Adobe Media Player Now Available
Business rules can be used to set policies for offline content access, but when asked about this feature during a pre-briefing, Adobe representatives said that content played back via AMP could potentially be set to require confirmation of playback each time—meaning that a device would require an internet connection each time "offline" content was accessed—or could be set to require a connection every so many days, weeks or months.
"We don’t want to limit what the market is able to do with our rights management tools," said Laurel Reitman, Sr. Product Manager Flash Media Server Services.
Also lacking at the initial launch of AMP 1.0 is content from independent content owners. While this may be due to Adobe's push toward standard broadcast content, perhaps as a pre-emption against Hulu.com and other branded players/services, the lack of independent content is a surprise given scenarios for event videographers and other independent content owners that Adobe described to journalists leading up to last year's Creative Suite 3 launch.
Early AMP content partners lean heavily towards major media companies (like Geffen Records, highlighted in the screenshot above) with very little independent publisher content.
One additional line in the press release may also be a factor in the early focus on large content owners: The release notes that "AMP Adobe Media Player can also provide content publishers with anonymous measurement of content usage data" which is apparently stored on Adobe's servers, meaning that a portion of the charge for the service is data aggregation which may drive up the price of AMP-available content versus the use of other branded players. This also means that the release of AMP 1.0 puts Adobe in competition with other data gathering services, raises a number of privacy concerns regarding the aggregated data, and also means that player-level encryption will be Adobe's responsibility. In many ways, though, AMP 1.0 is a natural byproduct of Adobe's move to a hybrid product/service model.
On AMP, downloaded content that is protected by the Flash Media Rights Server—including the downloaded video package as well as pre-roll and post-roll advertisements, skins, and graphic—is also protected at an extra level versus content being played back in other AIR-based video player applications.
One final pitch that Adobe makes in the release of AMP 1.0, is the fact that consumers can download content that they may not be able to view in a streaming format, especially if their broadband connections won't support streamed 1080p, 720p, or 480i video display resolutions.
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