One for all format for Computer, iPod and Apple TV

Leave it to Geek TV:

They have arrived at the "HD" format that plays on an iPod, a PC and AppleTV! They call it their "large format":

It's an H.264 encoded Quicktime file. It's shot in HDV, has a 16x9 aspect ratio, saved as a 640x360 sized movie. Datarate is 1.5 megabit/sec. (sound is 44khz, 16 bit AAC).

I have tested it on the iPod and PC/Mac, although not (yet) with an Apple TV. It's within the Apple TV specs, and should look a lot better than the demo podcasts they had running at the Apple store in Palo Alto.

Note, GeekBrief is taking in money from sponsors (a coffee company, of all things!) and donations from individuals (direct to PayPal). Sound like a plan?

I've uploaded a the segment I tested to my own server, so you can right-click to download the file. Or, watch it by clicking on the picture below:

Whadda rumor: H.264 hardware in all Macs?

For that past two years, I've been learning to appreciate H.264, or MPEG-4 AVC. For DV videos that I want to distribute on the web or via podcast, I get 50-to-1 compression while retaining a very sharp picture. Here are some examples.

The painful part of this very high quality, very small file magic is the time it takes to render. It's like watching paint dry (we're talking hours for anything over a few minutes, even on a dual core machine). And that's for SD. To make videos look "better than YouTube", you only need to create something in h.264 with a datarate 800kbps and a window footprint of 512x384 (for 4:3) or 640x360 (for 16:9), but still, a major part of the processes is the compression step.

I am hesitant to edit materials in HD, since I fear a 4x time requirement. So, now the rumor:

A fairly well-known source is saying that later this year, Apple will put a $50 hardware encoder into every machine it sells. Read about it. Cringely sez,

"This will change everything. Soon even the lowliest Mac will be able to effortlessly record in background one or more video signals while the user runs TurboTax on the screen. Macs will become superb DVR machines with TiVo-like functionality yet smaller file sizes than any TiVo box could ever produce. In a YouTube world, the new Macs will be a boon to user-produced video, which will, in turn, promote the H.264 standard. By being able to encode in real time, the new Macs will have that American Idol clip up and running faster than could be done on almost any other machine. Add in Slingbox-like capability to throw your home cable signal around the world and it gets even better. Add faster video performance to the already best-of-league iChat audio/video chat client, and every new Mac becomes a webcam or a video phone."

Thanks to Dan Morken for finding this.

Rob Curley: Punk makes good

I just watched a phenomenal documentary called "News War", which brought up all sorts of memories from working as a consultant with Dow Jones in the late 80s. At the time, they felt they couldn't just give cameras to reporters because the camera scared people from talking. Boy, times have changed.

If you are what you do, Rob Curley is the ideal guy to help the Washington Post deliver media that reflects the community it serves. His blog is worth reading regularly, since it's pointing to practical applications of technology that hold promise. Click on the picture to link to the Frontline site (Rob is in the "Hyperlocalism" chapter of Part Three).