Video piece – Page 4 – Digital-Lifestyles

Envisional Report:: UK Biggest Downloaders of Copied TV Shows

UK users biggest pirate downloaders of TV shows We may not win many things these days, but when it comes to downloading pirated television, us Brits can puff out our chests and proudly declare, “we’re number one!”

The UK has emerged as the world’s biggest market for downloading pirated television, driven by tech-savvy fans unwilling to wait for popular U.S. shows such as ’24’ and ‘Desperate Housewives.’

Britain’s status as the big cheeses, head honchos and numero unos of TV downloading was revealed on Thursday in a study by UK technology consultancy Envisional.

The report could pose problems for UK broadcaster BSkyB, which is counting on high-profile US shows such as the new “24” series to draw new subscribers and entice advertisers to its satellite TV service.

According to Envisional’s report, devilish Brit downloaders account for nearly one fifth of TV downloads through file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent and eDonkey. In second and third place were Australia and the United States.

“Because there’s such a demand for US TV, the UK is going to be the main downloader,” said Envisional research consultant David Price.

UK users biggest pirate downloaders of TV shows The downloading frenzy has been driven by the consumer-annoying practice of releasing popular US TV shows such as “The West Wing,” “The Sopranos” and “Friends” months after they’ve been seen by our American cousins.

Broadband-connected UK fans keen to get the latest fix of these shows have – not surprisingly – elected to download the programs instead, with episodes of popular shows like ’24’ showing up on the popular file-trading network BitTorrent minutes after airing in the United States.

According to Envisional, a typical ’24’ episode is downloaded by about 100,000 users, with “The Simpsons,” “The OC” and a host of sci-fi programs including “Stargate SG-1” and “Enterprise” also being firm favourites with the UK pirates.

Other TV networks airing large amounts of US shows are monitoring the growing popularity of online TV downloads, although insiders feel that the level of technical knowledge required will keep it a minority interest.

For now.

Of course, in the US, Hollywood is already putting in the boot, with the Motion Picture Association of America dishing out lawsuits like they were going out of fashion.

Several sites providing links to movie and TV download sites have already been closed down, with LokiTorrent being a major scalp last week.

The broadcast industry’s failure to learn from online music sharing means that without a legitimate TV download service, consumers will continue to use file swapping sites while lawyers get fatter.

Envisional
Motion Picture Association of America
BSkyB

Digital Lifestyle extolled by Bill Gates at CES

In what has now become a tradition, Bill Gates opened the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas extolling the virtues of Digital Lifestyles (thanks for the plug Bill).

In a “casual” interview style, US TV chat show presenter, Conan O’Brien, lead Bill through the wonderful world of digital media.

O’Brien started his shtick with a great joke, “When Bill Gates walks onto this stage in a few minutes, the average net worth of each person in this room will be(come) $128 million.”. He then went on to be reasonably rude about most people in the industry. Of particular note was the “CES – The Movie” spoof casting, where well known characters in the industry were matched up with their acting doubles. It’s worth watching, just fire it up and jump to 11m 30s.

Bill Gates then came on stage to give Microsoft’s view of Digital Lifestyles.

Not surprisingly Microsoft pitches the PC as the centre of it, “The PC has a central role to play, (in that) it’s where it all comes together.”

As has been the case since the public started recognising the iPod and iTunes, Bill and his promotional videos took every opportunity to feature ‘other’ music players, while subtly highlighting the virtues of the Microsoft approach.

This covered “Windows Plays For Sure”, the certification process that labels all devices that are able to understand and adhere to Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme. Read as, music in Apple’s format can’t play on other devices except Apples.

For the trend spotters among you, Bill referred to this as a “rights management system”, dropping the Digital prefix.

He also pitched monthly subscription services where you have access to all of the music you desire – another thing that Apple iTunes doesn’t offer. He failed to mention that with most subscriptions services, the ability to play the music you’ve paid for access to, stops when the monthly subscriptions fees do.

Media Centre featured large with Gates announcing that PC manufacturers have sold 1.4 million Media Centre models worldwide so far.

