Flash vs. Quicktime !

Hi everyone!

My site has been down for about a week due to the fact that I was changing hosting companies. In any case this site should be getting bigger and better with a few new revisions coming along as soon as I get more time on my hands.

My main concern in this post is to reflect on the performance of Flash 8.

I use Flash extensively for site design but also more importantly for video animation and design. I believe I was one of the first to start using Flash as a video design tool at least 3 years ago (see Nicktoons jobs and IT-TV jobs on my reel.) I felt that the ease of use was great for doing frame by frame work and type animations. Of course since then Apple has come up with Live Type and Motion and that is where I believe there is a serious rivalry going on.

Since Apple came out with Quicktime 7 they made all previous versions of any of their video related software obsolete (try importing a QT7 file into FCP4 and see what I mean!) Also I believe they have purposely put roadblocks in place to the implementation of Flash. For example Flash 8 will not export a Quicktime movie by default. In order to do this you need to go into the preferences of QT7 and turn on the 'enable Flash' radio button. This may seem like a detail, but how many non-tech users are going to be able to figure this out? Also Flash 8 will not export a Quicktime movie while FCP5 is opened, even on a G5 duo.

Lastly Flash 8 no longer exports a usable transparent alpha channel when publishing a Quicktime movie. Flash 5 used to do this seamlessly. So if you create an animation in Flash that needs a transparent background, you will not be able to export a Quicktime of it. To this date I have not found a work around.

My take on all this is that Flash as a design program could be phased out. Since Adobe bought Macromedia they do not really actively support Flash either on the web or by phone. Each time I call I get different answers and often times they draw a blank. Adobe has its own production suite and the awful InDesign program. So I figure that Flash will be left to die a slow death leaving all us lovers of the simplicity and functionality of this great program in the lurch.

What do you think?