Shockwave
| Adobe Shockwave | |
|---|---|
| Basic data
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| developer | Adobe Inc. |
| Current version |
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| operating system |
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| category | File format for multimedia content |
| License | proprietary |
| shockwave-end-of-life-faq | |
Adobe Shockwave , formerly Macromedia Shockwave, is a file format that is used in interactive or multimedia applications. Associated applications are created using the Adobe Director authoring system. The .dcr files generated by Director can be run using Adobe Shockwave Player on the web or on the desktop.
Adobe ended support for Shockwave on April 9, 2019 , and the associated player is no longer available for download.
Excerpt from the answers in the final FAQs: "Quitting the Shockwave player for Windows is the last step in a multi-year process: Adobe Director, an authoring tool for Shockwave content, was discontinued on February 1st, 2017 and the Shockwave player for macOS was retired on March 1, 2017. "
features
Shockwave files are characterized by a high level of compression that can be influenced by the author . This is helpful in order to be able to make extensive content available over the Internet with a short loading time. In Shockwave files, for example, sounds can be encoded in MP3 format or in the MP3 version Shockwave Audio (.swa) and images can be compressed as JPEGs, among other things . Additional files and content can be loaded dynamically ( streaming ).
Demarcation
Shockwave files can contain Adobe Flash files and, depending on the version, play them back. Flash, on the other hand, cannot play Shockwave content.
history
Originally manufactured and distributed by Macromedia through 2006 . It contains interactive content created with Adobe Director and can be played in a web browser using the free Shockwave Player. Shockwave content could and can only be created with the Adobe Director development software.
For a long time, one advantage of Shockwave over Flash was the hardware acceleration of 3D content, which enables detailed models to be calculated in real time . Since the end of 2011, however, Flash has also offered hardware support for 3D elements (“Stage 3D”).
Before ActionScript was integrated into Adobe Flash, Shockwave was the only way to offer interactive content, since Flash was initially designed only for animation with simple control functions.
Availability of the associated player
The current version 12 of the Shockwave Player for Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 as well as OS X 10.7 and 10.8 could be downloaded free of charge from Adobe and played in Internet Explorer and Firefox (Windows) or Safari (OS X). Other browsers or newer Windows or OS X or macOS versions are not officially supported. In contrast to Flash, there is no plug-in for Linux available. For a long time there was no plug-in available for Apple computers with Intel processors, so that all current Apple computers were no longer directly supported from mid-2006. However, since March 2008 (version 11), Intel Macs are supported.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Adobe Director retired on February 1, 2017. In: adobe.com. Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
- ↑ Adobe Shockwave Player. Deskmodder.de, March 26, 2019, accessed on March 27, 2019 .
- ↑ a b End of Life for Adobe Shockwave. Adobe Inc. , February 25, 2019, accessed December 14, 2019 .
- ↑ System requirements for Adobe Director 12. In: adobe.com. Retrieved February 22, 2017 .
- ↑ a b System Requirements for Adobe Shockwave Player. In: adobe.com. Retrieved February 22, 2017 .