Media Extenders, which enables households with networked homes to pull content from their Media Centres to rooms around the house were also brought up again. Dedicated boxes from companies like LG were mentioned as well as a software upgrade for Microsoft’s xBox to provide the same function. The fact that 6.3 million people had bought Halo 2, was also dropped into the conversation.

The LG example was of note. A dedicated DVR with DVD burner, it featured a cut-down version of the Media Center software that retained the familiar user interface (UI), while offering access to music and photo’s stored on the Media Centre PC. Not only that but content recorded on this dedicated device could be transferred to the Media Centre PC and in turn to a smartphone or Portable Media Centre (PMC).

To easily operate the Media Centre, the “simple, single remote control” was also touted, more than once. Microsoft have formed partnerships with Philips, NiveusMedia and Logitech to produce universal remote controls that work with Media Centre, as well as many other devices. All these remotes will feature a “signature” Green Start button. Bill had previously mentioned that some remote controls will have small colour screens on them, allowing video content to be shown on them.

New content partners also got a nod. Discovery will be creating “unique content” that fits on Media Center, with Yahoo and Fox Sports also getting a mention.

One key item was the launch of the Media Centre as a platform. Not just a means of accessing and playing back content, but of broadcasters creating interactive content specifically for it, that combines broadcast and IP delivered content using Online Spotlight. We feel this is the most important item to come out and will be covered in more detail in another piece shortly.

It’s also worth watching the video, if nothing else then to see Bill looking less than comfortable with the interview technique.

Bill Gates CES – Opening Speech

Mattel’s Juice Box Media Player for Kids

Mattel are launching their new Juice Box media player on 17th October. The cute little gadget is intended to introduce kids between the ages of 8 and 12 to the delights of digital media.

Since the Juice Box will play MP3s, photos and video clips delivered through proprietary Juiceware media cards that store nearly three hours of content, you too can introduce your offspring to the frustration of proprietary formats and DRM schemes before they even get to secondary school. The cards will cost about US$10 (€8.11) for two episodes of an animated series, up to US$25 (€20) for a feature, and the format used is based on a technology developed by 4Kids Entertainment.

Initially, Mattel will be offering content from BMG Music, Cartoon Network, WWE and the Learning Channel for the Juice Box. If you don’t want your audio and picture content to be locked into someone else’s DRM, kids can buy a separate “MP3 Starter Kit” which comes with a standard SD card so they can play MP3s and view pictures from their PCs. No video though – and the kit will cost and additional US$45 (€37).

The 11.5 x 8.5 x 1.5 inch device has a 3 inch LCD and will run for six hours on three AA batteries (also not included), and features a built in speaker plus headphone connector. So that the US$70 (€57) Juice Box doesn’t get scratched to bits whilst tumbling around in the bottom of a rucksack, it comes with a flip cover to protect the display.

€20 for a low resolution film on a card that you can’t watch anywhere else? And how well is Nintendo’s cartoon player for the GameBoy Advance doing anyway? And the Zvue? I think you can already see my point here.

Mattel’s press release

Buy them from Amazon US
JUICE BOX Personal Media Player (Blue)
JUICE BOX Personal Media Player (Red)

IBC News: O2 to Trial DVB-H Video to Mobile Phones

O2 and NTL have announced that they will be trialling a DVB-H mobile video service in Oxford, England next spring. That they have chosen DVB-H over the competing standards is good news for the platform’s supporters.

Nine transmitters will send sixteen channels of video to 500 O2 customers, with proposed content covering sport, music, news and ahem, soap operas. Those involved in the trial will be given phones from Sony and Nokia.

The trial is concerned with measuring consumer demand for video services, rather than being a purely technical pilot. Usage will be extensively tracked to see just what sort of service people might actually be interested in using.

The head of media business development at NTL’s Broadcast Division, Terry Howard, said: “This is a commercial trial to test the business case for a mobile TV service in the UK. We’ve performed extensive market research about consumer demand and viewing habits and it looks very positive, but these results need to be validated in a trial environment in conjunction with key players in the industry.”

