on2 CEO專訪

FlashMagazine上週專訪了 On2 公司的CEO。On2 的 Vp6已確定將成為 Flash Player 8的內建video codec, 照白皮書上的規格來它，它比 H.264好一點(不論是 encode or decode)

文章中有趣的精華擷錄：

The first thing is the Flash platform. It is miles ahead of Java, Real or Windows Media in PC penetration at 98% worldwide. Even with the old H.263 codec in Flash 7, the video is being used by Amazon, ESPN, CBS, The Washington Post and a host of other major content sites. It has also replaced Java as the player of choice for online video advertising, and has close to 100% share there.
(flash video在線上廣告的採用率將近達到100%，這也挺正常的，畢竟大部份banner本來就是用flash製作，要再加入同性質的 flash video是天經地義的事)

In addition, it is a much better experience for the end user. People using broadband now are no longer early adopters. We have a lot of people on line who just want the Internet to work without having to acquire a lot of technical knowledge to use it. Flash video is easy to use. Other formats require much more messing around by the end user.
(這句真是說的好，streaming格式百百種，最大玩家大約是 windows media, quicktime, real video，但不論是那一種，都要不同程度的下載、安裝、調校，尤其是windows media, 光是找到正確的codec往往就搞死人，而flash video只有一種格式，player則是早就內建，即使真的不幸沒有，也只要約20秒的時間下載安裝，對end user來說實在是不可能再簡單了。)

記者最後偷塞一題問他adobe的併購對flash video是否會有何影響？

I can only speculate that Flash and video are part of the reason Adobe did this deal. If Adobe wants to compete with Microsoft across a broad spectrum of software, they have to have these ubiquitous tools, and now they have them

這個答案跟一般的觀察結果也頗相似，大部份人都為adobe買到macromedia後，應該會在video這塊有大動作整合，畢竟adobe手上有太多中低階的audio/video生產製作工具，既然高階市場沒得玩，自然要辦法另覓出路，而flash + video + production tools 聽起來就是很有錢途的組合。

另外許多list上都在問為何flash player 8不採用最新的 vp7 (而用vp6)，根據macromedia的官方答覆是，vp7雖然規格好很多，但要付出的成本也高許多，主要的成本來自於對硬體的需求，macromedia希望一般的電腦都要能順暢的播放flash video，但如果用了 vp7這種cpu大怪物，這個目標就無法達成了，因此…