portal/webanalyse-aktuell.html

Also, the German Federal Agency for IT security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) actively warns against the use of Internet Explorer.

https://www.bsi.bund.de/cln_174/ContentBSI/presse/Pressemitteilungen/Sicherheitsluecke_IE_150110.html

My conclusion from all this: Including video playback in Flash was a stupid idea right from the start. It filled a hole for a while, but YouTube, DailyMotion, Apple etc. pushing for HTML5 video are making it very clear that the end for Flash as the primary video playback technology on the web is right around the corner. What's left then? A few browser-based games. And those will be moving to SVG and Canvas.

As others stated before, you're trying to solve a very special problem with Flash, but it's one that nobody really has."
</END QUOTE>

The hubris and disconnect from reality demonstrated by the "minority browsers" comment explains perfectly the state of affairs with Flash and Adobe. This has been an "Ah ha" moment for me- it is now absolutely clear the level of incompetence and lack of customer focus at Adobe. The blog posts leave no doubt.

Doing software engineering at a Fortune 50 company for over 10 years, my management would have re-assigned such a HUGE, important, high profile, public facing project on the scale of Flash to another developer or team, given the responses and attitudes displayed in that Adobe blog.

My conclusion is that Adobe management sees no real future in Flash given HTML5/CSS/AJAX/Javascript going forward and simply allowing primmadonna CS types to fool around with it until it dies.

There is no other rational explanation given the published Firefox/Chrome/$ANYTHING_NOT_IE and Linux/OSX/$ANYTHING_NOT_WINDOWS growth rates.

indubitable

02-17-10, 08:39 AM

What slashdot story are you referring to?

Sorry about that, here's the article on Slashdot (http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/02/16/1548213/64-Bit-Flash-Player-For-Linux-Finally-In-Alpha). I didn't post it because it looked like a duplicate of some very old news, but the discussion in the comments section is probably worthwhile.

He sounds like a typical engineer, unable to relate things in laymen's terms... [anti-engineer rant]

Hey, now. I'm an aeronautical engineer and none of my colleagues are pricks like this guy. One of our programmers on the other hand? Not so much...

Rgb

02-17-10, 09:17 AM

Hey, now. I'm an aeronautical engineer and none of my colleagues are pricks like this guy. One of our programmers on the other hand? Not so much...

Agreed.

I will say again- *good* engineers WANT to solve user's problems, any way they can, circumventing any perceived limitations, the very definition of "hacker":

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/subsection1_2_1_0_3.html#SECTION0210300000000000000

...(the) true essence of the hacker as ``Any person who derives joy from discovering ways to circumvent limitations.''

(written by John Walker, the guy who wrote AutoCad in the early 80's, then sold to Autodesk. Walker is an example of a *good* software engineer)

The clown handling Linux Flash on the Adobe blog is either a BAD engineer, or "typical" computer science type, and definately NOT a hacker (the good kind).

tux99

02-17-10, 09:30 AM

or "typical" computer science type, and definately NOT a hacker (the good kind).

This is unwarranted prejudice, FYI Linus Torwalds is a computer science graduate, as are many/most other good programmers.

IMHO this Adobe guy is simply trying to find excuses for his lack of skills or lack of motivation to solve the issues he is facing.

No need to bad-mouth a whole category just because of one bad apple (pun intended :D ).

Rgb

02-17-10, 09:37 AM

This is unwarranted prejudice, FYI Linus Torwalds is a computer science graduate, as are many/most other good programmers.

Of course there are "good" CS types, too- the Adobe Linux Flash guy just isn't one of them ;)

Perhaps the Adobe Linux Flash guy needs to get a job doing coding for lower level, technical stuff like kernels and such.

But for software that normal, everyday people interact with on a daily basis, you NEED a people oriented problem solver who WANTS to engineer good software AND circumvent perceived limitations.

The current Adobe Linux Flash developer does not meet these criteria.