O2 on the news

Bluetooth Video at IBC2004

Forbidden Technologies will be broadcasting IBC TV News footage to visitors’ mobile phones thanks to their new video Bluetooth technology.

Highlights of the previous day’s coverage taken by IBC’s camera teams will be broadcast directy to thousands of visitors via Bluetooth.

“The mobile sector offers tremendous brand and revenue opportunities for broadcasters and production houses by creating a highly targeted, direct channel for the delivery of content,” said John Holton, IBC Exhibition Chairman. “We’re delighted to be leading the way by working with Forbidden to offer visitors the very best view of IBC 2004 on their mobile phones.”

The service is based around two tools from Forbidden. The first, FORmobile delivers video along with a branded player via Bluetooth or GPRS WAP to compatible Symbian handsets. The second, FORscene, is a web-based editing tool alowing broadcasters to digitise, compress, edit and publish clips for delivery to mobiles.

“We receive the footage from the IBC news teams at around 10am each morning, and aim to mobilise the content for distribution within half an hour,” said Stephen Streater, CEO of Forbidden Technologies. “By compressing, editing and publishing video in such a short time frame, we not only provide mobile users with compelling, up-to-date news content, but are making use of an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of our unique portfolio to production houses and content owners.”

IBC 2004

Forbidden Technologies

Patrick Parodi, Mobile Entertainment Forum – The IBC Digital Lifestyles Interviews

This is the seventh in a series of eight articles with some of the people involved with the Digital Lifestyles conference day at IBC2004.

We talked to Patrick Parodi, Chair of the Mobile Entertainment Forum about what the MEF has set out to achieve and the future rolls our mobile phones might take on.

Patrick has a dozen years of experience in designing, planning, and launching wireless network services in more 20 markets world wide. In addition to his current role at Packet Video Networks, he has worked for Diveo, Skytel, Teleworx and TVAnswer in various business development and marketing positions.

Some of our readers may not have encountered you, or the Mobile Entertainment Forum. Could you give us some background on the MEF and your involvement?

The Mobile Entertainment Forum is a global trade association representing all participants in the mobile entertainment value chain.

It started out 4 years ago with a few technology providers for mobile games and messaging coming together, along with Booz Allen Hamilton, to consider the cross industry issues facing mobile entertainment. I’ve personally been involved with the Forum for 2 years, first as Board MemberVice Chair and recently as its Chairman.

The organization has grown to over 65 members from all segments of entertainment and communications. What united our members under the MEF banner is their committed to growing mobile media as a major component of their revenue, whether they are a technology company, a broadcaster, a record label or a mobile games company. The diversity of our membership reflects the diversity of the industry and points to the need for a Forum where views and opinions can be shared on how the industry can grow faster. Our objective is to bridge the gap between entertainment and communication through advocacy, education and the launch of specific MEF initiatives.

The emphasis is on growing mobile revenues responsibly. Companies join MEF in order to play a leading role in setting the right commercial parameters in this evolving new industry. The coming together of the traditional entertainment and mobile industries certainly creates a need to develop a common understanding of how this business is emerging such that sensible business models are adopted allowing all players to participate in creating end user value. MEF members are addressing vital issues such as the adoption of mobile digital rights management and the creation of mobile communities.

Both of these initiatives are led by members who have come together to share information and learning in order for others to understand how they can participate in the creation of this new business. We also believe it is very important to communicate this learning and the opportunities created by mobile entertainment to those new to the industry, in particular those in the traditional entertainment and media industries.

An example of how MEF has helped move the mobile entertainment business forward is the recent launch of the MEF’s UK ringtones chart, which measures, publicizes and legitimizes the development of this growing market. The Mobile Entertainment Forum is also looking to ensure that the right regulation gets adopted –one that provides sensible guidelines for protecting consumers whilst ensuring healthy revenues for all players. Hence, our Regulatory Committee has recently submitted comments to the EU’s e-Money Directive and how it applies to mobile.

