Adobe today announced the immediate availability of Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 3 software, previously code named Moviestar.

Adobe Flash Player 9 now 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 capabilities. The latest update also features hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced, full-screen video playback for high-resolution viewing across major operating systems and browsers. The combination of Adobe Flash Player 9 and Adobe Flash Media Server 3 (also announced today) enables the delivery of HD quality video to the broadest online audience.

Since H.264 and HE-AAC are open industry standards and already integrated into existing authoring and publishing workflows, content producers can leverage their existing H.264 material and play back the native content in Adobe Flash Player. This enables publishers to encode content once and then distribute it to multiple mediums.

Adobe Flash Player 9 is immediately available as a free download for Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms from www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer.