Mobile phones and other handheld communications devices could be better able to support video via a new release of Adobe’s Flash Lite player.

At the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona today, Adobe said it will build in support for its FLV video format to a new release of the software. Flash Lite 3, scheduled for distribution to handset makers in the first half of this year, will use similar functionality as its desktop sibling to put video on handhelds using Symbian, Microsoft and other software platforms. Commercial products with the software should be available late this year and Flash mobile software is already installed on 200 million devices, according to Adobe.

The move could boost options for firms distributing video over the internet. Television programmes, such as Lost and Desperate Housewives, are already available online, using Adobe’s FLV video format. Social-networking sites, such as MySpace and YouTube, also tap the file format that supports streaming, downloads and other ways to view content.

The move could also boost mobile marketing, encouraging more firms to use video in campaigns, or to broadcast speeches, earnings reports and other information.

“Most people will not shell out for video at the current rates but if flat-rate pricing comes to data, video becomes interesting and there are growing levels of Flash support on mobile phones,” said James Enck, European telecom analyst at Daiwa Securities.

Developers said they hoped Adobe would support up-to-date versions of Flash, Flex and other tools in Flash Lite 3 in order to reduce time to market.

“This gives the ability to stream full video whereas it’s almost impossible to stream video on a mobile across multiple handsets at the moment,” said Gareth Evans, technology director at mobile marketing firm Pocket Marketing.

“If the Flash Media Server could take care of that, life would be a lot easi er.”
Although the progress of Flash Lite will be helped by the ubiquity of Flash on the web, some critics have noted that it is not an open standard and requires Adobe developer tools to create content. That situation has led to some support for the WICD Mobile open standard that is “primarily designed to enable rich multimedia content on mobile handset devices”.