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).

Video market developing... in the middle?

One of the leading new media properties is Hip Mojo, which produces real TV programs as well as their online properties. They are pretty open in their blog. They basically think the TV networks haven't figured out the internet viewer. The world of user-generated content cannot be monetized, in their view, so the opportunity they are pursuing is content produced uniquely for internet distribution.

CMG Australia video

Like a true pioneer, CMG has installed a small video player on their Australian web pages, such as this ComputerWorld page. A single line of code and a series of video stories play when a user clicks the button.

So simple, and yet so powerful!

Walt Mossberg now on video via BrightCove

With guidance like this, we can expect and explosion of tiny productions from organizations. Imagine sales people interviewing clients and making the videos available to corporate management. No reports, and better content! In reality, it's apparent that Walt gets editorial help when his voice is overlaying the video. Also, the BrightCove software takes a long time to load, so be patient!

Click.tv .... tag, you're it!

This article points to Click.tv and its nifty interactive Flash player. I tried it out and can say this goes beyond Veohtag and MotionBox... Click.tv engages viewers and invites their participation. WOW. Nice step.

It's a new service with some bugs, but highly recommended to anyone producing web based videos with a purpose. With a bit of help from KeepVid, I was able to download a video I had posted a while back to Google video. I uploaded the resulting .flv file to my own ISP and then used Click.tv to tag it and embed it below. My only gripe is the links I embedded in my comments conflict with my popup blocker. Mike Lanza (CEO of Click.tv), are you listening?

Now THIS is a video podcast: New York Times

At last, and just in time. Magazines and news organizations now recognize that they have unique access to news, which they can now distribute via video. While this post came from YouTube (with over 100,000 views at this time), the iTunes version is a full 640x480 file... suitable for Apple TV? We will soon find out, and at least I know I can get news this way as opposed to TV news. I, for one, much prefer this.

Sun CEO comes clean, via podcast

This is hot. Not that it's a cool video, or a nice embedded player, or even a great interview. It's hot because it's a CEO of a major corporation speaking directly to the world.

Sun CEO Jonathan Swartz blogs! What's more, he gives great interviews to Robert Scoble. Why doesn't the Wall Street Journal do interviews like this? Or the Chronicle, the Times, the Economist? Wait, maybe they should just syndicate Scoble and other "trusted correspondents". Now you see?

If creative journalists can be discovered on their own, without affiliation, they become even more valuable. Robert Scoble is truly a star, illuminating what "bottom up" media is all about.

Joost beta

For several months, the creators or Kazaa and Skype have been at work on "The Venice Project" (watch these video interviews). Now it has been launched as beta, and named Joost. This is what they say:

Joost™ is a new way to watch TV, free of the schedules and restrictions that come with traditional television. Combining the best of TV with the best of the internet, Joost™ gives you more control and freedom than ever before - control over what you watch, and freedom to watch it whenever you like. We're providing a platform for the best television content on the planet - a platform that will bring you the biggest and best shows from the TV studios, as well as the specialist programs created by professionals and enthusiasts. It's all overlaid with a raft of nifty features that help you find the shows you love, watch and chat with friends, and even create your own TV channels.

Netflix downloads... the beauty of subscription revenues

With Netflix's new streaming service, the New York Times suggests a period of growth for the company. For an $18 a month subscription, users can watch 18 hours of video, starting and stopping movies as much as they like. It reminds me of the AOL subscriptions that poured in during the 90s. Most people never used the time they had allotted to them, but payed for the access anyway. Sounds like NetFlix will grow handsomely.

NetFlix now gets nearly a billion dollars a year from over 6 million subscribers. They are partners with the major movie studios, they rent HD DVDs, and now they offer freedom to download with subscriptions. Nice move. Only 1,000 movies will be available at first, but that is quite a selection.

Video search: where are we?

This 5 min video (from Media 3.0 with Shelly Palmer) gives a pretty good overview. Basically, video sharing services have created a need for better tools to help us find what we want. They mention Blinkx and Fast Search but it's clearly pretty much an open question today.

