This topic is regarding the incredibly lousy performance of the flash plugin on any browser (even IE,) on the fastest of connections, on the fastest of Macs. It would benefit our cause to get as much press and articles about this as possible.
As most of you probably know, the performance of any flash movie or animation on even of the FASTEST of DUAL G4's lags way behind the performance of flash on even a mediocre to LOW END PC. I used to allow for the fact that this MAY be the bad system architecture of OS 9, but NOW we have OS X, which was built from the ground up to be a 'digital hub' and have awesome multimedia capabilties. We also know it isn't the hardware bringing it down. (DUAL 1GhZ G4 should have absolutely not even a hiccup playing any flash movie.)
Being as frustrated with this as I was, I wrote Macromedia support. They flipped me around to a couple different support people and suggested silly things like making sure I was using a carbonized flash player and that I make sure other intensive tasks aren't running at the same time. Still I continued to write them, not letting them shuffle me off. I finally talked to this Macromedia Support person who was finally helpful, and honest, although not in a place to directly effect the performance of the player within the company.
In short, he suggested that as many people as possible fill out the form below and request more resources to be used for Mac Flash Player Development. (Cite the incredibly poor performance.) Unless people do this, there will be no change and we will continue to have flash performance on a mac ingnored while Flash becomes more and more in widespread use across the internet.
I'm requesting you fill out this form
<a href="http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/" target="_blank">http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/</a>
and sign this petition
<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html" target="_blank">http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html</a>
If you are only going to do one or the other, fill out the form. But it would really help if you did both.
Below is my most recent conversations with Blake, the Macromedia rep. His most recent response is listed first, so that the e-mails are in reverse order.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">
Hi Robert,
Again, thanks for your feedback. Like I said, I forwarded that URL to our developers. As usual, they have their hands full with just the performance of the Flash Player on Windows, especially version 6. Anytime there's a new version of software, there are going to be bugs. And you're right. Mac OS X is more stable because it runs on a UNIX kernel. I think that right now the best course of action to take is to have everybody who signed on that page to fill out this form and request that more resources be used for Mac Flash Player development: <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/" target="_blank">http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/</a>
The more customers who write in, the more our engineering team will listen.
Regards,
Blake Hutchinson
Macromedia Customer Care
--- Original Message ---
From: "M. Robert Spryn"
Received: 06-21-2002 8:28 PM CST
To: Blake Hutchinson
Subject: Re: Macromedia Customer Care
Yes I have tried that. It helps up the performance a little bit, but it
still lags for the most part. I just have trouble understanding how
flash can perform so well on very antiquated PC's, but can't even match
that on today's fastest macs. (Don't dare expect good performance on a
G3.) Before OS X, I figured that it might have to do with the lousy
underlaying system architecture of OS 9. But now that we have OS X,
which is designed ground up for performance and has incredibly powerful
multimedia layers built in, I am stunned that Flash still can't perform
well. My only conclusion is that it has to be based on the small amount
of resources put in to its development at Macromedia. Now I really love
Macromedia's products, and will continue to support the company, but it
really needs to optimize the code and performance of the flash player or
something. The only reason there aren't more signatures on that petition
is nobody knows its there.
Thanks for not disregarding my e-mails. I realize this may be
aggravating or annoying since it isn't your fault or really
responsibility.
~Robert
On Friday, June 21, 2002, at 08:21 PM, Blake Hutchinson wrote:
Hi Robert,
Thanks for your feedback. I was looking at the signatures and saw this
post (148): "All OS X users should update to 10.1.5 which includes the
latest Macromedia Flash Player 6. This version in many cases has been
seen to outperform the PC version." Has that been tried yet? I will
forward that URL to the Flash Player engineering team. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Blake Hutchinson
Macromedia Customer Care
--- Original Message ---
From: "M. Robert Spryn"
Received: 06-19-2002 2:23 PM CST
To: Blake Hutchinson
Subject: Re: Macromedia Customer Care
I am using a carbonized version. I am a power user, and an advanced
multimedia artist.
I am complaining that for whatever reason, the even the most up to date
flash player (r29) on mac OS X (most up to date version,) has terrible
performance in compared to Flash performance on the PC. This is not an
issue that is only present on my computer, it is present on all of the
macs I have access to (even brand spanking new ones,) and is something
that many mac users have complained about.
Please refer to this petition
<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html" target="_blank">http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html</a>
~Robert
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Viva la Mac
<small>[ 07-02-2002, 04:57 PM: Message edited by: sprynmr ]</small>
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