Adobe Media Player

Adobe Media Player

File:AdobeMediaPlayer.png Adobe Media Player 1.0 on Mac OS X
Developer(s)	Adobe Systems
Stable release	1.6 / January 30, 2009 (2009-01-30)
Operating system	Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Adobe AIR
Type	Media player, Internet TV, Media Aggregator
License	Proprietary
Website	Adobe Media Player

Adobe Media Player is a desktop media player provided by Adobe primarily for the purpose of advertising partner content. It offers users to manage and interact with their media content, and allows content publishers to define branding and advertising in and around their content. The Adobe Media Player will be one of the first Adobe AIR applications from Adobe Systems. It was announced at NAB show in Las Vegas and was released in April 2008.

The software uses DRM and enforces advert viewing, when watching videos both online and offline.

Features

Adobe Media Player allows viewers to stream, download, manage, and play rich media content. Users can queue up and download favorite content for Internet TV shows and video podcasts, and manage a personal video library. For consumers, Adobe Media Player features:

• FLV on Desktop - Stream, download, manage, and play rich media content in the FLV format
• Favorite Shows - Automatically download episodes of Internet TV shows and video podcasts
• What's New - Organize and play a list of episodes from Internet TV shows and video podcasts
• Library - Gather and manage collections of Flash videos
• Tags & Ratings - Add keywords and ratings to Flash videos
• Smart Playlists - Filter Library and Favorites based on tags and ratings
• Catalog - Find Internet TV shows and video podcasts

Adobe Media Player is also designed for media content publishers to distribute, track and monetise their media contents. It features:

• Branding - Deliver backgrounds and badges that are displayed dynamically around the distributed contents
• Advertising - Deliver banners, in-rolls, and bugs that are displayed dynamically in and around the distributed contents
• Usage Statistics - Anonymously tracks and asychronously reports content usage
• Content Protection - Ensure that advertisements cannot be replaced or removed, and that content cannot be reused or remixed
• Media RSS - Increases viewership by delivering new content on an automatic and periodic basis via RSS technology

Criticisms

• Unless you have a modern computer the start-up time can take as long as 10 seconds.
• The video window is only a small part of the interface. The rest of the space is taken up by advertisements for partner content. However, full screen video can be selected.
• No option to open a local file. However, local files will open in Adobe Media Player if it is associated with their type.
• Process continues to run, even after it is closed by the user, sometimes failing to close opened media files.
• It sometimes remains offline, even with the end user is connected to the internet.
• Shows are not available in any other country than the USA (The message stating this is shown -after- the advertisements).

External links

• Adobe Media Player
• Adobe Press Release: "Adobe Unveils Next Generation Internet Video Solution". April 16, 2007. Retrieved April 20, 2007.