Articles

alt

Seedtag: Harnessing AI for Contextual Audience Targeting

Cookies are gone from Safari and Firefox, and on their way out in Chrome. This leaves many advertisers searching for alternative ways to effectively target high-value prospects. One of the most promising solutions is contextual audience targeting, and leading that charge is Seedtag, an advertising platform using AI to match ads with relevant content. Recently, I spoke with Brian Danzis, …

Read More »

Why That Amazon Product Follows You Everywhere: A Look at Behavioral Tracking

We’ve all experienced it—you check out a product on Amazon, and before you know it, the next ten websites you visit are showing ads for that same product. It just happened to me (again) when I was looking at a supplement called Qualia Senolytic on Amazon in Google Chrome. Later that day, while browsing the Washington Post, I saw an …

Read More »

How GPAC Technology is Shaping the Future of Streaming: Key Insights from Fred Dawson

In a recent interview available on YouTube, Jan Ozer sat down with Fred Dawson, an industry journalist and principal at Dawson Communications, to discuss his whitepaper for Motion Spell titled “GPAC: Ultra Media Technology Breaks Barriers to Next Gen Streaming.” Released in conjunction with GPAC’s 21st anniversary, the whitepaper illuminates how GPAC UltraMedia technology is setting new benchmarks for cost …

Read More »

The Reality of Codec Adoption in Six Pictures

Most people reading this post want new codecs to succeed as soon as possible, and I do as well. But whenever I think about codec adoption, six pictures come to mind. Overview The first was the foundational adoption timeline released by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) with the launch of AV1 in April 2018 (see above). Essentially, this posited …

Read More »

Video Ad Standards: VAST, VMAP, VPAID, and Beyond

VAST Serving process

The VAST, VMAP, and VPAID video ad standards ensure smooth ad delivery, proper tracking, and seamless integration across platforms in digital video advertising, as well as interactive advertising. This article provides a brief overview of what these standards are and how they work together. Section I: Ad Serving Standards 1.  Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) VAST is the standard format …

Read More »

Exploring JPEG AI with Dr. Elena Alshina

I recently had the privilege of chatting with Dr. Elena Alshina about JPEG AI; the video is below. Dr. Alshina is a prominent figure in the field, serving as the Audio Visual Lab Director and Director of the Media Codec and Standardization Lab at Huawei. She also plays a leading role in various international standardization projects, including for JPEG AI. …

Read More »

Simplify Your Workflow: Command-Line Variables in FFmpeg Batch Files

Creating batch files with variables is one of the more efficient ways to run FFmpeg. However, most producers build their batch files with variables inserted directly into the batch file, which means that you have to customize each batch file for different source files or encoding parameters. This is particularly inefficient when you’re encoding multiple files to different encoding parameters; …

Read More »

Navigating Rate Shaping and Zero Rating: Key Takeaways from Qwilt’s Findings

Many streaming publishers focus on the top rung of their encoding ladders and let the rest fall where they may. Recently released survey findings from Qwilt indicate that publishers serving a high percentage of mobile viewers should also focus on the middle rungs, as zero rating and rate-shaping make these the most highly viewed rungs on some mobile networks. The …

Read More »

Protected: LinkedIn Live: How to Nail for Your First Event

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Read More »

SMNYC 2024: Streaming Learning Center’s Jan Ozer Talks AI, Codecs, and Patent Pools

At Streaming Media NYC 2024, Tim Siglin interviewed me (Jan Ozer) about how the Streaming Learning Center has expanded into a platform offering courses on streaming-related topics to help technical people in the industry become familiar with terms, technologies, best practices, and tools. He also talks about machine learning, the shift towards Neural Programming Units (NPUs), and the legal and …

Read More »