Comparison of Video Performance: Microsoft (WMV) , Apple (QT) and Adobe (FLV)

I've had a bad attitude about Flash (Adobe) performance, especially because it doesn't seem to be supported by 64-bit browsers. I've used WMV (Microsoft) as my default video player because I have a windows machine, but I do play games  that use Quicktime (Apple) and Flash (Adobe) so have some experience with all three video players.

This ZD blogpost tests these three players on three machines:

• Thinkpad X200, a newer Windows machine
• MacBook Pro 13, a newer Mac
• Thinkpad T60, an older Windows machine

Here's an excerpt of the results
Average usage rate for Firefox.

Older Thinkpads and MacBooks

Results are fairly close. For newer machines (chart on right), Wave wins by having the lowest percentage CPU usage while Quicktime edges ahead of Wave in remaining battery by 2%. For older machines (chart above), Flash wins in both categories. Quicktime couldn't finish playing the test movie before its battery ran out. 

Adobe has improved Flash a great deal on the Windows platform rendering invalid most of the arguments against it.

The ZD blogpost has good comments on how the various players do or do not support hardware acceleration and the authoring companies' reasons. Might be too geeky for my readers.