This update to Flash CS3 supports Adobe Flash Player Update 3 and later, which provides several enhancements and new features. In addition, the FLVPlayback component has been updated to take advantage of the new features in Flash Player.

For a summary article of what's new, see www.adobe.com/go/player9_update_whats_new_en. For specific feature information, see the following topics:

• Updated FLVPlayback Component
• H.264 Codec Support
• Hardware Scaling
• New Full-screen APIs
• Security Changes
• IPv6 Support
• ExternalInterface Updates
• Mipmap Support

Updated FLVPlayback Component

The FLVPlayback component has been updated to support the H.264 codec, for both ActionScript 2.0 and ActionScript 3.0 versions.

The FLVPlayback component supports the following ActionScript 3.0 APIs to support hardware-accelerated scaling for full-screen video:

• FLVPlayback.skinScaleMaximum: This property specifies the largest multiple value that FLVPlayback uses to scale up its skin when Flash Player enters full-screen mode.
• FLVPlayback.enterFullScreenDisplayState: Sets the FLVPlayback video player to full screen.

Also, two new APIs support custom NetStream client functionality:

• VideoPlayer.netStreamClientClass: Registers a custom class for the NetStream's client property.
• VideoError.NETSTREAM_CLIENT_CLASS_UNSET: An error that occurs when the VideoPlayer.netStatusClientClass static property is set to an invalid value.

For more information, see the FLVPlayback component in the ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference. Also see the FLVPlayback Quick Start at www.adobe.com/go/flvplayback_en.

H.264 Codec Support

Flash Player's FLV file format supports the latest industry-standard H.264 codec for video playback. H.264 is part of the MPEG-4 standard (MPEG-4 Part 10) and delivers superior video quality at very low data rates across a spectrum of applications. For related information, see the article at www.adobe.com/go/hardware_scaling_en.

Hardware Scaling

Flash Player now supports hardware-accelerated scaling, which uses the video or graphics card on your computer to display images and video in full-screen mode more clearly and quickly than Flash Player can on its own. The new API Stage.fullScreenSourceRect supports this feature. For more information, see the Stage.fullScreenSourceRect entry in the ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference. Also see the article at www.adobe.com/go/hardware_scaling_en.

New Full-screen APIs

The following new APIs (ActionScript 2.0 and 3.0) enhance full-screen playback:

• Stage.fullScreenWidth: Returns the width of the monitor that will be used when going to full-screen size, if that state is entered immediately.
• Stage.fullScreenHeight: Returns the height of the monitor that will be used when going to full-screen size, if that state is entered immediately.
• Stage.fullScreenSourceRect: Sets Flash Player to scale a specific region of the stage to full-screen mode.

For more information, see the Stage class in the ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference. Also see the article at www.adobe.com/go/fullscreen_en.

Security Changes

Flash Player implements revised policy file security, specifically for the checkPolicyFile property. For detailed information, see the security article for this Flash Player update at www.adobe.com/go/strict_policy_files. For a more detailed discussion of Flash Player Security concepts, see the Flash Player 9 Security white paper, at www.adobe.com/go/fp9_0_security. For general information about Adobe security, see the Security Topic Center at www.adobe.com/go/fp_security.

IPv6 Support

Flash Player supports IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6). IPv6 is a version of Internet Protocol that supports 128-bit addresses (an improvement on the earlier IPv4 protocol that supports 32-bit addresses).

ExternalInterface Updates

The ExternalInterface class has been updated to allow JavaScript to capture ActionScript errors. Also, the new API ExternalInterface.marshallExceptions indicates whether the external interface should attempt to pass ActionScript exceptions to the current browser and JavaScript exceptions to Flash Player. For more information, see the ExternalInterface class in the ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference. Also see the article at www.adobe.com/go/external_api_en.

Mipmap Support

Flash Player supports mipmapping, a technique to increase runtime rendering quality and performance of bitmap images that accompany a main texture. For more information, see the Video.smoothing entry in the ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference.