"According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com has been pitching media companies on a streaming video subscription service that would compete with Netflix. Amazon has talked to NBC, Time Warner and Viacom about a service that would work on the Web, on mobile devices, and on Xbox 360 consoles."
If this is true (and I think it probably is), then the digital distribution field is about to get a lot more interesting. I've been hoping for some competition for Netflix, which pretty much rules the roost when it comes to streaming video. I'm a firm believer that more competition is always good for the consumer. It's also possible we'll see a streaming video solution from Apple, maybe even at today's event. It looks to be an exciting few months for fans of streaming video. Anybody else excited about this possibility?
"Looks like Roku's going aggressive on price with its lineup of streamers in response to Sony's new $130 Netbox streamer, the upcoming Google TV launch, and rumors that we'll see that rumored $99 iOS-based Apple TV arrive on Wednesday."
The standard def box went down to $59.00 USD, the regular HD is $69.00 USD and the HD-XR box is at $99.00 USD, all dropping in price from $20-$30.00 USD. This is getting to the point to have one just for the UFC they offer, but if they would throw in some NFL RedZone, I'd buy it in a heartbeat and lose Dish Network all together. But I think I will first wait to see what Apple has in store for us on Wednesday.
"MPEG LA, the group that oversees licensing for a number of Internet media standards, today announced that Internet broadcast content using the H.264 video coding standard will remain royalty-free for the entire life of the license, quashing fears that the standard could suddenly become subject to royalty payments in 2016 after the current licensing term expires and is required to be renewed"
I'm sure this just about puts the nail in the coffin for HTML5 standardizing around an encoding scheme other than H.264. There's no reason not to use it. It's a codec that is supported by the major hardware makers, and browsers that support HTML5 all seem to have H.264 support. While I'd prefer an open source codec, a freely available codec is the next best alternative.
"One of the long-time limitations of Apple's iOS devices has been their inability to deal with media files in formats beyond those few that Apple prescribes. But a new app, NXP Software's CineXPlayer, now lets iPad users play video files encoded in the popular Xvid format."
Because pretty much every device in my house is either made by Apple or works with MP4/M4V, I've just gotten into the habit of always converting to MP4. But if you have a need to play Xvid on your iPad, then it looks like CineXPlayer is your solution. It doesn't play every Xvid container format just yet (MKV is specifically mentioned as not being supported, for example), but I'm sure container support will improve in time. It looks very slick. Anybody out there have a need for an app like this?
"Apple's iPhone 4 antenna page, which shows the great lengths the company goes to in order to test its handsets, no longer features videos of competing smartphones losing reception when held improperly."
The videos, while pulled from the Apple site showcasing the design and test labs, are still available on the YouTube channel for Apple. The video above is from the YouTube channel showing the signal degradation on a BlackBerry Bold 9700. Several smartphone makers weren't happy after the press conference on antenna issues, saying their smartphones didn't suffer from the same problem. Apple, in turn, posted several videos showing they did indeed have the same problem. Not sure why they pulled them from their design lab site, perhaps they felt they had made their point? What are your thoughts?
"Are you one of the less than 1% of iPhone 4 users having reception problems due to "antennagate?" Are you still waiting for your free iPhone 4 case to ship? Would you like to use the phone to hold a conversation in the meantime? Fret no more! Zshad's Channel over at YouTube has three videos to help you get the most out of your iPhone until Apple helps you get the most out of your iPhone."
Video 1: The Gloves
The Gloves is the first of three "helpful" videos if you are having problems using your iPhone 4. And yes, my tongue was in my cheek when I typed "helpful." But I'm being helpful by posting the other two videos after the jump. Enjoy!
"Apple posted a video of the 2010 World Wide Developers Conference keynote presentation late on Monday. CEO Steve Jobs used the event to introduce iPhone 4 along with the rebranding of iPhone OS 4 as iOS 4."
The video is posted here at Apple, so you can watch in either QuickTime or MPEG-4 formats. No chair kicking but I hear there were some Wi-Fi problems.
""The increasing criticism of Flash as a vehicle for online video delivery (as well as Apple's dislike of Flash) appears to be driving the adoption of H.264 video," Chris Foresman reports for Ars Technica."
