Plan B

Show me the media

Despite the rave reviews that JavaFX has received, one can't help fretting over Java's future as a "RIA" platform. Considering Java's 2D/3D graphics capabilities, JavaFX/F3 (with tool support) would no doubt leapfrog Flex/Apollo/Silverllight on that front. But what made flash the delivery platform of choice for a Youtube or a Google Video is not its technical superiority : its the support for basic/standard audio and video formats. And that's where Java (with its near-dead JMF) sorely lacks. While the download size can hurt Java on the desktop, the lack of media support is, imho, the principal crippling factor. Once that is addressed, JavaFX might just need to add constructs to leverage the JRE's media capabilities. But until such a time, there's plenty of catching up to do for Java in the Rich Internet Application space.

Update: I find it rather ironical that today's java.com feature video of JavaOne is delivered through - you guessed it - a flash player.

Posted at 10:06AM May 12, 2007 by Bharath Ravikumar in Java  |