Will Adobe's new HTTP Flash streaming support lower CDN prices?

Adobe's Project Zeri, which adds support for HTTP streaming and includes support for all Flash players, is due to debut sometime next month. The long-awaited deployment is aimed specifically at content delivery networks trying to deal with increasingly long viewing times associated with larger streamed events.

Adobe said in its blog that Project Zeri will leverage existing HTTP infrastructure and cache technologies, include adaptive bit-rate switching support and allow users to stream live or on-demand with no additional encoding to live encoding technology.

Earlier this week, analyst Dan Rayburn wrote that the technology was being tested at several CDNs with beta customers. He says the switch from RTMP to HTTP should reduce management and distribution costs to CDNs. But, he said, he hasn't started to see any drop in prices from CDNs that already are using HTTP online video delivery technology from Microsoft in the form of its SmoothStreaming product.

But, he wrote, "if the CDNs can reduce their internal cost with delivering video, even if they don't lower the price to customers, the positive impact could be that it helps the CDNs become profitable, something that almost all of them are still struggling with."

For more:
- Check out Dan Rayburn's blog

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