Netflix says pffff to the competition.

If you can do HD then so can we! Netflix, made popular by their hugely successful dvd-by-mail business has branched out into the online delivery market in a big way recently. Having just announced a decision to begin using Microsoft silverlight for online streaming to apple computers, today they announced the first small step into the world of HD streaming. Another Microsoft adventure, this time uses the popular xbox 360 as a vehicle to distribute streaming movies in High Definition. Following the likes of Vudu with it's HDX announcement, the decision to test out the HD waters in a limited, and largely closed-source environment such is the 360 is actually a pretty bold move for a company like Netflix. The buzz created by this announcement is sure to spawn a larger demand for netflix's services, and ultimately a realization of HD streaming to a much larger market. Now the question remains, how long until this is available on pc's, the roku box, the netflix streaming blu-ray players, and now tivo?

Hey Dayton, OH TWC hates you and DirecTV wants to make it better

I live near Dayton, Ohio however my local TWC (time warner cable) market is in Cincinnati. So, however unaffected by this I may be, it still bothers me that the same company I pay lots of money to each month is really putting the screws to those just a few miles north. The story goes like this... If you happen to be one of the millions of fans of such programming as The Office, My Name is Earl, Heros, or SNL and also are a subscriber to TWC in the Dayton market you haven't been able to watch your favorite shows for several weeks now. As unbelievable as it may sound, TWC has actually declined to carry the local NBC affiliate. There is some sort of dispute that has, believe it or not, resulted in a MAJOR network being unavailable from one of the most notorious companies in the cable business. The funniest thing that I have heard regarding this whole debacle is that TWC is actually offering up free "Bunny Ear's" antennas for those who call in and complain, however they have chosen not to credit anyone's account for this. The other result that I have found comical is that in listening to the radio I have actually heard DirecTV ads targeted directly at those TWC customers who are fed-up and ready to switch. I can't help but feel like DirecTV has a point, considering the fact that they just dropped a little Christmas in October package on Dayton subscribers with all locals, including NBC now showing up in HD. I'm not sure what to say to those choosing to wait this one out, I mean it did take TWC a full year to ever work out a deal with the Big Ten Network. Maybe it's a good time for some of these customers to try out a nice OTA (over the air) antenna and pick up these locals in HD for free.

Motionbox is good, has potential to be GREAT!

A commenter on one of my previous posts has tipped me off to a new HD web video service called Motionbox. As a big fan of HD's convergence on the web, I was obviously intrigued. I shot over to www.motionbox.com for a tour of their site, and services. I actually spent quite a bit of time learning about what they have to offer, and seeing how it might fit into my current workflow for web video. When all was said and done, I had an account and was up and running uploading a 356MB file. I did lots of playing around with my new 30 day free trial of the premium service. One of the things to keep in mind about motionbox is that it was created to be a revenue generating service for those individuals looking to have a more private and ad-free online video service. That being said, their premium account runs $29.99 per year and includes quite a bit of features for the price. Now, one thing I will say up front before anyone runs out and starts uploading everything they've got here, is that one of my golden rules is to never rely on an online video service for the primary storage of content. For premium members, Motionbox has unlimited storage space, which is great, though however tempting it may be, I warn you... Never delete your original videos from your pc. The bottom line is that you never know when a web 2.0 startup like this will go belly-up. Now to the real constructive portion of my comments about the Motionbox concept. While it definately is the best online HD video service I have used, it's not without some drawbacks. I will point out the two biggest drawbacks that I found in my tests. The first thing I noticed about the upload system that I didn't like is the fact that there is no way of uploading a video without it being transcoded. That's a problem because every time a video is transcoded there is quality loss. If there were an option to upload my own H.264 encoded files using the recommended bitrate settings at 1280x720 I would be one step closer to buying into the premium service. The other drawback that I noticed comes with watching the HD videos. As you know, HD video has some pretty steep requirements in order to playback smoothly on a computer. That said, these videos draw what I consider to be excessive processor requirements. I tested the videos out on three different systems, first was the 2.4Ghz dual core iMac I use for editing, second was my trusty 2.16Ghz dual core Macbook Pro, and third was my hottt gaming PC at home with a tri-core phenom processor. The video played back relatively smooth on the imac and phenom pc, however there were problems on the MBP with stuttering and choppy playback. It seems that the fullscreen playback mode draws more than my Macbook Pro can offer. This was odd to me because I have never had any trouble playing back 1280x720 content on it before. My concern is that the majority of people I would want to view my videos aren't even running a system that could meet these demands for fullscreen playback. If Motionbox can get these issues worked out I will very much consider a premium membership. If you've tried this out as well, please let me know what you think.

