Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 update now available

Sorenson Squeeze is a very nice, multi-format encoding tool. This almost-entirely-Flash-focused update…

* Adds alpha channel support for the On2 VP6 codec
* Adds On2 VP6 Pro plug-in support for Macintosh
* Allows you to create embedded cue points for Flash
* Improves Flash Player skin templates for SWF and FLV
* Lets you create linked or embedded FLV for SWF files
* Lets you to enter global metadata on source files for Flash output
* Includes a Sorenson FLV player

Additionally — and this is useful for any output format — it provides pixel aspect ratio control for your soure.

Sadly, two-pass VBR Flash encoding is still a $199 option…crazy! Also, the application “skin” still resembles a late-90s shareware MP3 player.

The 4.3 update is free to users of any edition of Sorenson Squeeze, 4.0 or later.

* [Sorenson Media][Sorenson Media]

[Sorenson Media]: http://www.sorensonmedia.com/ “Get the Squeeze 4.3 update”

Flash for Palm OS

Today, Macromedia demonstrated Flash Player on one of the new Sony Cliés at DevCon 2002. According to the presenter, “Flash Player is built into the device”. This is very significant news for digital media content developers since it suggests that Flash will be the de-facto standard for rich-media on PDAs, and for Palm since Flash playback was previously limited to WinCE devices.

Flash 6 already more ubiquitous than Windows Media, RealSystem?

Macromedia has just published the results of a September 2002 study on Flash penetration. That study was conducted by NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix.

According to the study, nearly 98% of web users can see Flash content without having to download and install a player. More importantly, Flash 6 penetration was nearly 60% when this study was done. At the time, Flash Player 6 had only been out for about six months. 0-to-60 in six months. Wow.

This means that the installed base of video-/audio-capable Flash players is greater than Windows Media, greater than RealSystem, and greater than QuickTime. Wow.

Now if they could only get the video and audio to sync.