Post macworld post: Apple TV

So now the presses are rolling about iPhone, which looks like a great device (OK... not video tracking, but, hey... note there is Wifi and a slot for SIM cards, which means the phone will work on any GSM or Wifi network, worldwide... my question is: When will Skype be available on the device?... then... I can just buy it and not sign up for Cingular or anyone else... if Cingular has 58 million users and Apple hopes to sell 10 million iPhones in 2007, then they have to have other options, no?... of course, others see this too)

Now, about the Apple TV. There will be a lot of speculation about it as a DVD replacement. But, publishers might be the ones to push it forward. They have now moved online, and video is a big reason why (The journal of record for the New England Journal of Medicine is now the website, and the Wall Street Journal is now an online service with a paper attached). These publishers have no need to produce DVDs, but they could create compelling materials for distribution through devices like Apple TV. Cool!

Stay Tuned.

Sony set top box takes RSS feeds

Sony is making a new box available for use with a few of it's HDTVs. It connects to special AOL, Yahoo, and Grouper video services but also supports "user generated content" access and streamed videos via RSS feeds. I'm sure we will hear a few more announcements that bring internet-sourced content to HDTVs.

Starting points for making money with internet video

This post from Robin Good provides a summary of today's options for monetizing content.

Of significance, along with pointers to Revver, BrightRoll, and BrightCove, is an interesting reference to Ze Frank's "duckies". This simple page allows anyone to "buy and duckie" and add a message to The Show.

The next big winner?

This is a great chart of video hosting services that offer monetary rewards to producers. Only a couple companies listed are more than two years old. Watching this tabulation evolve will make 2007 an interesting year, indeed!

The book containing the chart is available now, even as a work in progress. Click the cover to learn more and buy it.

Post-YouTube fall-out

Video sharing might not be as lucrative as the Google/YouTube deal might indicate. That big acquisition has not been followed by others. Was the YouTube phenomena a singular event? CNET reports that Guba and others are shaking up management as they deal with sobering new realities.


On the other hand, ZDnet reports that MetaCafe thinks its prospects are better than ever.

New: Megite video, and Tailrank

So here's the buzz- Why not aggregate every new story posted on sites that link to us, and deliver better news, since they relate to us? Hmm... so now Megite is delivering videos.

Something to watch... watch what the crowd that watches us does. The crowdsourcing of their "News River" provides a seductively automated mirror and lens. Look, ma, no editors!

A similar approach, though not yet with video, is Tailrank. Here is how they say they do it:

"We find the hottest stories by tracking conversations between blogs.

"Tailrank takes into consideration linking behavior, the text of the post, links in common with other users, text relevance, weblog ranking, past performance, and various other factors for recommendations."

Viewer Created Content gets crowdsourced

We've been watching Current TV evolve into a viable alternative to mainstream television. Editorial processes enable interesting materials to surface, and here's a case in point. The Portland-based band "The Shins" recently told their audience to bring their video cameras to a recent concert in Austin. The video tells the story of "crowdsourcing" the pod.

Over 200 user videos were uploaded and are a part of it.

Variety reports on "YouTubeToo"

With reports that major Hollywood studios would band together and build their own video-sharing site, a bit from Variety might be in order. The authoritative trade magazine has been following talks between CBS, News Corp, Viacom, Disney, and NBC Universal as they explore how to control their distribution, or at least to be compensated for distributing their content online.

So far, no deal, but Google wants them to use YouTube, of course. Variety says something might happen by the end of January.

Everyone is striking up deals as they can. They all have their own sites, of course, and various shows are available through iTunes (but that has generated less than $70 million for content owners in over a year). So what has them in this predicament? Well, like with everyone else, YouTube and user generated content caught the "big boys" off guard. Here are a couple of quotes:

"They're probably a year too late," said Jeff Pulver, founder and chairman of Pulver.com, a New York company that organizes a conference called Video on the Net. "The networks know they have to do something. They have good intentions, and big brand names, but at the end of the day, these joint ventures never deliver on their promise."

Jeff Jarvis, an associate professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York who also runs the blog BuzzMachine.com, points out that the promotional platforms the networks have may not help much in launching a vid site. "You can't advertise it on TV, because the person who's watching TV is 59½ years old," he argued. "That's not the demographic you want to attract."

Video on the Net keynote: BrightCove

Another thoughtful analysis by Jeremy Allaire of the various ways video is changing the landscape of sharing information, education and entertainment.