Late last week, Google closed the On2 acquisition that they started in 2009, and now owns the VP4 – VP8 video codecs. At the time, there was much debate about Google’s intent, now most analysts assume that Google bought On2 to open source the codec and let it serve as the basis for the video tag in HTML5. For a …

Summary: This article is presented in reverse order, newest on top, oldest on the bottom. I’ve briefly summarized the goal and procedure, but you can read from the bottom up to get the background. Briefly, the goal of the exercise was to compare the quality of Ogg Theora with H.264 using two test files — one SD, the other HD …

I do a lot of production work and testing on my HP Z800 workstation. Though it’s got a 250 GB C: drive, with a 1 TB video drive where I store all projects and associated video, I started getting messages that I was running out of space on my C: drive. I couldn’t imagine why since I store all the …

Ever since the iPad announcement, the inter-relationships between HTML5, Flash, H.264 and Ogg Theora have been intriguing me, so I spent last week trying to figure it all out. The result is The Future of Web Video, Part 1; HTML5? Someday. Ogg? Probably not, over at the Digital Content Producer web site. It’s an article that’s bound to irritate lots …

Interesting line of questions on the Advanced Streaming List recently. One producer shared that he was encoding using the following parameters: 768kbps512×288H.264 Main Profile Level 3.1 Microsoft’s Ben Waggoner, author of Compression for Great Video and Audio, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of compression related matters, responded: “High Profile instead of Main Profile; decode complexity is the same, and you …

This is not an earthshaking post, but I thought I would share it anyway. I’ve never been a fan of Apple’s decision to use FireWire 800 adapters on their most recent lines of computers since it meant that I couldn’t connect my camcorders to them without an adapter. I’ve resisted purchasing a FireWire 800 to 400 adapter because I have …

Interesting post came from the StreamingMedia Advanced list today: Question:  Anyone have any advise on key frame placement in h264 flash? I felt like I should know the answer to this, so I pulled together the following: Answer: Interesting question. For single file streaming, make sure that keyframes at scene changes are enabled. In terms of interval, ESPN uses one …

Ever since MPEG-LA announced their policy of not charging royalties for H.264 video distributed free over the Internet, I’ve been getting a bunch of emails, so I thought I would share them. I’m not inviting more emails on this topic, by they way, unless you want to tell me something that you know (as in, you’re an intellectual property attorney, …

Apple’s recent iPad announcement had a strong impact on three groups: broadcasters, technology enthusiasts, and just about anyone concerned with the survival of the newspaper industry. Since discussions in these areas provide a great view of the iPad’s strengths and weaknesses, I thought that I would detail them here. The iPad is best likened to a large iPod touch; though …

I just spent about a month with the Canon EOS 7D, specifically to evaluate its HD video shooting capabilities. The results were very impressive, with amazing depth of field, and relatively low noise in low light situations. You can read my review here. Here’s a video I shot of my daughter Rosie, shopping online on my HP notebook computer. I’m …