Yes, we WANT and I admire the Torvalds of the world. Just recognize there is a HUGE difference between writing kernel code and software that interacts with users on a daily basis.

mythmaster

02-17-10, 09:50 AM

I apologize for my language earlier (I'm a bit "buzzy" :p), but I have to say that despite my disdain for that idiot, I'm still on the fence about Adobe. The main reasons being (a) Actionscript / Flex is an *incredibly robust* language when it comes to developing web apps (I would even compare it to Java) -- Hulu is a fine example and the studio app in Livestream is an even better one, and (b) the fact that video accel is working in Windows means that it's possible for it to work in Linux, too.

Also, I don't see Flash dying anytime soon. A few years back we were hoping that SVG would at least displace it a little, but that didn't happen, and it doesn't look like HTML5 is going to make much of a dent, either. Just my opinion.

I think that if we give Adobe some time (and maybe some pressure) then they'll implement VA-API. Granted, this won't solve all of the underlying CPU-hogging issues, but it will be a huge improvement, and we really can't expect them to redesign the whole thing from the ground up.

Rgb

02-17-10, 10:26 AM

I apologize for my language earlier (I'm a bit "buzzy" :p), but I have to say that despite my disdain for that idiot, I'm still on the fence about Adobe.

No apology necessary. Your frustration and anger are well justified. ;)

You shouldn't defend Adobe (or any single-company-centric) web tech like Actionscript any longer. We all need to promote and support standards like HTML5/CSS/AJAX/Javascript and good software engineers who know how to write with these.

mythmaster

02-17-10, 11:55 AM

You shouldn't defend Adobe (or any single-company-centric) web tech like Actionscript any longer. We all need to promote and support standards like HTML5/CSS/AJAX/Javascript and good software engineers who know how to write with these.

I'll argue that Flex is open source, though. Granted, it needs the proprietary binary to run in, but so does Java. The Nvidia video driver comes to mind when speaking of proprietary binaries, also.

I couldn't agree more with you about the need to promote open source standards, but I can't shut out proprietary binaries, either. I'm more of a realist than an idealist when it comes to where that line should be drawn. We owe much to the commercial community, and I give respect where it is due.

Nor will I get all "Orwellian" about a single company having all of the "grab". We have to remember that we're being provided with a *free product* that is being funded by corporate profits. True, it's a marketing investment on their part, but we have the final say as consumers, and they know that. We always have the option of putting our collective foot down.

While I would prefer that everything be transparent and open source, I just can't see how that's possible. Where would we be without VDPAU today? Flash will do the same thing, we just need some patience. Even the Windows binary is still in Beta, so I'm at least going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

tux99

02-17-10, 12:00 PM

I'll argue that Flex is open source, though. Granted, it needs the proprietary binary to run in, but so does Java.

Ahem, Java is completely open source these days! ;)

mythmaster

02-17-10, 12:12 PM

Ahem, Java is completely open source these days! ;)

Yeah, I realized that after I posted it! :o That doesn't change my point, though. :)

waterhead

02-17-10, 01:21 PM

Agreed in general- the Linux Flash developer is whiny with excuses for all the flaws.

He is *not* a typical engineer. Good engineers want/like to solve problems for users.
Sorry, that comment by me was uncalled for. :(

I have mostly worked with mechanical engineers. Some of them are very upset when I fixed their non-functioning designs with a piece of 2x4 lumber. :) One even sarcastically wanted to draw up a blueprint of the 2x4. Others are more pleasant and eager for input. But I digress.

Mac The Knife

02-17-10, 04:59 PM

/rant on

This brings up the whole issue of WHY THE HELL ARE WE DOING ENCODINGS IN YUV?!!

YUV was a (bad) hack to begin with in order to get color information to fit in a 6MHz TV channel and have backward-compatibility with BW TVs.

Why the hell are we still supporting this kludge when almost every display device being manufactured is RGB and the old NTSC BW TV standard is dead?