“All boats float with the incoming tide.” We are at the early stage of a new industry called mobile entertainment. It is vital that all parts of the mobile entertainment business have a common voice and recommend ways to resolve core issues and help the market grow. This is what I believe the Forum is providing to its members. A common voice.

Tell me about PacketVideo Network Solutions?

To keep with the boat and tide analogy, PacketVideo Network Solutions (pvNS) provides software for the “boats” who want to enrich the mobile media experience with video and music. The company is owned by Alcatel, and was formerly a division of PacketVideo. With over 20 commercial launches worldwide, pvNS is recognized as the leading provider of software solutions centered around the pvServer to mange and distribute mobile video and audio services.

Right from day one the sole focus of pvNS has been the creation of products and services for mobilemedia.

PacketVideo Network Solutions has chosen to employ AAC as their mobile music format. Can you tell me what drew you to AAC?

Like any other technology company when it comes to formats we have to be agnostic. We can run bench tests and believe that one format is better than another, but if that format doesn’t make it onto devices then we shouldn’t be backing it. For mobile music it’s fair to say that AAC (and AAC+) is our preferred format simply because it provides the consumer with the best experience.

It also happens to be the format that has been adopted as part of the 3GPP standard and will find its way in more devices than any other format on the market. That being said, we’ll work with other formats too – whether proprietary or open.

Can you tell us a little about your IBC session this year? What are you hoping to cover?

I’m very honored since this year I’m actually participating in two panels at IBC.

The first is on mobile devices and networks (The business of handhelds – who will survive – Saturday 11 September at 14.00 – 15.30 hrs. Location: Room L) and the second is on the new business models surrounding the broadcast business (Future Business Models – Sunday 12 September. at 16.00 – 17.45 hrs Location: Forum). Both have extremely provocative titles and are chaired by great people (Bernard Pauchon of TDF, and Kate Bulkley who writes about this space).

My views on both topics will be very mobile user centric. Although there are many different networks (GPRS, 3G, DMB, WiFi, DVB-H etc…) and many different creators and owners of digital content, there is only one end user.

This end user wants personalized, real time, and localized content. If you look at the value of the ring tone business (roughly 2.5 Billion dollars in 2003) you realize that it is almost 10% of the value of the music industry! Now the question: Are people paying to listen to the music or to personalize their phones?

Clearly content is going mobile and content on a mobile is only “king” if it provides that added value which is created through personalization. Some are calling it conversational content…others communitainment.

The mobile phone is the most personal content receiver we have in our possession and there are now over a billion of them worldwide. This is just the beginning.

Broadcasters are catching on to mobile phones as a revenue stream and way to extend brands – will customers pay for content they might get free through the internet or television?
The simple answer is no. The way broadcasters are generating money on mobile is by using mobile networks as reply paths. The advent of reality TV and the ability for audience participation via SMS has blown away the level of interactivity expected by the iTV industry. Ask any mobile operator what the impact of Endemol has been on the mobile data business.

The question to ask now is, will the operator networks or even broadcast networks be able to deliver valuable content to mobile devices? The answer is yes, but not without a serious effort in understanding the new time and space dimensions created with the mobile. The value to the user is directly proportional to the contents ability to relate to the new dimensions of time and space being created.

Content will be valuable once it is wrapped into a service or application combining in real time, communication, personalization, and localization.

Think about how you feel when you grab your mouse to surf the web. Your attitude is “what can I get for free?”

When you connect with your mobile, you are conscious of the fact that each connection and each transaction results in money being spent. Therefore you are more disposed to pay for the right content. I am particularly curious to what happens with the overlay of location based services on mobile networks. This will result in “localized” content which also have a profound impact on end user value creation.

Do you see the mobile phone eventually replacing all of the devices we carry around with us from day to day – like our music players and wallets?
It’s tempting to say yes, but my answer is just a little more subtle. I think the phone will morph into a device that can carry out all these functions and more, but I don’t think that means it’ll replace all these other devices. I think it will certainly be our main portable electronic device and I think for those times that we want to carry one device we’ll choose the phone.

