Adobe Cocomo RTMFP enables “Skype” without installation

Yesterday, the blog of the Adobe Cocomo team announced a limited service for RTMFP. The entry is very informative and straight; so go read it! RTMFP stands for Real-Time Media Flow Protocol and is well explained in these FAQ. From an end user perspective, RTMFP seems to be as relevant as for example the move in imaging from CCD-sensors to CMOS-sensors: Both technologies can deliver great result, but with CMOS it gets much easier over the years and it is also much cheaper.

Hopes are, that RTMPF can lower costs of high bandwidth audio and video conversations mainly between two users while featuring a higher quality than a server based communication. The only party-stopper might be restrictive firewall rules. In fact, if I were an IT administrator I would block all those outgoing connections.

To start a connection between two users, you need something like a dating service. Adobe Stratus does this job exclusively. Once you know each other, the service is only loosely involved with your interaction.

What’s missing at first glance is the ability to store those streams. I think it is the same problem as with direct communication to Cocomo. You can persist objects but no streams. While it’s fine to start with a proprietary protocol, I hope Adobe releases the specs as soon as possible. I hope to see RTMFP soon in Wowza and Red5.