Articles

So there I was, struggling for an idea for a column, and editor Stephen Nathans-Kelly mentioned that there was growing interest in distributing HD wedding videos to clients over the internet. Fortunately, this dovetailed well with some research that I recently performed, so here we are. If you’re considering distributing some or all of your wedding or event-related content over …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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 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 …

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 …

Google recently open-sourced the VP8 codec for video on the web (for the key facts on this development, see Tim Siglin’s latest Streamline column). Should you care? Not so much, I’d say; Google’s recent launch of VP8 reminded me of a couple of theories that I hold dear, one current, one from long ago. The current one is that past performance …

In the first edition of this month’s Affordable HD enewsletter, we keep the focus on the Apple Mac Pro, specifically analyzing the optimal memory configurations for editing and encoding with Apple Final Cut Studio, Adobe Creative Suite 4, and Telestream Episode Engine. I looked at several scenarios. Figure 1. The Apple Mac Pro’s memory tray. First, I tested performance at …