However there will be times that we’ll want to carry a specialist device that’s designed to do just one task insanely well.

A 5 Megapixel digital camera for instance. For a long flight I may still want a bespoke machine for watching films on a 15 cm portable screen, and there’ll probably be a bespoke music player that offers more functionality than a phone for a long time to come.

So it’ll be horses for courses – but the phone will be the no.1 portable electronic device. It is unique, addressable, and affordable.

Patrick is a panellist in the ‘Future Business Models‘ session between 16:00 and 17:45 at the IBC conference on Sunday, 12th September in Amsterdam. Register for IBC here

Packet Video Network Solutions

Curt Marvis, CinemaNow – the IBC Digital Lifestyles Interviews

We interviewed Curt Marvis, a key player in IP-based video delivery and CEO of CinemaNow.

CinemaNow have the distribution rights to the largest library of on-demand feature films available on the internet. CinemaNow’s distribution model is one of the most flexible in the industry: films are available with pay-per-view, download or subscription licenses.

The company’s library comprises content from more than 150 licensors, including 20th Century Fox, Disney, MGM, Miramax, Warner Brothers and Lions Gate Entertainment.

CinemaNow have not restricted themselves to films, however – their catalogue includes music concerts, shorts and television programmes.

CinemaNow’s technology platform is essential to their business, and so they have developed their own proprietary content distribution and DRM system: PatchBay. They’ve also turned PatchBay into a product, and has licensed the platform to other content distributors. PatchBay allows distributors to manage, track and syndicate content whilst enforcing DRM solutions and territorial restrictions. CinemaNow’s entire business is built around the Windows Media 9 platform, which has simplified their business model somewhat, whilst at the same time allowing them to take advantage of the sophisticated features built into Microsoft’s platform.

Curt Marvis has been CEO of CinemaNow since the company was created in July 1999, arriving there from 7th Level. He was also a founder of Powerhouse Entertainment, and in the 80s and early 90s was CEO of The Company, the Los Angeles production organisation.

Digital delivery of video has been slower to arrive than many industry players predicted in the mid-90s, but with the adoption of broadband and improvements to codecs and DRM systems, it looks like mainstream is around the corner. There are still many hurdles – broadband isn’t quite broadband enough, consumer rights over moving content to other devices is unclear at best, content can be lacklustre and customers are confused by the many competing codecs, DRM schemes and formats in the market.

We spoke to Curt about CinemaNow and his hope for the future of digital content delivery, and the advantages of Windows Media 9.

Some of the visitors to Digital Lifestyles might not know about Cinema Now. Can you give me some background on that for our readers?

CinemaNow has been around for five years. We started the company in mid-1999, which of course was during the dot.com hayday. We started the company then do to the same thing that we continue to do today, which is to offer movies and other video content on demand over IP Networks.

What do you think has kept Blockbuster out of the part of the market in the US for so long?

Blockbuster is actually a small investor in our company and I think Blockbuster feels that when they get into a new marketplace they look for a market which is very, very big which the IP on demand marketplace still is not.

I think their philosophy is that they will enter the marketplace at a moment in time when they feel there is a sufficient amount of revenue.

You have to keep in mind as well that Blockbuster do not own the rights to distribute content in this window yet, so they have to negotiate that through a studio.

They are sort of dabbling with it in the UK, but not in a very high profile way.

Yes, I know Steve Middleton and they have had that trial in Hull. So I’m familiar with that. They are actually doing more in the UK than they are in the US market.

Tell me a little bit about your IBC session. What sort of things are you going to be covering?

We have a sort of technology platform we call PatchBay. PatchBay is the sort of central nervous system of CinemaNow, and it’s a completely Windows based platform.

We deliver our movies exclusively in Windows Media format, but that’s not to say that couldn’t use other codecs or other players, but we chose that as our primary platform when we started the company.

We used the installed base for that choice as well as the specific functionality of the platform, for purposes of what we can do to add additional delivery and content.

Could you tell us a bit more about your Patch Bay product?

