Flash Video 25 Apr 2004 01:02 am
[Video] Why deploy video with Flash instead of the other guys?
I’ve been answering this question all week. 
Easy answer:
Flash (version 6) is deployed on over 93% of all Internet-connected desktops worldwide. This means that 93% of Web users will be able to experience Flash video instantly, without downloading a player.
If they don’t have FLP6 or above, it’s a very small download (476KB on Win and around 1.13MB for Mac - includes SA installer). And best of all: when you install Flash Player we don’t ask you for any information! Why should you have to go through a nine-plus step process (*cough* Real *cough*) just to watch a video? And why should you be constantly pestered to join a pay-for service? And why must it take over every media type on your system - and require a reboot? And why must they spam you? And why must you create a username and login just to use their player? And WHY MUST VIDEO ALWAYS BE A SEPERATE EXPERIENCE FROM THE REST OF THE WEB CONTENT??? If I want to watch a video on the Web, I want to watch a video on the Web! I don’t want to spend my afternoon downloading massive players and joining services and getting barraged by advertising in the player.
Anyways, back to the numbers. Flash Player with video support is on 93% of Web-connected desktops. How does that compare to “the other guys”?
(Penetration stats determined by NPD Online research)
* Note: It’s important to recognize that the Results of the NPD survey sample the general browsing public so the penetration numbers contained within this post may vary in circumstances like corporate intranet use, education, etc. Also note that the actual numbers may be generous in some circumstances as they sample multiple versions of other players, not just the most recent. [updated 4/25/04]
No. 2: Windows Media Player at approx. 61% penetration
Approximate download sizes
- 9.66MB for Win XP
- 13.3MB for Win2K, Win98/ME
- 6.9MB for Mac OS X (no WMP 9 support though)
No. 3: Real Player at approx. 57% penetration
Approximate download sizes for the hard-to-find free version
- 11.68MB for Windows
- 9.4MB for Mac OS X (RealOne player, older version than Windows)
No. 4: Quicktime Player at approx. 47% penetration
Approximate download sizes
- 11MB for Windows
- 19MB for Mac OS X (ouch)
- 10MB for Mac OS 8.6/9
What about quality? Well, see for yourself. Check out one of the sites in my “Showcase” post earlier today. Note that CNET and Comcast are using the Flash Video Streaming Service (FVSS) powered by Vitalstream. This is a fantastic solution for taking advantage of the power of the Flash Communication Server on a high-powered global network without needing to own the infrastructure.
Enjoy!
on 25 Apr 2004 at 6:21 am 1.Jensa said …
Ehhh… Mike? Isn’t it kind of funny that VitalStream use Windows Media Player to promote a Flash service? Click their link to “MediaConsole Video Tour” and you’ll see. I just thought that was kind of fun and wanted to share ;-D
J
BTW: I wrote a similar article (http://www.flashmagazine.com/html/528.htm) last summer. I totally agree about Flash being the solution.
on 25 Apr 2004 at 6:22 am 2.Jensa said …
Link got messed up:
http://www.flashmagazine.com/html/528.htm
on 25 Apr 2004 at 2:33 pm 3.jd said …
Quote: ” Flash (version 6) is deployed on over 93% of all Internet-connected desktops worldwide. This means that 93% of Web users will be able to experience Flash video instantly, without downloading a player.”
Mike, if we phrase it like that, then a developer could rightfully come back and say “Hey I had an audience where this was not the case.” If someone is developing for a school’s computer labs, or a public library, or certain large businesses, then the above is clearly not the case.
The NPD consumer audits are good strong evidence, but they’re only clearly representative of people who have the leisure time to volunteer for various types of computer taste-tests. These tend to be more experienced users, as you can confirm from NPD’s user profiles. We can safely use those numbers for relative comparisons of technologies and trends, but for absolute predictions you’ve first got to establish that the sample is representative of the particular target audience.
I agree on your overall points, but that “93% of all machines” is not able to be determined from the data.(btw, your case against other video players is likely a bit stronger than you make it, because last I heard we were testing on things like QT3 files, Acrobat 2, a Viewpoint drawing, and other minimal support.)
Agreed on this, or…?
tx, jd/mm
on 25 Apr 2004 at 5:15 pm 4.Mike Downey said …
Great point, JD. You’re keeping me honest. I’ve updated the post with a note about this.
Cheers,
MD
on 25 Apr 2004 at 9:52 pm 5.jd said …
Nah, you were already honest, I’ve just had a history of getting snagged there that’s all, thanks!
jd
on 25 Apr 2004 at 10:12 pm 6.George Anten said …
Couple of questions:
1. Are there any stats for Flash player 7?
2. Was the decision not to go with MPEG-4 for Flash video a technical one or a business one?
on 25 Apr 2004 at 10:45 pm 7.Mike Downey said …
George -
1. We haven’t posted the updated stats yet, but we announced publicly at NAB that - as of March ‘04 - Flash Player 7 has reached roughly 52.5% worldwide penetration. We’re also finding a higher volume of daily downloads with FLP7 than we did with FLP6 so trends lend us to believe that the FLP7 adoption numbers will continue to grow at very impressive rates.
2. Hard to answer this question, but I can say that we’re considering this for future releases. No promises, but it’s on the list.
Also, keep in mind that Flash Player adoption rates are remarkable when comparing them to any other player technology. No other player even comes close. That’s really what makes this technology so great.
on 25 Apr 2004 at 11:49 pm 8.Bobby R. said …
I think the argument of other streaming players being separate media experiences is not totally correct. You can embed video/audio from any of the players into your html document. Flash is embeded also so I find this an unfair comparison.
