Adobe takes the wraps off of Philo, brands it Adobe Media Player

Adobe is making it official tonight by announcing the Adobe Media Player, an IPTV solution that will be deployed as an Apollo application and look to take on competitors like Joost and possibly even some of the channels on sites like YouTube and Brightcove.

The new product is part of a continuing trend by Adobe to provide services as well as software, and this may be their most ambitious project yet. It was born out of the Kiwi Project and combines media RSS feeds with powerful Flash Video. The product allows content providers to create branded channels using the Media RSS format and then make those consumable by Adobe Media Player users.

Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee has more info. The big news is that the Adobe Media Player supports DRM. I asked whether or not this would carry over into the "stock" Flash Player. Right now, the answer is no, but clearly they are thinking about ways to implement this on a wider scale. It also shows how, with Apollo, you can add functionality to applications.