Patchbay is a versatile, user-friendly, API and tool for managing all facets of online content distribution. With Patchbay, you can manage six major tasks for successfully distributing content online including: Content Management and Distribution; Content Syndication; Rights Management; User Profiling and Ad Targeting; Pay-Per-View, Subscription and E-Commerce Management; and Comprehensive Reporting.

It’s a tested, real-world application currently being used to manage millions of streams per month over disparate networks. With Patchbay’s scalable infrastructure, CinemaNow maximizes its revenues while protecting and retaining control over its assets, even those syndicated to third-party websites.

Windows Media 9 it has been a terrific platform for delivering and viewing and protecting your content. What excites you most about it?

That is a big question. Is there something that Windows Media excites me?

The Windows Media Platform is directly compatible with the dominant operating systems and you know, EU concerns and other concerns notwithstanding we felt that having a player that was most used with the operating system it was running on was best. We also frankly think that beyond that specific issue the Windows Media Platform and Windows Media Player are the superior player and platforms for digital delivery. That is why we chose them.

Who is the typical Cinema Now subscriber? Who are you actually reaching?

We definitely have a male dominated audience – over 75% of our users are male. They tend to be slightly older than you might initially think. Our typical user is probably between 25 and 40 years of age. Generally speaking they have a higher than average income, higher than average education – you know that sort of thing. That is the kind of profile that we have in general, although it is changing all the time, as we have more and more of the mainstream business.

You have 455 films in your library at the moment. How many are you aiming for?

That’s what you’re seeing in the UK. We have territorial rights which protect our content from being viewed outside of the US for films that we do not have rights to – for example the collection of movies that you see in the UK is significantly inferior to what we offer in the US. In the US on our website right now we have almost 2000 films available. By the end of this year that will grow to probably close to 4000/5000.

In the UK, I am hopeful that we will be up well over 1000 films by the end of the year including the films from major studios.

How long do you think it is going to be before digital delivery becomes mainstream then?

Well, I think there are a number of factors that are sort of the driving part right now. One is the problem of availability; one is broadband penetration; one is hardware device availability and penetration in terms of everything from portable devices, media centre devices etc. etc.

I think there has got to be an alignment if you want to drive fast market adoption. When we started the company in 1999, we thought that by 2004 that time would have arrived. I can tell you now that is just the beginning and we will probably see this become a mass market over the course of the next two to four years – somewhere in that timeframe.

You mentioned that you don’t have the rights to distribute all of your films in all territories – what kind of problems are you facing in getting rights clearances for content in different markets?

No real problems, but rather an issue of needing to be set up in these countries with strong distribution partners before it is worthwhile to spend money acquiring local content and preparing it (encoding and storage) for distribution. Keep in mind that content is distributed on a territory by territory basis and with each version comes new contracts, payments and prepping.

Are you considering a global pricing model or will you be pricing the same content differently on a market by market basis?

We will try to keep it as consistent as we can, but we will definitely need to follow pricing schemes that are consistent with differences in the traditional distribution businesses.

Many content providers are getting excited about supplying content for mobile phones — when you do see serving media to mobiles becoming a mainstream business? Will there be a point when consumers will want to watch long media streams like films on their mobiles? Is there a maximum length that consumers will watch?

I think mobile distribution is really a business in the next few years for portable devices such as tablet PC’s, Portable Media Centers, etc. Cell phones for full length content seems a long ways away, if ever.

What of the content that is being delivered to people the films and content that they are buying has quite often incompatible DRM schemes behind it. What do you think is going to happen in that space over the next four years?

Windows Media has DRM that has been adopted by a lot of different people. I think there will be a shake-up in the market very shortly and one DRM system will be adopted by 95% of the content delivery industry.

What worries you about the future of digital delivery? What keeps you awake at night?

Well, I think, I sleep very well actually. I think the biggest concern is that people will jump into the marketplace prematurely – before there is a high quality user experience to be had, and that consumers will be turned off on the concept if it doesn’t work properly at first or it is not a compelling product offering.

