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Jan Ozer

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I help companies train new technical hires in streaming media-related positions; I also help companies optimize their codec selections and encoding stacks and evaluate new encoders and codecs. I am a contributing editor to Streaming Media Magazine, writing about codecs and encoding tools. I have written multiple authoritative books on video encoding, including Video Encoding by the Numbers: Eliminate the Guesswork from your Streaming Video (https://amzn.to/3kV6R1j) and Learn to Produce Video with FFmpeg: In Thirty Minutes or Less (https://amzn.to/3ZJih7e). I have multiple courses relating to streaming media production, all available at https://bit.ly/slc_courses. I currently work as www.netint.com as a Senior Director in Marketing.

H.264 Licensing and the X.264 codec

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, …

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The Moving Picture: A Tale of Three iPads

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 …

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Shooting with the Canon ESO 7D

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 …

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Streaming Production and Flash Delivery Workshop in Manhattan on March 23, 2010

Lisa Larson-Kelly and Jan Ozer will be hosting the Streaming Production and Flash Delivery Workshop on March 23, 2010, at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. The workshop will feature two tracks, Streaming Production and Flash Delivery, each comprised of two ½ day courses. The workshop courses detail the complete streaming production and delivery workflow, from set …

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MPEG-LA H.264 Royalty Policy for Free Internet Video – FREE!

MPEG LA’s AVC License Will Continue Not to Charge Royalties for Internet Video that is Free to End Users (DENVER, CO, US – 2 February 2010) – MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge

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Interview with MPEG-LA’s CEO re: H.264 Royalties

I just got off the phone with MPEG LA President and CEO Larry Horn regarding MPEG-LA’s announcement that the AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for free Internet video through December 31, 2016. Here are the details of the Q&A. Ozer: You made a lot of folks happy today, Larry, congratulations. Horn: Thanks. We’ve been getting …

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Vimeo, YouTube or Both?

A continuing series of questions from an ‘Net acquaintance on whether to post on YouTube or Vimeo.  Question: Incidentally, I heard that Vimeo encoded 720p at higher bitrates than YouTube (or that it had more bandwidth to serve it, or both… can’t remember!).  Do you prefer to use YouTube @ 720p for other reasons? Answer: I test with YouTube because …

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Optimizing upload quality to YouTube

Got a question from an acquaintance on the best strategy for uploading files to YouTube, and I thought it might have broader interest, so here’s the Q & A. Question: I was wondering, since YouTube doesn’t appear to be using B-Frames in its encoding, is there any reason to send files to YouTube that have been encoded with B-Frames?  Ie …

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Streaming Producton – Improving Video Quality – the Video

This is a video from a session at Streaming Media West. In addition to the production/pre-processing and encoding tips, it’s a unique opportunity to see me – Jan Ozer – as a blonde, which I was for roughly 6 weeks last year (a Halloween thing). Here’s the agenda for the video to give you a rough idea of what I …

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YouTube’s “New” HD Formats

Last Friday, I produced a concert for old time band Allegheny Blue to test out the NewTek TriCaster TCXD300.  I uploaded a 720p file to YouTube to present to the band, and when I went to view the file, I noticed that the Google subsidiary had subtly changed the playback interface. Specifically, as you can see on the bottom right …

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