Thanks for your reply!
I have developed several video players myself in the past, ranging from simple to more complex players that integrate an advertising model. I also have a client that is interested in a "Media" player (video, audio, image, swf slideshow), that could provide the functionality that OSMF has set out to accomplish. So, I do see a need for this type of player. However, I may not be as knowledgeable on the inner-workings of the OSMF framework as yourself, and would love if you could elaborate more.
Our media player also plays all of those formats, including panoramas. I guess I just don't see myself replacing our framework with theirs anytime soon.
I didn't care much for what I saw at Max 2009. I actually walked out of the lab halfway through because the guy doing the lab didn't seem to even understand the framework himself (perhaps that was part of what turned me off of it). He kept yelling to some developer at the back of the room for every question and half the demos he had didn't work. But, keep in mind they've only been actively developing it since the summer so it may be too soon to tell.
My fear is that it will end up much like Flex and other Adobe frameworks, enormous in size! I don't know about you, but my company has strict limits on the file size for our players. They need to load quickly. I fear that things like advertising will be so mixed in with the other media classes that even if you don't need/want the advertising stuff you're going to get it anyway.
My suggestion is to take a weekend and play with it.
I can't see Adobe abandoning this project anytime soon, and it would seem wise to embrace this new framework than reject these efforts to create a decent standard.
I think the OVP project is perfect for getting a standard player architecture out there for the average Flash hacker to use. On the other hand, I think building a heavy framework around processes that are likely to be very different company to company, a bit much. Anyone building high end, high volume, media players is going to have their own framework (Brightcove for example).
All this will likely do is flood the market with many low end products. WHich I'm sure is great for Akamai since their conneciton classes will be the main part of the framework. What better way to sell your services to the masses than to build a framework around Flash Media Server (Adobe) and your Edge servers (Akamai)? Tons of little comapnies will slap a UI overtop the framework and start claiming to be media distribution companies all paying monthly fees to Akamai for FMS and bandwidth. I don't find it to be any accident the two main companies behind the framework both have vested interests. It's less about standards, more about sales. Make it so easy to get going with their services that you ignore the alternatives. Brilliant really.
(And yes, we use Akamai
)
Again, this is all just my opinion so take for what it's worth. Time will tell.
