Flash MX: Macromedia's Web authoring tool.(Product Announcement)

FLASH MX, Macromedia's Flash authoring tool, creates a "rich client" browser, where "rich" means graphics, animation, video, and sound, as well as text and XML-formatted information. For now, however, two problems hinder most Web users from enjoying the rich client experience.

The first is bandwidth: CD-quality sound runs about 1MB per minute. Video varies depending on compressibility, but commonly requires multiple megabytes per minute. That's a lot for the still-typical 56Kbps modem connection. Many current Flash-heavy sites are too "rich" for 56Kbps.

The second problem is compatibility: It will probably be about a year before the Flash Player 6 browser plug-in, required for most new features, is widely installed.

Still, neither of these difficulties will stop the show forever. The Web is moving in the rich-client direction, and Macromedia is positioned to take advantage of it with robust technology, wide support in browsers, and no serious competition in its core territory of Web animation.

New Flash MX features include video (previously available only in products Like Wildform Flix--see pg. 12), the loading of external sounds and JPGs at runtime, components, and scriptable graphics and masks.

Flash MX allows you to import standard video formats such as AVI, MOV, MPEG, or QuickTime, and scale, rotate, skew, mask, and animate the resulting video object, as well as make it interactive using scripting. The Sorenson Spark Basic video codec in Flash MX only does constant bit rate (CBR) encoding. CBR is less desirable than variable bit rate (VBR) encoding, which adds extra compression to frames whose contents are more compressible. Add-ons like the Sorenson Spark Pro codec ($299) or Wildform's Flix 2.1 ($129) can provide VBR.

With built-in video support, many developers can consider Flash as an alternative to Macromedia Director for some kiosk and CD ROM projects. Unfortunately, the bandwidth issue will delay the video revolution on the Web.