If you’re shooting in 24p, you should deliver your projects in 24p. This sounds obvious and simple, but it can get surprisingly complex depending upon your choice of encoding and authoring tool. I just spent 2 weeks comparing MPEG-2 encoders, and I saw a surprising difference in quality and ability to deliver 24p footage that Apple’s DVD Studio Pro could …

Today, Adobe announced the immediate availability of Flash Media Server 4. My buddy Tim Siglin did a wonderful job reviewing the new features in this article at StreamingMedia.com, or you can read the press release here.  Here’s a partial list of new features: – HTTP based Dynamic Streaming – Peer to Peer delivery – IP Multicast support The second and …

I was preparing for a webinar last week and scanned 46 websites to see how many used HTML5 as the primary playback option for video. This was a mix of media sites (14), business to consumer sites (22) and business to business sites (10). The answer was 1 – Wikipedia – with YouTube offering HTML5 as an alternative to Flash. …

If you’re looking for the highest quality H.264 output, and encode on the Apple platform, you should try the x264Encoder encoder, which you can download here. This article contains comparison images that accompany my comparison review for Digital Content Producer (link to come). This review debuts a new streaming test video comprised of clips from stock footage company Artbeats and …

You’ve got an H.264-based MOV file that you want to use for Flash production, but it won’t load into Flash or Flash Catalyst. Can you simply change the extension from MOV to F4V? If you’re encoding the file, should you choose None, Fast Start or Fast Start – Compressed Header when producing for progressive download. Read on for the answers …

This article compares H.264 to WebM, Google’s implementation of the VP8 codec, using three variables (encoding time, compressed quality, and CPU requirements) for playback on three personal computers. Here’s the CliffsNotes version of the results: Using Sorenson Squeeze to produce both H.264 and WebM, the latter definitely took longer, but there are techniques that you can use to reduce the …

H.264 is the most widely used codec today, whether for streaming via Flash or Silverlight or for the Apple iPod, iPhone, and iPad product lines. If you’ve worked with H.264 before, the format is old hat for you. But if you’re cutting over from VP6 or Windows Media or expanding distribution to H.264-compatible devices, you’re faced with a learning curve. …

This is a story I’ve been following for awhile. By way of background, MPEG-LA represents the H.264 patent holders and is charged with administering all licenses and collecting all royalties, which are paid by companies who build H.264 encoders, players and, in some instances, content. In the past, MPEG-LA hasn’t charged royalties for content delivered free over the internet, though …

I haven’t followed the video white paper market at all, but according to a newsletter from Accela Communications, usage is booming. Here’s a blurb. “The rate of adoption for video white papers is definitely increasing, as evidenced in this collection of articles and research. The growth may be largely driven by the ability to engage viewers more effectively than with textual papers, but …

WebM/VP8 is Google’s recent entry into the codec market. Here’s a roughly chronological list of resources about the codec/technology. If you see any prominent articles that I’m missing, please let me know. Webm – an open web media project – Google site for WebM. The Moving Picture: Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Success – (8/2/2010) – EventDV, by …