Plus, Windows Media Player, Quicktime and Real are also players for media content that’s not only web/streaming content. They are used as mult-purpose players. They play local music, cds, videos, DVDs, etc. They also organize and manage a Music Library.
There is a big difference between a desktop application and a player that plays web content.
on 26 Apr 2004 at 12:25 am 9.Mike Downey said …
Hi Bobby -
I hear what you’re saying. I think you can look at the context of my comment, “And WHY MUST VIDEO ALWAYS BE A SEPERATE EXPERIENCE FROM THE REST OF THE WEB CONTENT???” and see that I am clearly exagerating to make a point. Can you embed other media players inline with your other HTML content? Yes. However, I’ve found that this is rarely done. To expand on that, do you have full creative control for creating custom interfaces and controls for your video content with other media players? I’d have to argue that the answer is no.
If you check out some of the more popular sites serving up video content I think you’ll find that the majority of them tend to seperate their video content from the rest of the site via pop-ups and use of the SA players. My guess as to why is that the media player penetration numbers are so low that web sites are afraid to embed video inline with the rest of their HTML. So, instead, they use pop-ups to manage scenarios where users do not have the player. This is much less common with sites using Flash for video.
I know what you’re saying, but I’m speaking from my own experience, which may be different than yours. I’ve spent weeks cataloging sites that deploy video and I’ve become increasingly aggrivated by the way video is deployed on the Web.
As for the other capabilities of media players, I agree that they come with more “turn-key” functionallity, but I find that to be largely irrelevant to the general browsing public that just wants to watch video on the Web. Plus, short of DVD support, Flash can do all of the things that you mention.
I’ll stipulate that this is all arguable, but I think the advantage goes to Flash. And as I learned last week, many, many video pros are starting to feel the same.
on 26 Apr 2004 at 5:02 am 10.George Anten said …
“We haven’t posted the updated stats yet, but we announced publicly at NAB that - as of March ‘04 - Flash Player 7 has reached roughly 52.5% worldwide penetration.”
I’m not good with numbers
but if Flash 6 is at 98% and Flash 7 is 53% how do you reconcile those numbers? They don’t add up. I was hoping for a simple chart: Total Flash users, v7 users, v6 users, v5 users and so on that would add up to 100%.
“To expand on that, do you have full creative control for creating custom interfaces and controls for your video content with other media players?”
It’s been fairly trivial to create elaborate skins/interfaces/controls for QuickTime for years.
on 26 Apr 2004 at 9:24 am 11.jd said …
Hi George, that “98%” and stuff isn’t the number of players of that version, but the percentage of consumers tested who could immediately view a SWF7 file, a SWF6 file, and so on. (New players play old formats.)
If you go to http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census then you can see the progression across recent quarterly consumer audits. From what I understand the March audit should be published soon, and about half of consumers tested could view SWF7 files, over 90% could view SWF6 files, and few could not view any SWF by this point.
The amazing stuff in all this is that rapid spread of new versions… it’s not just that the Macromedia Flash Player is more widely distributed than any other web technology, but it’s also much, much, much more up-to-date than any other web technology. The rate of adoption is rapid because it’s small and doesn’t require a change in the audience’s viewing habits (no new browser to get used to, no operating system install, etc).
Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support
on 26 Apr 2004 at 6:02 pm 12.George Anten said …
“The rate of adoption is rapid because it’s small and doesn’t require a change in the audience’s viewing habits (no new browser to get used to, no operating system install, etc).”
I’m not unimpressed by Flash penetration.
I have a narrow issue: We want to use some v6+ features not supported in v5. So I’m trying to figure out if there are any stats on how many users who already have Flash v4/v5 would opt to upgrade to the latest version on the spot. Has MM done any study on that?
on 26 Apr 2004 at 6:17 pm 13.Mike Downey said …
According to our survey results, of the 7% of Web users surveyed who did not have the Flash Player 6 or newer, as much as 5% of them have some earlier version of the player.
Windows XP comes with Flash Player 5 pre-installed, I believe. They may include Flash Player 6 with Service Pack 1 and/or Internet Explorer 6. The upcoming Service Pack 2 may also include one of the newer versions of the Flash Player (not sure). Also, Mac OS X comes with Flash Player. I think it’s version 5 but it may be newer.
on 26 Apr 2004 at 6:31 pm 14.George Anten said …
Well, my interest/question is really about on-the-spot upgrade rates. In other words, confronted with the requirement to upgrade their players to a new version, what percentage of Flash users do so, on the spot? Is it more like 5% or 50%?:-)
on 14 Jun 2004 at 1:29 pm 15.Dave said …
wait a minute. Are you saying that WMP all versions only add up to 61% total market penetration? That seems awfully low since it’s bundled in with every windows pc sold. How can this be?
on 14 Jun 2004 at 3:09 pm 16.Mike Downey said …
It’s not bundled with every PC sold. I believe it’s only bundled w/ Windows XP, which has around 51% share of the Windows PC market.
MD
on 05 Jul 2006 at 9:59 am 17.Stephen said …
Mike,
Any idea with regard to corporate user penetration between Flash and Windows Media Player?
We have built something in Flash 7 Player and my customer is afraid that corporate users will not have or will be blocked (internal security) from downloading the plugin.
These numbers are hard to find.
Thanks!
Stephen