OK, so this news is a bit less compelling than the Republicans withdrawing their Obamacare replacement from the vote, but job number 1 for any book author is “flog the book,” and who doesn’t get excited about positive reviews, particularly if from behind the former Iron Curtain. So when a colleague sent me a link to the review, I just …

For three years, encoding.com has issued an annual report about the video files that it produces for its 3,000+ customers. For me, it’s a reality check on which formats are doing well, and which are flailing. The most recent report, which you can download here, includes the following key insights. HEVC is losing share (from 6% to 3%), while H.264 continues …

So a potential client calls and says, “we’ve reached encoding capacity and we’re about to buy another encoding station. Can you look at our presets and see if we can improve throughput and delay the purchase?” “Sure,” I responded.  “Send me your encoding presets and I’ll have a look.” Once the presets arrived, I noticed that the encoder was x264-based, …