Adobe gave its new free desktop media player one heck of an introduction on Monday at the National Association of Broadcasters show, with live demos at its booth and at its event on Monday night, which also showcased its updated Creative Suite products.
The player only works with Flash video files, but that's not a debilitating limitation given that standard's ubiquity in online video (though Microsoft would like to change that with its new Silverlight plug-in). Moreover, the player lets you easily download, store and playback Flash videos locally--not just stream them--and integrates a number of cool features that make it worth a look. The public beta will be out this summer, with a 1.0 release scheduled for fall, according to Mark Randall, Adobe's Chief Strategist for Dynamic Media.
The starter page of the media player (shown below) presents users with a number of options. On the left, you'll see new content that's become available since you last checked in--that content could be from an RSS feed you subscribe to and that downloaded in the background, or new videos that you've manually downloaded recently, for example.
(For a larger version of this screenshot, click here.)
On top of the main area, you can see selections from your local catalog, organized (for the moment since the player's UI is still a work in progress) either by genre, most recent, or channel. To the left of the viewing screen, you can also see friends' recommendations, and top-rated videos from services you subscribe to.
When you're playing a clip, the skin can change to reflect the content--so you'd get a Daily Show-themed skin if you're watching a video from that Comedy Central program, for instance. You do, of course, have the option not to allow the skin to change according to what you're viewing. And as with any other media player, you can get rid of all the catalog and recent videos sections if you just want to maximize the video you're watching.
One mixed blessing: The player lets content owners and service providers embed advertising and shopping tie-ins into the video file. So you could see an overlay ad--either a static image or a small video clip--on the bottom corner of the screen as you're watching the main attraction, even when you're offline.
And the player makes it very easy for sites to let you buy merchandize featured in the video you watch: You might see an icon of the potential purchase in the corner, say the CD of the artist whose music video you're watching, or a jacket a performer is wearing; if you want to buy it, you'd click the image, the main video would pause and you'd be taken to a shopping screen. This feature works whether you're online or off, though the specifics of the shopping engine--whether you'd then have to go online to complete the purchase or whether it would remember the order until you next log in, for example--will depend on individual sites.
The initial release will be for Macs and Windows PCs only, though Adobe's Randall expects that in the future the player could go onto mobile devices as well.
Adobe also announced shipment of its Creative Suite 3 in the Design Premium and Standard Editions as well as the Web Premium and Standard Editions, plus the public beta release of Premiere Pro (which will be available for Macs for the first time in years) and After Effects. Also check out our reviews of the previously released beta of Photoshop CS3 and Dreamweaver CS3.
