Rants,Raves and Ruminations

As you may have gathered I have been playing around with Flash Video for the past year or so. Over that time I have seen Flash video knock Apple, Real and Microsoft from their streaming video thrones and, in many respects, I really don’t feel all that remorseful about it. They had their chance and YouTube, Nike and the New York Times took it.

Which brings me to the subject of today’s rant.

I was sitting in my den this morning when CNN reported that a CBS crew had been killed and injured thanks to a car bomb. I watched the story and, thinking that CBS might have a bit more, headed over to their site and, sure enough, there was a video link to their story on the tragedy.

I clicked the link and when I arrived at the page where the video would play was informed that, “Tough rice, dude, your browser doesn’t support a playlist.” This struck me as odd since I have spent an inordinate amount of time watch video using Firefox and this was never an issue.

So I flamed up good old Internet Explorer and discovered that Firefox users are still second class citizens on the net. The video was there and no whining about playlists. I clicked the link and was informed that the video was buffering. It finished and started to play…. For about 3 seconds…. And it started to buffer again. I went through this process at least five or six times for one stupid 2-minute clip.

I am a bit surprised that CBS isn’t using Flash video which, if they are listening, isn’t browser specific.

Mind you this does make for some great laughs when I speak a Conferences. My current Tar baby is MSN Video. If you have ever tried to watch a video there, especially with Firefox, the oddest thing happens: you are told you don’t have the Windows Media Player. Even if you download and install it, you are still told you don’t have the Player. It surely must be coincidental.

At the same time that Firefox is tossing up the most serious competition IE has faced in the Browser wars, the most amazing thing is that a wmv file won’t play through that browser. Coincidence?

How ever you look at it, video is here to stay and video through the Flash Player, which is browser independent, seems to be the preferred method. How odd that big media isn’t getting it and neither is Microsoft.