Blogs

I’m pleased to announce my new video compression course on Udemy entitled Video Compression for Web, Disc and PC/TV/Console Playback. The course will help those new to compression get up to speed quickly, and will serve as a valuable resource for novice to intermediate users seeking to optimize their encoding quality and workflows. You can see a video describing the …

Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 2:00 – 2:30 EST As much as we try to avoid it, sometimes we have to shoot video in low light. To brighten the video, we have to boost gain, which inserts visible noise into the video, which looks bad and can lead to compression artifacts. In these instances, the best option is remove the noise …

MPEG LA is the licensing authority that manages the patent portfolios for MPEG-2 and H.264 patent groups. The organization has received some bad press lately from Steve Forbes, writing in Fox News, and Howard Williams, writing for TelecomTV. The common complaint seems to be that MPEG LA is charging royalties for old and expired patents, which, in the words of Williams, …

Author’s note:  The article has been updated with information about Valdor acquiring the Niagara and GoStream product lines. It’s no secret that ViewCast, one of the longest tenured veterans in the streaming media marketplace, has been under a lot of financial pressure lately, though their products have always been solid, at least for me. Last August, they formed a strategic …

An article I wrote for OnlineVideo.net on how to create video emails just posted. Here’s the intro, which describes what’s in the article.  As more companies add video to their marketing and communications efforts, it’s natural to want to include videos in emails, or at least the appearance of videos in emails. To do so, you have two options. First …

In a TV Technology article, Deborah D. McAdams reported that “YouTube is preparing to use Google’s own VP9 compression for 4K content otherwise known as “UltraHD.” McAdams was recounting Google’s presentation from Day 2 of the Hollywood Post Alliance, an informal gathering of technical glitterati from Hollywood. Interestingly, when Google’s Anil Kokaram showed slides comparing VP9 to H.264 and H.265, …

Here are three title-related tips you can use from within Premiere Pro. 1.  How to save a title style 2.  How to create a title template 3.  How to save a title as a separate file Premiere Pro Title Tips_1

My review of Wirecast 5 is up on Streaming Media Magazine. To make a long story short, if you’re a Wirecast user, you’re going to want to upgrade.  Here’s the intro, which sets the stage: Telestream has significantly improved usability with a redesigned interface, beneficially expanded the product’s input capabilities, and upgraded the product’s plumbing with features such as x264 …

In an uncharacteristically quiet release, Telestream launched Episode 6.4, a free upgrade that includes x264 encoding for all versions. This is essentially a price reduction of around $89 (B&H was still selling the x264 option when I wrote this post). Here’s a snippet from the Product Sheet: You can click over to the Release Notes, here. From my perspective, incorporating …

I recently tested a bunch of webcams and video cameras to find the optimal camera for single person webinars. I produced a webinar on the topic, which you can view here, and see the output from the various tested devices. I also wrote an article on the topic, which is now live on the Streaming Media Producer site. If you’re …