The study was done by MeFeedia, and they found that since January of this year, there was an increase of 160 percent in the video encoded in H.264. They used roughly 30,000 sources including YouTube and Hulu, as well as some of the network sites such as ABC and CBS. For the month of May, 26% of all the video in their index was H.264, compared to 10% in January. They also used Encoding.com to corroborate the data they were seeing.
"Even though the iPad has that HD feel, there are plenty of HD files it can't stomach -- the maximum resolution for videos to sync via iTunes is 720p, and anything higher (1080i or 1080p) simply won't transfer. On the iPhone and iPod touch, the upper limit is even tighter; those devices can only handle 640x480 videos, meaning that a 720p file will stall out."
If you have simple needs and don't have or don't want to use a video converter program such as Handbrake or iFunia, you can simply use iTunes under the Advanced tab to convert your files to something you can view on your iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch. Simple solution although it does take longer to covert the files according to the article.
"iFunia, a professional developer of Mac multimedia software, has expanded its family of Mac Video Converter products to include iFunia iPad Video Converter for Mac and iFunia DVD to iPad Converter for Mac. The new iPad Converter utilities offer a quick and simple way to help Mac users to convert their digital video content for Apple's new iPad portable media player."
The iPad Video Converter will convert a variety of files, while the DVD to iPad Converter will Rip AND convert your DVD movies for use on your iPad, a nice all in one solution. Both come with free trials and are Intel only programs, fully compatible with Snow Leopard. Both are priced at $29.00 USD.
"Get Netflix on your iPad. Just download this free app and you can instantly watch TV shows & movies streaming from Netflix. Watch as often as you want, it's part of your Netflix unlimited membership, resume watching where you left off on your TV or computer and browse movies and manage your Queue right from your iPad."
Well this is certainly great news, I was hoping they would come out with something and apparently they were working on it all along. You can download it here for free from iTunes, and you can also pick up the free ABC Player app so you can keep up on all the shows from ABC.
"SlingPlayer marketing manager Dave Eyler today confirmed that his company is working on a version of SlingPlayer for the iPad. The app should be a visible upgrade from the iPhone version as it will carry higher-resolution streaming from a TV-attached Slingbox. Any other changes weren't mentioned, but Eyler told ZNF that the finished version wouldn't be ready for the Saturday iPad launch."
They are also working on an Android version, moving to the H.264 format. According to the article, it will require newer Slingboxes such as the Solo or Pro-HD. They are also working on a Windows Phone 7 version using Silverlight as the wrapper. I'm hoping that Netflix will come up with something in the near future.
"Brightcove's partnerships with The New York Times and Time magazine will allow HTML5 to seamlessly replace Adobe Flash video content on the publications' Web sites for compatibility with Apple's iPad."
Time and The New York Times are clients, and have already experimented with this so it is possible that by the time the iPad launches, their sites (as well as some other clients) will be ready. According to the article, "the platform provides support for intelligent device detection, playlist rendering, and playback of H.264 encoded video content." CBS is also doing some experimentation with this, and Google has already added support for HTML5 on YouTube. Seems like a pretty good alternative, what are your thoughts?
"It was several months ago when Microsoft last updated us on the progress of videoconferencing capability within Messenger for Mac; while version 7 added A/V support for corporate accounts connected to Live Communications Server, the crowd of personal users who connect to MSN/Windows Live were left out of the fun."
Well now we can all have fun with it as they have released the beta version. Messenger for Mac 8 is available now, and "it adds A/V chat, along with interoperability with Windows Messenger 2009." You can download it here, and it requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Intel only.
"It's not like director Tom De Nolf doesn't have 35mm film cameras and a bunch of other video-making tech at his disposal; no, De Nolf was so surprised by the video capability of his recently purchased 3GS that he chose to shoot the above music video using just three iPhones."
Amazing quality, who woulda thunk it? He also used a Mac Pro Desktop to do the editing so no, it wasn't done on the iPhone. Still, nicely done.
"Apple today uploaded the full iPad presentation (in 4 parts) to what appears to be its official Youtube channel. The videos can be viewed in 720P HD and in H.264 using Youtube's new HTML5 website."
So now no worries about that cool Apple video disappearing from YouTube since the user wasn't authorized to post. You can subscribe to their channel here.