Yeah, it might take some more horsepower to encode in RGB instead of YUV and still get the same compression rates were getting today. But the encoding is a one-time event and (usually) doesn't need to happen in real-time. Instead we're taking the penalty on playback which absolutely must happen in real-time potentially millions of times.

(BTW, In this day and age if you're manufacturing a product with a lame-ass BW display like the Kindle then you're the one who should have to convert from RGB to YUV to get the luminence info instead of dragging all the rest of us into the YUV quarmire.)
/rant off

Whew, I feel much better now.

Rgb

02-17-10, 08:37 PM

Someone tried to convert me to YUV once. It was unpleasant.

;)

k_ross

02-17-10, 08:42 PM

I believe the main reason for converting video to YUV before encoding is for better compression, not to be compatible with any broadcast method. Once the image is converted to YUV, you can subsample the chroma information with ratios like 4:2:2 and 4:2:0, which gives an immediate reduction in bandwidth requirement without reducing image quality too much. Also, by seperating the luma from the chroma, the compressor can then make decisions to throw away more information in the chroma channels than the luma channel, since we better perceive changes in luma than chroma.

JPEG does the same color space conversion, and JPEG has absolutely nothing to do with broadcast standards. JPEG has the option of not converting to YUV, but to leave the image in RGB. Doing so results in less compression.

Mac The Knife

02-18-10, 04:45 PM

^^^
Yeah, that's basically what I was saying. We'd take a hit on the encoding side, but that's better than taking the hit on the decoding side.

The worse hit would be real-time transcoding which would have to convert to YUV then transcode and then convert back to RGB again. I still think this would be better than forcing every display device to convert YUV to RGB for the display.

BTW, every image capture device that I know of is natively RGB (they all either use R, G and B filters or a prism to separate the light, so the raw data from the sensors is RGB), so there's already a conversion from RGB to YUV before jpeg compression.

I think the use of YUV in jpeg was mostly inertia. YUV was already so ingrained in the image processing tools that no one was willing to try swimming upstream.

[ed: And don't get me started on 4:2:2 and 4:2:0. That's a whole nother rant. ;). I'd really love to see them go away because there are so many display devices that screw up the decoding and cause color separation artifacts. But that's really a fault of the implementations not the system in genreal and I don't have any ideas for how to get the compression ratios we're getting without them.]

k_ross

02-19-10, 01:59 PM

Yeah, it might take some more horsepower to encode in RGB instead of YUV and still get the same compression rates were getting today.

I was under the impression that you can't achieve the same compression ratio with RGB that you can with YUV, regardless of how much CPU horsepower you throw at it. Am I wrong?

Mac The Knife

02-19-10, 04:38 PM

^^^

Well, all these methods are lossy, so you can always get down to the same compression ratios. Then it's a matter of what got lost and how it subjectively impacts the image. ;)

I guess you'd probably have to take a hit on the shadow detail and get a little slight improvement in the red and green in order to do I proposed.

Maybe it's very difficult to do the decompression in RGB space for all these algorithms. That might be the issue I've been overlooking. So that taking the hit for converting YUV to RGB at the end is less than the hit from trying to do the decompression in RGB.

Rgb

05-08-10, 01:06 PM

Maybe it's very difficult to do the decompression in RGB space for all these algorithms. That might be the issue I've been overlooking. So that taking the hit for converting YUV to RGB at the end is less than the hit from trying to do the decompression in RGB.

I'd rather decompress at my vacation home ;)

But seriously, I'm sure everyone's aware of all the HTML5/h264/Flash activity and talk all over the net- Apple's Job's bashing of Flash and banning from the iPad, Adobe's weak response, Scribd's dumping of Flash, the iPad's influence in making a LOT of websites accomodate non-FLash devices, Canonical licensing h264 for commercial Ubuntu buyers, etc.

In general, a MASSIVE anti-FLash backlash is under way...

