Blogs

My latest column at Streaming Media Magazine. Here’s the teaser: HTML5 video appeals to “tree-hugging, sandal-wearing standards lovers,” says Jan Ozer, and he’s sick of hearing about it. Here’s the lead: I was speaking recently with a new consulting client from the U.K. It was a typical job: The client was starting a video-centric instructional site and wanted help configuring his …

Or, to be precise, the reviewer, Sundiata Cowels, say that I “hit the ball out of the park” (which won’t fit in a headline). Here’s the opening paragraph: The passing of Hurricane Irene (and the resultant power loss for five days) gave me ample time to catch up on my reading (by candle light no less). Streaming Media guru Jan …

It’s free, of course. Here’s the description from the event: Live event streaming is one of those value-added functions that looks harder than it actually is. As such, event streaming represents a great opportunity to add a high profit-margin, easy-to-produce service that clients are more than willing to pay extra for. This seminar will introduce attendees to live event streaming. …

I don’t expect folks to come to this blog for career advice, but some lessons learned watching two of my kids avoid chores over their summer break fostered some thoughts worth sharing. I don’t know about your kids, but when it comes to mine and chores, the two who were home this summer will argue for 20 minutes to avoid …

Tuesday, October 4, 2:00 – 3:00 PM EST I know it’s late, but if you’re free, check out this seminar that I’m producing with the MCA-I. Here’s the description: This seminar will introduce attendees to live event streaming. It will start by discussing the technologies underlying live event streaming, like codecs and formats, and how most live event platforms can …

I just released a 3 hour workshop entitled Producing Great Video with the Adobe Media Encoder CS 5.5. It was produced by Video2Brain, and you can view course details here. I produced three short videos to answer questions you may have about the workshop. They are: – What does the workshop cover? – Adobe Media Encoder is easy to use. …

Just a quick note that Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices and HTML5 has been adapted for Seth Bloombaum’s streaming course at Portland (Oregon) Community College. (MM236 in the Multimedia Program.) In his note to me letting me know, Seth commented, “I’m really very enthusiastic about the the new book. IMHO it’s been a long time since there was a …

In a story for Streaming Media Magazine, I asked patent licensing authority MPEG-LA whether any claims had emerged against the VP8 video codec used Google’s WebM. As you recall, MPEG-LA announced a call for patents “essential” to VP8 in March 2011. Apparently, there have been 12 patents found to be essential to Google’s WebM technology by MPEG-LA’s patent experts. The …

In April 2011, the Department of Justice began investigating the MPEG Licensing Association (MPEG LA) to learn whether or not the group is unfairly trying to damage Google’s competitive prospects with the WebM video format. But maybe MPEG LA would be doing us all a favor by damaging WebM. That’s my take, anyway. Here’s the rationale. In February, MPEG LA …

UPDATE I just got this notice from Lulu. Upon closer inspection of your work, our Quality Review specialists found that your book does not meet the eBook Retail Distribution Guidelines. REASON: Your ebook has been rejected for formatting issues. The images and/or text in your file are blurry or not formatted properly., Your ebook (cover, description or content) cannot contain …