HDTV quality Web Video reaches the masses with the H.264 Video Codec included in Adobe's new Flash player.

Adobe today announced the latest update for Adobe Flash Player 9 software, code-named Moviestar, which includes H.264 standard video support - the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video players - and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support, as well as hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback. The latest update for Adobe Flash Player 9 will be available in beta for immediate download later today on Adobe Labs at http://labs.adobe.com .

With H.264 encoding already available in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects software, H.264 playback is now enabled in Adobe Flash Player, and will be supported by the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and applications developed with Adobe AIR software, including Adobe Media Player. Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system application runtime that enables developers to use their existing skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.

Content developers can reduce the cost of encoding and preparing data for distribution with H.264 and HE-AAC support in Adobe Flash Player, since these standards are already integrated into their existing authoring workflows.

The public beta version of the update to Adobe Flash Player 9 software, code-named Moviestar, which includes H.264 and HE-AAC functionality, will be available later today as a free download from Adobe Labs at http://labs.adobe.com . The final release is expected to be available via update in the fall.