I hope that companies recognise that this is still very much a virgin market, and that when it really begins to take off I think it’ll dwarf the size of what is happening in the DVD industry, and it’ll open up avenues for huge amounts of libraries, great content opportunities etc. I think you will see people consume more and more content and I think there will be plenty of room for a lot players to get into the business.

Curt is a panellist in the ‘Understanding the Range of Platforms – A Multitude of Destinations’ session between 14:00 and 15:30 at the IBC conference on Sunday, 12th September in Amsterdam. Register for IBC here

CinemaNow

H.264 Codec Adopted for Next-Gen HD DVDs

The DVD Forum has ratified the new H.264 Advanced Video Codec (AVC) for inclusion in the forthcoming High Definition DVD platform.

The H.264 codec, formerly known H.26L, was was developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group (responsible of course, for the various MPEG formats) and the International Telecommunication Union, and has now been ratified into the MPEG-4 codec. The codec enables a variety of video content to be compressed for transmission and decompressed for playback in a highly efficient way.

Apple has already made an announcement to the effect that H.264 will be included in a release of its QuickTime platform next year.

“Apple is firmly behind H.264 because it delivers superb quality digital video and is based on open standards that no single company controls,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing in a statement.

H.264 is intended to be used on a number of platforms, and as such covers a wide spectrum of bandwidth requirements – from HD television to mobile phones. The codec is highly efficient, and has been demonstrated playing back 1920×1080, 24fps HD movies at up to half the data rate of MPEG-2. Less data means room for more channels – or better audio and video.

Don’t expect HD playback performance on your new mobile phone – Apple’s test detailed above required a dual processor G5 to do the playback. The new codec will be more suited to digital television broadcasts to phones and mobile movies with a much lower resolution.

How H.254 works – and it’s not too technical, either

MPEG resources on the internet

Speedera Content Network Picks Up Flash Video

Speedera Networks, a content delivery provider connecting more than 1,000 carrier backbones in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific region has partnered with Macromedia to deliver video clips in Flash format.

Speedera manage the delivery of file downloads and media for companies that have no wish to host content themselves. Customers include Fox Broadcasting, AMD and NASA. No doubt Speedera were very busy this morning with everyone hitting the NASA site to see the transit of Venus.

Flash has come along way since the mid-90s when cropped-trousered Hoxtonites first used its sprite and vector-based tools to create annoying banner ads and awful games. Flash has matured to be an excellent development environment and has produced some truly great internet content. By incorporating a video engine based on Sorenson Media’s software, Macromedia are now pushing Flash in a direction that was never dreamed of when it first appeared. As en example, video conferencing application can be created in seconds by dragging objects to your work area, and can be highly customised with brand identity and further functionality.

Since there’s a Flash player on an estimated 90% of PCs out there, most users already have all that’s required to enjoy video embedded in a Flash object, as no further client software is required.

However, the reason that Flash video is not as prevalent as formats such as Windows Media is that Flash development tools are expensive, whilst Microsoft’s are free.

Speedera

Macromedia Flash

Windows Media 10 beta Announced Wednesday

Microsoft will be rolling out the beta programme for their Windows Media Player 10 application today, with the emphasis on portability and DRM.

One of WM10’s new features will be easy synchronisation of media libraries with portable devices – something that iPod users have enjoyed since iTunes was released. WM10 needs to be able to see portable devices as a disk drive in order to perform synchronisation, but many modern players behave like this when connected to a Windows machine.

For devices that run Windows Media Centre Portable OS, such as the Creative Lab’s offering detailed yesterday, Microsoft have developed the Media Transfer Protocol to automatically synchronise files between the two.

Synchronisation is not straightforward for Microsoft as many different manufacturers provide a range of disparate hardware – something that Apple, with two basic iPods, does not have to worry about.

WM10 will also feature the new Janus DRM technology, allowing subscription music sites like Napster to employ seamless licensing across devices.

Many of the new features of WM10 will of course be dormant until portable devices supporting them start to appear later in 2004.

Windows Media