Category: General

The war on H.264 is over.

The war on H.264 is over: “We lost,” says Mozilla at Apple Insider

Thank Goodness, sanity finally prevails! In fact Mozilla’s previous approach – holding out for Ogg or WebM codecs – had the unfortunate side effect of driving even more people to the very closed Flash for distribution of H.264 in FireFox. Exactly the opposite of what the Mozilla folk wanted.

I’ve long said that H.264 is “one codec to rule them all” (because it scales so well) and it’s about time Mozilla realized that the world really only wants one codec. Well, really users just don’t want to care about codecs at all!

Distribution Item of Interest

Amazon takes the lead in TV Streaming?

Post author By Philip
Post date March 14, 2012

Amazon takes the lead in TV Streaming? http://t.co/EgmogLR8

Interesting statistic that Amazon Prime now has over 17,000 shows (movies and TV) with the addition of more titles from Discovery’s networks.

Amazon also notes that there are now over 17,000 titles now available for streaming, and more than 120,000 available for rent or purchase through Amazon Instant Video. Last month, when Amazonsigned a similar deal with Viacom, the number of streaming titles was brought up to 15,000, so this is a notable boost in content. For what itâ€™s worth, in December,Â the count was 13,000. If Amazon keeps up this pace, Amazon Instant will look a lot different by the end of 2012.

I think it’s time to sign up for Amazon Prime (finally).

Item of Interest Metadata The Technology of Production

Episode 42: Toys and Trips

Post author By Philip
Post date February 27, 2012

Episode 42: Toys and Trips http://t.co/HvzPz3yH A new episode of The Terence and Philip Show.

Terry has been deciding what equipment to buy, while Philip has some very specific technology needs for the upcomingÂ Solar OdysseyÂ project. Naturally the MacPro’s future features in the discussion. Terry’s video monitoring solution has been found but he’s still looking for audio monitoring tools, without it being too expensive or too cheap.

Discussion continues about the relative future of iOS and OS X (recorded before the announcement of Mountain Lion and Final Cut Pro X 1.0.3) and applications that might run on them.

Philip discusses the technology needs for theÂ Solar OdysseyÂ project: producing a reality TV show about the journey on the solar powered vessel Ra, under solar power. All equipment needs to run off 12v. During the production new technologies will be developed (as PhilipÂ discussed on his blog). Philip also discusses the types of software solutions they will be developing during the project.

Episode 42: Toys and TripsÂ http://t.co/HvzPz3yH

Item of Interest New Media The Business of Production

20th Century Fox joins rush to produce made-for-the-web shows

Post author By Philip
Post date February 23, 2012

20th Century Fox joins rush to produce made-for-the-Web shows http://t.co/frqh0NEi We’ll see more of this.

20th Century Fox’s small Fox Digital Entertainment produces this web-only series, but we see all sorts of money being invested in programming destined to stay outside the traditional distribution channels.

The series brings feature film production values to the Internet, a medium that a few years ago was dominated by grainy user-generated videos of skateboarding dogs and kids singing karaoke.

The series’ release underscores two of the biggest trends in media: a rush by established companies, includingÂ Sony Pictures,Â Netflix, Hulu and now Fox, to produce high-quality video for the Internet, and major advertisers’ demand for Hollywood-produced Internet content to promote products to young consumers who are more likely to be tethered to their laptops, tablets and smartphones than the television set.

Item of Interest The Business of Production

Episode 41: The fallout from Bunim Murray’s NLE choice.

Post author By Philip
Post date February 9, 2012

Episode 41: The fallout from Bunim Murray’s NLE choice http://t.co/df0Yr4Am A new Terence and Philip Show

Starting with the decision to go to Media Composer at Bunim Murray, Terence and Philip discuss the state of NLEs today and the business behind them. Its a long show and it covers a lot.

Not surprisingly, Terry and I agree that Media Composer was Bunim Murray’s best choice, but from there…

Item of Interest The Business of Production

Canadian musician outsources Indie Video to Bangalore

Post author By Philip
Post date February 4, 2012
1 Comment on Canadian musician outsources Indie Video to Bangalore

Canadian musician outsources his indie video to Bangalore, beauty ensues http://t.co/CJroi0xH

In a recent Terence and Philip Show we wondered whether outsourcing or automation would kill us first.Â Now we have an example of a music video being completely outsourced, with apparently great results.

Distribution Item of Interest

The Entertainment Industry Is Large and Growing… Not Shrinking.

Post author By Philip
Post date January 30, 2012

The Entertainment Industry Is Large & Growing… Not Shrinking http://t.co/mTpfHe2C

Actually this is no surprise. The traditional players – RIAA and MPAA – keep complaining about how their “industry” is shrinking, but in fact:

Distribution Item of Interest

How Copyright Industries Con Congress

Post author By Philip
Post date January 20, 2012

How Copyright Industries Con Congress http://t.co/5c9Ye2Yq

I’ve long said that there is no credible support for the ridiculous figures of “loss” to the US economy either in dollars or jobs. Even the US Government Accountability Office says there is no credible support for any of the ridiculous figures of loss promulgated by the MPAA and RIAA. And yet, the numbers are repeated by politicians and the mainstream media to “prove” that “piracy” is a problem “we can all agree on”.

No we do not “all agree”.

Distribution Item of Interest

The President’s challenge (on SOPA)

Post author By Philip
Post date January 16, 2012

The President’s challenge http://t.co/g4LQL9SsÂ was to the tech community to “solve” the “piracy problem” in the White House’s rejection of the current form of SOPA.

But it misses the point and Nat Torkington nailed it brilliantly. I’d post the whole thing but that would not be right. It’s short, go read it.

Item of Interest The Business of Production

Changing Viewing Habits the Key to Winning the Streaming Video War.

Post author By Philip
Post date January 15, 2012
2 Comments on Changing Viewing Habits the Key to Winning the Streaming Video War.

Changing Viewing Habits the Key to Winning the Streaming Video War http://t.co/IDLK7vDg

My first thought when reading that headline was “well, d’oh”, because it seemed like an oversimplification of the scale of the problem. Sure, if everyone switched over to streaming video for their media consumption, then we’d be in a different position. Trouble is, people generally are watching more television than ever, via more traditional channels than internet delivered streaming content.