DIRECTV bringing DirectTV2PC to beta.

Lets just say you have a nice 24" LCD hooked up to that pc in your office, if your programming provider is Direct TV, there's a new way of getting that spicy HD goodness up on that screen. Today, DirectTV announced the beta software of their DirectTV2PC software powered by cyberlink. Of course it does require the DirectTV Plus HD DVR to work. This sounds like a neat new way of accessing your DVR content, guide, and live TV. There's really not much to it, just plug your Plus HD DVR into your home network, install the software and give it a whirl. Unfortunately there's not much more to it than was previously mentioned, (no PC recording capabilities, no transfer to ipod options, no placeshifting) That's not to say that some of those features can't be added in future versions, but for now it's simply another way to view what's locked down tightly in your DVR. So, if you have the right equipment, give it a test and let us know how it works.

What lights up your screen?

There's a pretty good chance that you're reading this blog on an lcd screen that uses CFL (compact fluorescent lighting). I say this only because every lcd screen manufactured up until recently has used CFL for its backlight. The recent implementation of LEDs as a backlight source have changed the game when it comes to lcd manufacturing. There are several reasons to switch to a manufacturing process using LED technology, not the least of which is a significant power savings. Turns out that there are actually two ways of using LEDs to light up an lcd screen. The first method includes using a combination of Red, Green, and Blue LED lights, incidentally the three primary colors that make up the color spectrum for the screens. A new way of manufacturing has included instead, the use of white phosphor coated led bulbs. According to early specs, the white bulbs can cut costs by up to 40%, but at what quality cost? It seems the result is a loss of color reproduction. According to engadgethd.com It seems that with RGB bulbs it was easier to guarantee a more accurate color over the scope of the entire panel. However in the current times we live where consumers demand deep blacks, and bright colors the LED will rule. I just hope the resulting loss of color accuracy doesn't really amount to significant concern when these are brought into mass production by the likes of Sharp, LG, and others. As a video producer there is one thing I hate, and that's when the colors I grade are poorly reproduced by insufficient attention to color accuracy of consumer model lcd technology.

Comparing 1080p sources, it's not all the same

I was just reading an article over on gizmodo that involved testing out dish network's HD premium movies, compared to Blu-Ray. Without seeing the image, I would assume that a Blu-Ray version would look significantly better, especially on scenes with lots of motion, or particularly dark scenes. (That's typically where lower bandwidth video degrades most). After reading the post I must say I was a bit surprised to see how well they rated the Dish version. I think it's a wonderful step, getting HD movie delivery systems that can handle near Blu-Ray quality. I wish someone would test out a Vudu HDX movie like this. It is, to say the least a very interesting time in the HD industry. The biggest problem with the satellite delivery system is their limited bandwidth. There are only a few HD premium offerings right now, and I would assume that it will probably stay that way at least for a while, maybe until dish has a chance to beef up their delivery system. As one commenter on the gizmodo blog pointed out, things might change dramatically in picture quality if 2000 people are all trying to watch the same premium movie at the same time. Just because it's 1080p doesn't mean it's premium quality.

