Flash Player supports H.264 - the standard deployed in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

Adobe announced the availability of Adobe Flash Player 9, 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.

With updated Adobe Flash Player, it will enable it to deliver HD television quality and premium audio content and pave the way to expand rich media Flash experiences on the desktop and H.264 ready consumer devices. The latest update for Adobe Flash Player 9 is available in beta for immediate download on Adobe Labs.

Some of the new features in Adobe Flash Player 9 (MovieStar)

• Improved performance - Multi-core support, full screen mode with hardware scaling, multi-threaded video decoding
• Flash Player Cache - Cross-domain Flex Framework caching, reduced application size and faster download times
• Works better with Ajax - Improved JavaScript integration, improved browser integration
• Reaching parity on Linux - Full screen mode now for Linux Flash Player