Yesterday I participated in a panel discussion at SXSW Interactive in Austin. The panel was called “Crunching and Streaming: Online Video Distribution Challenge and Opportunity”. I saw that a few people including Terry Storch and Daryl McMullen have thought enough of the discussion to include a mention on their sites. My fellow panelists included:
Sloan Foster, Armida Technologies
Todd Byant, Netcast HD
Ashley Manning, Adobe Systems
Jeff Kramer, Polycot Labs
The focus was on the challenges and opportunities associated with the evolution of video delivery. We discussed new video compression technologies available such as H.264 that are improving video quality. It was a really interesting discussion, especially around the licensing of codecs – commercial vs. freeware – and whether royalty-free codecs can provide the same or better compression than commercial solutions. We also talked about how technology has finally evolved to enable the convergence of video and the reality of truly ubiquitous viewing.
Overall, I thought it was a good discussion and hope the audience felt the same. I think they’re will be a podcast of the panel session available soon – when it’s live we’ll post a link to it from the RipCode site. Thanks again to everyone that attended and participated in the discussion.
Today we’re bringing you the last video blog in a 3 Part interview series with IDC analyst, Greg Ireland. Greg co-authored the whitepaper Transcoding Internet and Mobile Video: Solutions for the Long Tail. If you missed the first two interviews, I encourage you to take some time to view those. Greg has some great insight into the Internet and mobile video markets that is well worth hearing. In today’s video blog, we talk about a variety of topics including how transcoding can better serve consumers and where it fits within online and mobile advertising. We also discuss broadband’s impact on Internet video and consumer’s viewing habits. And finally, we touch on the future outlook for video codecs including the movement toward H.264.
We hope you found this interview series insightful. For more information on this topic, you can download the complete IDC whitepaper from the RipCode website. We plan future video blog conversations with other industry thought leaders, so stay tuned.
Hi, I’m Mark Fears, Director of Product Management at RipCode and a new voice on the RipCode blog. This first post was inspired when I read an interesting news release this week from Maven Networks on the Streaming Media website, about the formation of a new Online TV Advertising organization that’s dedicated to researching technology to enhance the user experience for Internet video ads. The new organization features such heavy hitters as Microsoft, Maven, Fox News Digital, TV Guide and DoubleClick. While some may find online video ads an annoyance, you need to look beyond the typical 15-second commercial spot and think about the big financial picture. After all, online video sites have to monetize their content in order to create a financially viable business, and thus stay in business. So advertising is as necessary to online video as it is to television programming. But what I am pleased to hear is that one of the goals of this new organization is “creating engaging and appealing user experiences”.
Like anyone, I find that online video ads can be a barrier to the instant gratification that I have come to expect from my online experience. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really mind sites funding their online presence with advertising but I don’t like being forced to watch advertising that focuses on something in which I have no interest.
However with the power of online video and the tools available to developers, there is no reason to have the same impersonal 30-second commercial that we suffer through during primetime TV. For example, I sat through an Adobe presentation at the IBC2007 show in Amsterdam and saw some interesting technology that they’re enabling through their new Adobe Media Player. There is a beta version available online at http://labs.adobe.com. These new tools allow you to embed a sprite in the corner of the video. On the surface, it may not sound like much, but it does allow me to immediately watch the content I selected without waiting for the advertiser to get their screen time. With this technology, the ad ran as a small image in a corner of the video allowing me to view the desired content immediately.
But the real power of this technology was that the ad sprite actually pertained to the video content that I was viewing. For example, if I was watching the weather forecast for an upcoming trip I have to Florida, the ad sprite could be promoting sunscreen or some other relevant product I might need for my trip. And, not only could the product relate to the video content, it’s also a click-able link that opens a shopping cart and allows you to drop in the product ready for an immediate online transaction.
Now that is making advertising a personal and engaging experience which is what online video is all about!
Just when we all started to think that the video industry was beginning to move towards standardization around H.264, Qualcomm announced that it has licensed the DivX codec technology and will support it in a range of video-enabled chipsets for CDMA mobile devices, ahead of Adobe’s Flash Video. As Peter White of Rethink Research writes, “if Qualcomm stays solely with DivX, then it will mean that the worlds of CDMA and WCDMA telephony will have diverged, and that web sites that can provide video to one type of handset will not be able to be played on another.”
In the Flash vs. Silverlight camp, Bradley Werner concludes that with the addition of Silverlight, Microsoft’s VC-1 video codec is rapidly moving into a position of parity with Adobe’s Flash Media Player and both technologies are in good positions to win in the market. Neal Page over at Inlet concurs.
So are these signs that the industry is in a position yet to move toward a set of codec standards? Will it happen soon? To both these counts, the answer is probably not.
In the recent IDC whitepaper Internet and Mobile Video: Transcoding the Long Tail, IDC estimates that there are close to 100 different types of Internet and mobile video files that the market is currently supporting. This is good news for RipCode because the greater the number of video formats and associated increased complexities means more business. However, because it takes a lot of time and development cycles to successfully support the multiple flavors of codecs on the market even we would like to see some degree of consolidation. However, given the slim chance of this happening anytime soon, we’ll continue to take our cues from our customers (video aggregators, user generated content sites, mobile & internet TV providers, etc.) and drive our development to support their codec requirements. After all, it’s the customers who in the end, will likely determine when and under what codecs the market will unify.
The IBC show is about to come to a close here in Amsterdam and it’s been a big week for Internet video. The Adobe announcement regarding their support for H.264 within Flash 9 was the talk of the show among many of the attendees and video operators trying to figure out how to handle Microsoft SilverLight next to Adobe’s MovieStar.
It was also RipCode’s first opportunity for us to demonstrate, for a mass audience, the unique capabilities of the RipCode V4 transcoding appliance. RipCode is coming out of our stealth mode next week and our product and capabilities have surprised many who are first learning about us. The RipCode team is anxious to get back to the U.S. and begin following up on the opportunities and conversations that we’ve begun here in Amsterdam. We’ve taken quite a bit of video from the show. Give us a chance to edit it to a reasonable length, add some commentary and we’ll share it with you soon.
Update: Just saw this coverage of the IBC show by StreamingMedia.com which validates the advancement of and demand for the IPTV ecosystem.
Two weeks ago, as widely anticipated, Adobe announced its support for H.264. Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee and Charlie Oppenheimer over at StreamingMedia provided good coverage and commentary of this announcement.
This is a welcomed announcement for the industry, and RipCode will support both Adobe’s Flash Media Server 3 and the updated version of Flash 9, code-named “Moviestar.” Additionally, I’m thrilled that RipCode was selected to participate in Adobe’s Flash Media Solution Provider Program (FMSP) to insure compatibility between media transcoded by RipCode and the Flash Media Server.
In brief, FMSP supports the Flash ecosystem of providers by giving businesses access to the best providers for Flash streaming content—think of it as a consortium of subject matter experts and turnkey solution providers for all things Flash.
We’re looking forward to working with Adobe as we build out our codec support to meet the requirements for their latest Flash media.
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