Is Flash dead? Well not quite, but even though Flash has been so extensively used for so many years, and was especially useful to YouTube when it got started, it is now safe to say that Flash has become the walking dead of online video. It has become so code-heavy it’s imploded into itself and many developers are glad to see the back of it despite the fact that for so many years it was almost ubiquitous, used by nearly every internet company to drive video content or web animation.
The end of the line and what comes next
Ever since Adobe decided to phase out and abandon Flash, which is due to be unsupported by the end of 2020, the world has been gradually waking up to the fact that alternatives are needed to be able to view video, whether live streaming or, to an even greater extent, accessing Video On Demand (VOD).
There are many companies frantically developing alternatives in an effort to grab terrain in the post-Flash market, and the highway to success is littered with attempts to produce something that not only enables content to be played, but also to try to improve end-to-end latency.
Low Latency
Low latency has never been in Flash’s bag of tricks, but nonetheless we have been happy to play our content using Flash irrespective of how long it takes to get to us. But this isn’t the internet of 2005, and the video-rich internet of today has made low latency, and even ultra-low latency, the gold at the end of the rainbow, unattainable to most but, nevertheless, pursued by many.
HTML5
So, what now for Flash-enhanced websites? Are there replacements for Flash in development? Riding to the rescue is HTML5. This is the World Wide Web Consortium’s answer to our prayers and the last nail in Flash’s coffin. For the past half-decade HTML5 has been slowly taking Flash’s place at the forefront of internet video delivery. It is ideal for moving image-based websites, and is well worth the effort necessitated by the conversion process. However, despite Flash’s long deprecation since 2017 and announced departure on January 1st, 2021, there will still be many sites that have not taken heed. These sites, which have relied very heavily on Flash for their entire lifetimes, will find that when the clock rolls over on New Year’s their content will all of a sudden stop working.
The story does not end here — in fact, this is just the start of the considerations that need to be taken into account. To begin with, there is a list of browsers that need to effortlessly make use of HTML5: Chrome, Firefox, IE (Edge), Safari and Opera and then these browsers will all need to support the MPEG-4/H.264, Ogg/Theora and WebM/VP8 protocols for audio and video.
However, this is not an ideal world, and not every browser supports every protocol, which only adds to the complexity of post-Flash solutions.
Ceeblue Ultra-Low Latency
Ceeblue has been working for some time now to fill the gap, specifically for the live video streaming marketplace. We have demonstrated the ability to deliver live video content, end to end, continent to continent, in under 1 second.
The goals of Ceeblue have been to ensure that as many browsers as possible can work with live video streams using any of the most common codecs.
For those live-streaming companies that are late in the game of converting to alternative streaming technologies, Ceeblue can work as a partner to ensure continuity during this transitional period while preventing any losses to their customer base.
Ceeblue’s Indisputable Advantage
What makes Ceeblue arguably the world leader in ULL? Our determination, expertise and faith in how WebRTC, a key component of HTML5, can be developed and bent to provide a viable solution. Our flexibility, adaptability and persistence .
The formation of Ceeblue as a company nearly coincides with Adobe’s announcement of Flash’s deprecation and the end of its development in 2017. The first thing Ceeblue’s tech team did was put together a list of requirements that became part of the development must-haves. Foremost was the absolutely number one need: the product must provide sub-1-second glass-to-glass video delivery. Included there must be adaptive bitrate modulation, multiple protocol fallbacks, WebRTC and RTMP ingest, transcoding to Dash, MP4, MSS, CMAF and HLS, watermarking, an included video player and many other features.
Ceeblue has been able to develop, deliver and launch all of these prerequisites over the past three years, knowing that the market is ready for a reliable Flash replacement that is at least an order of magnitude better.
As mentioned above, there will be many video-based companies that will be caught at the end of the year without a means of playing their content unless they get onto it now.
Ceeblue is ready to help them make the transition as painless as possible.