Congratulations cnet tv for going HD

I am a big fan of cnet.com for their reviews, high quality videos and up-to-the-second tech updates. If you have followed the progression of cnet tv you may have noticed that there has recently been an added option on the control panel on the bottom of some of the videos. I just want to say bravo cnet. The HD videos that I have watched so far have been pristine. I love the fact that I can pull them up on my 32" screen and watch in HD. The video looks great for streaming web video, and other than letting it buffer a few seconds longer than normal, I have had no playback issues to speak of. If you haven't recently checked out cnet tv I would highly recommend heading on over to watch some of their content. The production value is very high, and now with this, the presentation matches. I am seeing if I can find out what sort of cameras and equipment they are using to shoot and hopefully I will be back with a more in-depth post about how cnet tv is produced. Stay tuned for more.

Question of the day 10/10/08

I'm going to try to start posting up a question of the day, feel free to comment or send me an email (link at the bottom) with your thoughts. My first question of the day relates to pro video cameras, and it goes like this... Why don't the companies like Sony, Panasonic, JVC, and Canon start implementing some technically available bonus features in their pro/prosumer lines of cameras? For example, I have a bluetooth headset (you probably do too) I would like to be able to pair this bluetooth headset to my video camera, so that I can monitor my audio without wires. Also, why not build a wireless audio receiver right into the camera. That way they could sell their own branded mic transmitters that would work perfectly with the camera, again saving extra wires. And third, make a hotshoe enabled light that can crank out around 40w or so, and give me a button right on the camera, possibly near the zoom rocker that lets me turn the light on and off. Sure, all of these would use more battery power, but that's all the better for the manufacturers, they sell more batteries. Just some things I would like to see happen, let me know what you think it's a bad idea, or what you think would be nice to see.

When good drives go bad

If you've been editing video for very long you've probably developed a collection of external hard drives. When I first started out I could only afford to purchase drives for 100Gb or so at a time. Now, for the same price I can buy a 1Tb drive today. Fortunately those 100 and 200GB drives served me well in their day, but as I have moved up I've been sure to transfer the files to more secure drives, and I back things up regularly. Over the last couple of years I have had experience with a few of my older Hard Drives failing me. I can't pin it on one company because it has happened across a couple of manufacturer's drives. Now I can't say that my equipment is always in ideal conditions, but I do try to make sure my discs are kept free of bumps and drops. The biggest point that I want to make is that if it hasn't happened to you yet, it surely will at some point. With the cost of storage being so low right now, you could really make life a lot easier by backing up your files regularly. I have tried to develop a workflow that includes regularly making redundancy copies of all non-recoverable files. By that I mean anything that hasn't been captured from tape. With video production that really isn't all that much space because the raw capture files are what eats up the Gb's. I also like to backup the capture files from any current project that I am working on so that in case of a drive failure, I'm really not slowed down by recaturing everything from tape. When I archive past projects, as long as I am confident all changes have been made, I'll get rid of the capture files to save space. Another piece of advice I would give is to use the autosave project file setting on your editing software. I use final cut pro and I am typically moving projects between my macbook pro and my desktop. With the autosave feature active I will always have a backup copy of my project on whatever computer I worked on it. This is handy in the rare case that my laptop and external drive should both get lost or stolen. The biggest point I can make is that you should never completely rely on a hard drive, because some day it will probably fail, and maybe you won't have anything important on it, but then again maybe you will.

Gaming mouse in the editing suite, really?

One of the themes I want to try to stick to on this blog is making it educational. Hopefully some of my tips can help you, as you engage in the universe of High Definition video. Something that I stumbled upon while engaging in one of my other habits, pc gaming, was the use of a gaming grade laser mouse in video editing. I know most editors are probably using the crappy mouse that came with their computer, or if they've ditched that one maybe a wireless mouse. If you are in the market for a new mouse, I would recommend spending some extra money and getting a gaming mouse. The extra weight and calibration settings really do make for a much better mousing experience. Video editing is all about being precise with your cuts, and the dpi precision that my logitech G5 provides really comes into play when I am working on projects. Check out some of the options, and find one that feels right for you, if you're going to be editing much, you will appreciate the purchase.