January, 2011

• 14 January

  Manual vs Automatic Camera Operation

  Whenever I shoot a live performance, I have an internal debate about which functions to perform manually and which to let the camera perform. Obviously, the panning and zooming is my job; the question is whether I also take on focus and/or exposure. I shot my fifth Nutcracker season just before Christmas, which adds up to about 20 shows total, …

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• 13 January

  How to Encode To WebM

  This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for StreamingMedia. Even if you don’t believe all the hype about HTML5, sooner or later, you’ll need to start encoding some video to WebM format. Maybe for internal experimentation, for a pay-per-view or subscription project (where H.264 may incur royalties), because you’ve decided to jump into HTML5 video with both feet, …

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• 13 January

  Google Removes H.264 Codec From Chrome

  This is an excerpt from my commentary, “Welcome to the Two-Codec World,” which you can read at StreamingMedia.com. Back when Google closed on the On2 acquisition, I wrote a blog post entitled Google Closes On2 Acquisition – Better check your Wallet. The wallet reference related to the fact that Google donating VP8 to the open source cause could boost the …

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• 2 January

  New article on Producing for Adaptive Streaming at StreamingMedia.com

  An article that I wrote on producing for adaptive streaming just posted at StreamingMedia.com. The article focuses on nitty gritty encoding details, like data rates, key frame intervals and the like. To write the article, I spoke with multiple producers, including MTV, Turner Broadcasting, Harvard and the Microsoftie in charge of NBC’s Olympics and Sunday Night Football streaming video offerings. …

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December, 2010

• 31 December

  Streaming Spotlight: Peter Scott, Turner Sports

  The VP of emerging media for Turner Sports talks about the network's delivery of the PGA Championship online, as well as the benefits of HTTP streaming and the implications of HTML5 video

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• 27 December

  Adobe Provides Adaptive Streaming Presets for Adobe Media Encoder

  Adaptive streaming is a hot topic for most streaming producers. If you produce your files with Adobe Media Encoder, you should know that Adobe has provided seven downloadable presets that you can use as a starting point. Click here to go to the download page.   You install the presets by manually copying them into your presets folder (a PDF …

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• 22 December

  Vimeo and YouTube Enable iPad-compatible HTML5 Embedding

  I use Vimeo to host all the videos that I have on this site. Originally, Vimeo used only a Flash-comptible player that wouldn’t play on iDevices. Here’s an example of that player, which will appear on your computer, but not your iPad or iPhone. Now, Vimeo has a new embed code that is HTML5 compatible and will play on my …

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• 11 December

  SLC Completes Successful Year of Streaming Consulting

  US Government Contracts and Streaming Media Conferences Dominate the Lineup During 2010, the Streaming Learning Center produced ten separate training experiences in the US and abroad, showcasing the organization’s ability to produce custom training focused on streaming production, Final Cut Pro workflows and streaming encoding. The efforts included ten days of primarily on site training for four US government offices, …

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• 9 December

  SLC Completes Successful Year of Streaming Consulting

  US Government Contracts and Streaming Media Conferences Dominate the Lineup During 2010, the Streaming Learning Center produced ten separate training experiences in the US and abroad, showcasing the organization’s ability to produce custom training focused on streaming production, Final Cut Pro workflows and streaming encoding. The efforts included ten days of primarily on site training for four US government offices, …

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• 8 December

  One Click Rich Media Websites from Adobe Encore

  If you’re producing DVDs or Blu-ray discs with Adobe Encore, you probably know that you can easily convert the authored DVD to a Flash project that you can upload to a web site. If you don’t know, or if you don’t work with Adobe Encore, read on – you might find a very useful technique for getting client approvals or …

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