14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe has announced the launch of the Flash Player 10.2 Beta. The latest testing release of the popular plugin comes with several new features and broader hardware acceleration for videos. The beta is now available for launch and the final version will be released sometime next year.
"We’re happy to announce a beta release of Flash Player 10.2 for Windows, Mac, and Linux is now available for download on Adobe Labs," Tom Nguyen Product Manager at Adobe, announced.
Stage Video API adds full hardware acceleration for video content
"Flash Player 10.2 beta introduces a number of enhancements we’re excited to share, including Stage Video, a new API that delivers best-in-class, high performance video playback across platforms," he said.
One of the touted new features in Flash Player 10.2 Beta is the new Stage Video API which adds full hardware support for video content. Flash Player 10.1 had support for hardware decoding of H.264 content, arguably the most taxing part of playing back video.
The new API uses the GPU rather than the CPU for even more stages (hence the name) of the video rendering pipeline, including color conversion, scaling and blitting. In best-case scenarios, full HD videos should be running smoothly with close to 0 percent CPU utilization.
Content providers have to update their video players to take advantage of the new Stage Video API. Adobe's strengthening ties with Google are evident with the release of Flash Player 10.2 Beta. The Stave Video API is already supported in Google TV devices and YouTube has started adding support for it.
IE9 hardware acceleration support and multi-monitor support
"The new beta also includes Internet Explorer 9 hardware acceleration support previewed earlier (in Flash Player “Square”), enhanced text rendering, and two popular requests from the community: a native custom mouse cursors API and support for full screen playback with multiple monitors," Nguyen added.
Flash Player 10.2 comes with a number of other new features. Among them is support for Internet Explorer 9's hardware acceleration features. Namely, beside video content, Flash Player will also use the GPU to render other graphic elements leading to a performance boost of up to 35 percent in some cases. This feature was previewed in the experimental Flash Player "Square."
Another new feature that should come in very handy for some users is support for full-screen view in multiple monitor environments. In practice, users will be able to watch a full-screen video on one monitor and check out a Twitter stream on the other, for example.
Native custom mouse cursors and sub-pixel text rendering
Flash developers looking to add more personality to their apps, or just to annoy their users, can now create native custom mouse cursors. This means that they'll be able to create custom mouse themes which will then be handled natively by the operating system, a much better and faster way to the alternative, rendering a custom cursor inside Flash.
Finally, designers will appreciate the sub-pixel text rendering enhancements which makes for more legible and better looking text regardless of the fonts or local scripts used.
Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Beta is available now for download and the final version should be landing early next year, though no clear deadline has been announced. All the regular warnings concerning beta software apply, though Flash Player 10.2 Beta should be fairly safe to use if you can't wait for the final, stable release.
Flash Player 10.2 Beta for Windows is available for download here. Flash Player 10.2 Beta for Linux is available for download here. Flash Player 10.2 Beta for Mac is available for download here.