Well it had to happen. With Microsoft pushing Silverlight on the basis of its superior video handling, Adobe had to respond. And rather than waiting for the next release of the CS apps it's updated the existing Flash Player 9 ...

Flash video goes high-def - Great news from the Flash team: the latest version of the Flash Player (available now in beta form) will support the H.264 video codec, paving the way for hardware-accelerated, full-screen high-definition movies on the Web.  Adobe platform evangelist Ryan Stewart hits the highlights: Does the addition of H.264 mean Flash Player will support HD? Yes, Flash Player supports 480p, 720p and 1080p content encoded with either On2 or H.264. Performance will vary depending on the capabilities and configuration of your machine. In general a 2.0 GHz Mac or a 3GHz PC, with one or more processors, will deliver an optimum experience

Incidentally the new player is still a pre-release Labs-only version so if you want to take a look at it you'll have to uninstall your current version of the Flash Player.