...the tide appears to be turning.

tux99

05-08-10, 01:25 PM

With the patent/licensing issues that h264 has it's not ideal either...

Software patents need to be abolished in the US (everywhere else in the world they don't exist).

Rgb

05-08-10, 01:37 PM

With the patent/licensing issues that h264 has it's not ideal either...

Software patents need to be abolished in the US (everywhere else in the world they don't exist).

Agreed re: software (and business method) patents (doesn't every Linux/FOSS user advocate this? ;) )

see

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/05/07/1948235/Law-Professors-Developing-Patent-License-For-FOSS?art_pos=14

also, software is provably (from logic alone) not patentable-

http://abstractionphysics.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

Without reading the fancy, schmancy PhD and legalise jargon, any 1st year engineering/CS student could tell you off the bat- EVERY piece of software EVER created and that EVER WILL be created is simply a number- if you take all the code and files for ANY program, they can ALL be written out as a single string of 1's and 0's (Or hexadecimal alphanumeric characters)- i.e. EVERY program is simply ONE LARGE NUMBER!

A number has NEVER been patentable.

re: h264 patents/licensing-

Not an issue for us DIY'ers- we just use offshore (non software patent countries) FOSS alternative repos's/codec packs/x264 and related projects.

Per this /. discussion-

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/05/06/1955259/Canonical-Explains-Decision-to-License-H264-For-Ubuntu?art_pos=1

It's a great move for the Linux community, even if some "pure" free and open source people disagree. You cant get everything at once and expect casual people to put up with "it's proprietary so we dont support it" if they want to do something, or demand them to add some Russian repositories in the apt-get config file so they can get unlicensed, pirated versions of those and break the law. No, they will just get something that works for them. And H.264 has already clearly won this round, so anyone catering for casual people has to support it.

Like TFA notes, Canonical has also previously licensed well done closed source software for Ubuntu. You aren't losing your soul if you take the best from the both worlds. In fact you are still promoting open source software, and probably way more efficiently when people actually like the system and can use it the way they want to. I honestly dont think every software in the world should be open source, but the underlying system should be. But even if you want software and standards to be open too, after getting the open OS out there the next step is to create competitive, better alternatives for the software and standards.

Be focused on one thing, dont try to fight the whole world at once.

-sopssa

and

The pragmatist (Score:5, Insightful)
by westlake (615356) writes: on Thursday May 06, @05:47PM (#32117844)

H.264 licensors include fifteen of the biggest names in global manufacturing and tech.

Mitsubishi. NTT. Philips. Samsung. Toshiba....

The 817 licensees include hundreds of other names the geek should recognize.

H.264 support is in the cell phones they make.

Web cams. Camcorders. Video game consoles. Mobile Internet devices and PCs of every description. Industrial and security video. Broadcast, cable and satellite technologies.

Theatrical production and home video. The set-top box. The Internet enabled HDTV.

Mozilla's Firefox can ignore H.264 in the browser.

But Mozilla can't keep Amazon.com from stocking 3,500 flavors of the H.264 HD camcorder, priced from $125-$5,000.

It can't get shelf space for the non-existent Theora or VP8 product in WalMart.

There are some things a commercially viable OEM Linux PC must deliver at retail. H.264 support is one of them. It needs to be in hardware. it needs to competitive - and it needs to be there today.

Bottom line- Canonical is doing this for the benefit of OEM's (Dell preinstalls, other PC/netbook/smartbook vendors) that want to use Ubuntu.

Us DIY'ers don't need the "licensed" h264 codecs included any more than we need Flash included in the free (beer) Ubuntu .iso's (just go to Adobe.com and download and double click the freakin' .deb, just like the .exe installer for Windows),

or DVD/MPEG2 and MP3 players/codecs (just install from Medibuntu and VideoLan from their PPA, per the Ubuntu 9.04 HTPC HOWTO).

or Java (search "java" in Synaptic and click to install).