Adobe Releases Flash Player 10.2

[admin]

Adobe Releases Flash Player 10.2
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Posted by: Kenan

Adobe has announced the release of Flash Player 10.2 for Mac, Windows and Linux. According to the company, this version of the software brings support for Adobe's new Stage Video technology, which leverages full hardware acceleration for smoother playback with significantly lower CPU consumption.

Stage Video lets websites take advantage of full hardware acceleration of the entire video pipeline. This builds on the H.264 hardware accelerated decoding in Flash Player 10.1. Stage Video hardware acceleration means that Flash Player can play even higher quality video while using dramatically less processing power, giving users a better experience, greater performance, and longer battery life. In our testing across supported systems, we've found it's up to 34 times more efficient.

Put another way, Flash Player using Stage Video can effortlessly play beautiful 1080p HD video with just 1-15% CPU usage on a common Mac or Windows computer - working across platforms and browsers, it will enable the best video experience for the most people.

Flash Player 10.2 also includes support for full screen mode with multiple monitors, native custom mouse cursors, and sub-pixel text rendering. It should also be noted that this version of Flash Player marks the end of support for Power PC-based Macs.



http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/1582.html

[Weee]

I don't really notice a decrease in CPU usage with a 2009 Mac mini.

[mooblie]

OK... anybody tried it yet? or measured CPU usage with previous versions compared to this version, when playing video?

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Edit: Weee: what was your CPU usage (%age?) before/after upgrade?
_________________
Martin at HeadSpin HD now on Blu-ray

[curt]

I'm seeing a nice improvement with CPU usage.

Here's a good article about the update if you're interested.

http://gigaom.com/apple/is-adobe-flash-10-2-for-you/
_________________
1.42GHz Mac mini
1.66GHz Intel Mac mini
2.0GHz 2009 Mac mini
46" Sony LCD
50" Sony KDS-50A2000
EyeTV 250 Plus
My Setup

[Colstan]

I compared Flash 10.2 to H.264 using the ClickToFlash Safari extension with one of the sample Stage Video clips that Adobe has provided:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/stagevideo.html

I ran the "Speed (IMAX) trailer" at 1080p, waited for the video to fully load, and watched Activity Monitor. With my late-2009 Mac mini I got about 8% CPU utilization from H.264 and 10% CPU utilization from the new version of Flash. It looks to me that Adobe has finally done something about Flash performance. Now, that assumes your Mac is compatible (only recent Nvidia graphics are currently supported) and that the site supports Stage Video. Still, it's nice to have Adobe competing again. For anyone with a recent Mac mini, this is good news and something worth upgrading to.

Colstan
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Mac mini (2011), 2.7Ghz i7, 8GB mem, 256GB Apple SSD

[mooblie]

I didn't really notice any decrease in CPU usage either. I was testing 10.1 against 10.2 - albeit not very scientifically. I was playing my own online H.264 video clips in Flash (Firefox) on a mini with NVIDIA GeForce 9400 (which I believe SHOULD offer hardware acceleration).

I recall a Flash beta a few months ago (the one which showed a white square in the corner when HW acceleration was working) did show some CPU reduction, but not this one.

Anyway, 10.2 didn't do any harm!
_________________
Martin at HeadSpin HD now on Blu-ray

[aquaman]

I can't even get the "Big Buck Bunny" sample of Stage Video to work. It just buffers and crashes.

[Ray Finkle]

[macmanmacman]

Not quite the end of power pc support....

let me explain why....

i have 10.2 running in mac os x tiger

here is why this is a false statement from adobe...

consumer base mac os x tiger stops at adobe flash player 9

while server based 10.4 tiger stops at 10.2

now i have mac os x 10.5 server running on a g5 xserve i noticed that i could install 10.2 and i know they wont leave out all powerpc machines because you have users still using xserves in bussiness locations and you cannot denied them access to adobe flash because it would be considered rigging the internet which is illegal in the u.s and canada and even the u.k

So support for power pc ending my can!!!!

[The Pontificator]

All I know is as of last night I can no longer view Youtube videos on Safari. I just now installed the newest version of Flash Player and verified that it's been properly installed as I don't have any problems using Firefox but the problem using Safari still exists.

Flash videos on other websites (such as TV news websites) works fine so I'm wondering if this is a YouTube-specific problem.