Adobe announced earlier today that a public beta version of the update to Adobe Flash Player 9 software, code-named Moviestar, will include H.264 and HE-AAC functionality.

The update will be available later today as a free download from Adobe Labs at labs.adobe.com. The final release is expected to be available via update in the fall.

Demonstrations of Adobe Flash® Media Server and Adobe Flash Media Encoder supporting the new codecs will be held during the IBC 2007 at the RAI Exhibition and Congress Center in Amsterdam, September 7- 11 (Stand 7.721) and again at the Adobe MAX conference in Chicago, which begins September 30th.

H.264 encoding is already available in Adobe Premiere® Pro and Adobe After Effects® software. H.264 playback now also enabled in Adobe Flash Player will be supported by the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and applications developed with Adobe AIR™ software, including Adobe Media Player™.

Hopefully this means that watching web TV will be even more fun as both sound and picture will be of the highest quality.