Multimedia, AV Archive

Comparing Theora to H264

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-02-26 Multimedia, AV 97 Comments

The debate about HTML5 video is for the most part pretty straightforward: we all want HTML5 video, and we all recognise it's a better approach than Flash for online video. However, there's one thing we just can't seem to agree on: the codec. A number of benchmarks have been conducted recently, and they highlight the complexity of video encoding: they go either way.

Submitted by edogawaconan 2010-02-23 Multimedia, AV 20 Comments

Fantastic expose about Flash and HTML5 video by lead x264 developer Jason Garrett-Glaser. "The internet has been filled for quite some time with an enormous number of blog posts complaining about how Flash sucks - so much that it's sounding as if the entire internet is crying wolf. But, of course, despite the incessant complaining, they're right: Flash has terrible performance on anything other than Windows x86 and Adobe doesn't seem to care at all. But rather than repeat this ad nauseum, let’s be a bit more intellectual and try to figure out what happened."

2010: Analog Sunset, the End of Component Video

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-20 Multimedia, AV 66 Comments

Sigh. So, we have the music industry whose DRM schemes and other anti-piracy measures have thoroughly failed, and are only hindering consumers who stick to the letter of the law. Now we have Hollywood who's going to do it all over again: the AACS LA is busy killing off component video - even for existing, currently-owned equipment.

Zucker Misses the Mark, Wrongly Accuses Boxee of Stealing

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-05 Multimedia, AV 19 Comments

In a way, it's kind of sad. The old media squealing and squirming, trying pathetically to hold on to a time that has long been lost to the sands of... Well, time. Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC, made such a pathetic attempt before a US Congress committee yesterday, claiming Boxee stole Hulu's content.

MPEG-LA Will Not Change h264 Licensing

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Multimedia, AV 125 Comments

We've got news from the MPEG-LA, regarding any possible H264 license changes they might institute at the end of this year. More specifically, they've put out a press release stating that they will not change one specific aspect of the license that governs the AVC Patent Portfolio (to which h264 belongs): MPEG-LA will not collect royalties for internet video that is free to end users. The press release is highly confusing, so let's de-construct what's going on here.

OpenShot: A Prematurely Released Video Editor

Eugenia Loli 2010-01-11 Multimedia, AV 113 Comments

I followed the hype: Reddit, Slashdot's front page, months of thumbs up on my blog and various video forums by Linux users for OpenShot. Given that I'm longing for a usable Linux video editor since 2003, and given that OpenShot version 1.0 had just been released, I naturally gave it a go, by also downloading its provided dependencies on my Ubuntu Linux 9.10.

Philips To Bundle Songbird with Music Players

Submitted by John Mills 2010-01-09 Multimedia, AV 46 Comments

Songbird, the open source iTunes alternative (which we reported on earlier), has landed a big deal with Philips. The Dutch electronics manufacturer will bundle Songbird with its GoGear line of .mp3 players as the music management and sync tool. While this is good news for Songbird, there are is a catch.

Boxee Launches Beta with New UI, Boxee Box

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-08 Multimedia, AV 24 Comments

My favourite media centre software, Boxee, has just launched the highly-anticipated new beta version of its XBMC-based media centre, complete with a redesigned user interface. On top of that, Boxee launched its very first piece of hardware during CES, the Boxee Box, together with D-Link. It's an impressive little device.

First Stable Enna MediaCenter Release

Submitted by Davide Cavalca 2010-01-04 Multimedia, AV 18 Comments

The GeeXboX project has announced the first stable release of Enna (version 0.4.0), an open source media center application. It features a simple user interface, based on the Enlightenment Foundations Libraries for its graphical user interface and the GeeXboX libraries for multimedia playback (libplayer) and information retrieval (libvalhalla and libnfo).

From Cinepak to H.265: a Brief History of Video Compression

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-22 Multimedia, AV 6 Comments

"Today's video-rich Internet wouldn't be possible without highly efficient compression. Ars rewinds the history of digital video compression to help understand how we arrived at the land of YouTube and Hulu."

Apple’s Mini DisplayPort Officially Adopted by VESA

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-10 Multimedia, AV 10 Comments

"The Video Electronics Standard Association officially issued its Mini DisplayPort standard Tuesday, based on the technology licensed from Apple. VESA said that all devices using the Mini DisplayPort connector must meet the specifications required by the DisplayPort 1.1a standard, and cables that support the standard must also meet specific electrical specifications. It's a formal confirmation of the news from earlier this year, when VESA announced the Mini DisplayPort connector would be included in the forthcoming DisplayPort 1.2 specification."

