On2 FlixPro updated to 8.530
 

I got an "update available" message when I ran FlixPro today. Apparently the first update (for Windows) since v8.5 was released in June 2006. The changes in the new version 8.530 are listed at the On2 Support Blog http://support.on2.com/blog/

Along with some bugfixes, the original VP6 (Flash flv video) profile is renamed VP6-E and a new HD-on-older-PCs profile "VP6-S" is added, which is Adobe added in the new Flash 9.0.115 player update. It's not to clear yet when it will be appropriate to use that profile.

But what I noticed right away was the "Improved performance" mentioned in the list of changes. It sure seemed like FlixPro encoded a QT .mov file to .flv much faster than before. Now I need to find some old encodes where I noted the encode time...to check the actual speed improvement. Anybody else notice this?

Sorry, this has more to do with the advanced profile you mentioned.

The new play back that you are talking about, is that using the h264 codec for playback? If so I did a little of java script voodoo today and got the webpage to tell the user to update if they did not have the required 9.0.100 for the new videos and if they did then it would play. I think this is a better solution then the user just seeing a black window with sound, would be nice if youtube did something like this to help push out the update but my guess is Adobe would want someone as big as youtube to wait for the next major release when any possible bugs are worked out.

I'm not talking about playback Josh. Just encoding. FlixPro only encodes VP6 (flv) and earlier Flash formats. It does not do H.264.

IMO, the most important reason to upgrade the Flash player is fullscreen support (since v9.0.28.0). H.264 is still pretty cpu intensive for many users with older PCs. That is why On2 (and Adobe) added the VP6-S profile. It's supposed to be less cpu-hungry for HD video.

Interesting :) Ill have to see if there is a trial and give it a go. I have only used the original FLVs, not the on2 ones.