JavaFX Gets Video Capabilities

Get ready for high quality video on the screens of your life. Sun has entered into a multi-year agreement with On2 Technologies, to provide immersive media and content on your JavaFX applications.

"The JavaFX runtime environment is designed from the ground up to support high fidelity media, empowering content authors to deliver media-rich content and applications across all the screens of your life. On2 shares Sun's vision of driving video convergence across desktops and mobile devices and we look forward to working with On2 to deliver this capability as part of the JavaFX family of products," said Rich Green, executive vice president, Software at Sun.

RIAs written in JavaFX will be able to use the On2 video codecs from Fall 2008, at the same time as the 1.0 release of JavaFX desktop (an early access release is expected in July). We'll need to wait until Spring 2009 for JavaFX Mobile and JavaFX TV.  The same high resolution video will run across all of these platforms.

There's no doubt that JavaFX is in the spotlight for JavaONE 2008, and Sun seems intent on putting weight behind the technology so that it can rival the more established RIA offerings for Adobe and Microsoft. A new javafx.com site has been launched during the conference with tutorials, demos from the keynotes, downloads and getting started guides.

Previously I've commented that the hype around JavaFX was too little, too late. The TrueMotion video codecs are a welcome and necessary addition to JavaFX. Perhaps the emphasis on JavaFX is worth it -  after all, RIAs are the buzzword of the moment. Is this a sign of good things to come for JavaFX?