Interview with Hongyu Chi, of ReelDirector

Eugenia Loli 2009-10-22 Multimedia, AV No Comments

Today we feature a mini interview with Hongyu Chi, president at Nexvio Inc., the company that brought us the very first true video editor for the iPhone 3Gs, the ReelDirector. Check in for more!

A Look at Adobe Premiere Elements 8

Eugenia Loli 2009-10-19 Multimedia, AV 6 Comments

Adobe announced recently the November release of its Premiere Elements 8 package, their consumer video editor. Here's what's new.

Submitted by Moulinneuf 2009-10-09 Multimedia, AV 12 Comments

Hulu has finally released a Linux client, in both .rpm and .deb, 32bit and 64bit. "Hulu Desktop for Linux is currently built on Fedora 11 and Ubuntu 9.04. The packages should also work on any Linux distribution with glib2.16 (such as Ubuntu 8.04+ and Fedora 9+). Other configurations have not been tested." Only useful inside the US, us peasants in the rest of the world will have to resort to torrents.

Adobe Flash 10.1 Offers GPU Acceleration, Mobile Support

Eugenia Loli 2009-10-05 Multimedia, AV 30 Comments

Adobe and various members of the OpenScreenProject announced today news about the upcoming release of Flash 10.1, the first Flash version to get released as a full browser plugin for various smartphone platforms.

EU Calls for Volume Limit on Music Players

weildish 2009-09-30 Multimedia, AV 22 Comments

"There are no current European standards on volume controls for MP3 players, though under French law personal music players must be limited to an output of 100 decibels (db). The Apple iPod, which can reach 130db, was briefly withdrawn from sale in France in 2002 until Apple updated the software to reduce the maximum volume. All iPods sold in Europe are now limited to an output of 100db. The European Commission’s new proposals call for the default setting on all personal music players to be 80db. This would apply to MP3 players and mobile phones that are capable of playing music. However, the proposals apply only to the default setting, not to the maximum setting for the device."

Submitted by clododunord 2009-09-25 Multimedia, AV 38 Comments

"We are pleased to announce a new stable release of libtheora, the Xiph.org Foundation's reference implementation of the royalty-free Theora video format. This new release, version 1.1, codenamed Thusnelda, incorporates all of the recent encoder improvements we have been making over the past year, though some of the code had its genesis all the way back in 2003. It also brings substantial speed and robustness improvements to the 1.0 decoder." For a more visual run-down of the changes, check out Mozilla's excellent article.

‘Invisible’ Speakers Debuted

weildish 2009-09-24 Multimedia, AV 8 Comments

Remember those magical speakers with invisibility cloaks? They're back, and they reek more of "awesome" than ever. Though not available to the public quite yet, these handy dandy speakers are planned to be implemented into your everyday flat-panel televisions, desktop monitors, laptop screens, and mobile devices. They're a slim technology made from a membrane and little micro motors embedded into the screen. The motors vibrate the membrane on each side of the screen and bring about what we call sound directly from the screen itself, eliminating the need for miniature crummy speakers planted in leftover space on our ever-smaller display technology. Anyone who doesn't integrate them into their products when this technology becomes available is foolish. In my mind's eye, I see people not needing to buy those funny portable iPod speakers anymore as well as me not needing to put my head on my netbook in order to hear the sound played on it. Glorious.

What HTPC Solution Do You Prefer?

Thom Holwerda 2009-09-11 Multimedia, AV 69 Comments

While we at OSNews often talk about desktops, laptops, and netbooks, there is another "form factor" which is making inroads into various households: the home theatre PC, or HTPC. There are a lot of software packages out there that will aid in turning a computer into an HTPC, and since I've been testing three of them extensively over the past months, I figured we'd talk about what you use.

Review: The Video Mode on the Canon SX200 IS

Eugenia Loli 2009-09-03 Multimedia, AV 5 Comments

I had no plans to write a mini-review for the Canon SX200 IS which I bought recently, but I can't contain my excitement about its video mode, so I had to share. The story behind it is that after testing various digicams in its class, I concluded that this is the best HD video P&S digicam in the sub-$500 price range (not counting digi-recorders like the Sanyo Xacti). Read on for more info, and for some directly-out-of-the-camera samples to download and scrutinize yourselves.