General Discussion - What is MP4 and Flash? michellewhibley - Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:20 pm Post subject: What is MP4 and Flash?
MP4 is a shortened name for MPEG-4 Part 14. Sometimes otherwise known as MPEG -4 AVC, the AVC standing for Advanced Video Coding. As this name suggests, it is a format used for encoding digital video files. It was created in 1998 and is now gaining ever more popularity in the mainstream market.
MP4 technology works by compressing the files, making the overall size much smaller, in a similar way to that of MP3 technology, although much more advanced and complex. MP4s are made up of several types of media in what is known as a container format.
MP4s make video much more accessible and files can be downloaded quickly from the internet. The format has streaming capabilities, meaning the video can be viewed as it downloads and doesn't need to be saved to the hard drive of your computer first.
About Flash: Just compare Flash with HTML5
Adobe Flash wins at:
Used by almost every PC user.
Creation of simple to complex animation.
Bundled up; learning curve is easier because it’s not as diverse as learning HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript and other things.
Several thousand Flash games that can’t be played on Apple products.
Devices that allows Flash usage, in my experience, are more fun to deal with. My team and I once created a “hack and slash” game using Flash and we were stunned to learn that our professor saved it on his Nokia and played it there. Fully running. My point is, Flash is great with cross-platform compatibility.
Cross-browser compatibility too.
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript wins at:
All of these are open standards, no more relying on third-party products like Flash does.
Can be used by most browsers without updating anything.
When YouTube was still a baby, I usually would see a page asking me to upgrade my Flash player. I haven’t seen it in a year now.
Adobe Flash wasn’t really built to support touch screen devices. With today’s technology, almost every surface is a touch screen. It doesn’t stop there; the juice of this all is on the web. Little by little desktop applications are leaving the mainstream and are replaced by web-based applications. Lightweight and accessible almost anywhere. This includes games, videos, and other applications.