Archive for streaming media

So many formats, so little compatibility

August 13, 2008 at 10:41 pm · Filed under streaming media ·Tagged , , ,

I have an mp3 player that came with a converter to convert videos from wmv to smv for the device. The problem is, most of the videos I want to save are either Flash or mpeg-4. I’ve been very interested in the iTunesU store lately. It allows the University of Washington community to share audio and video content and viewers can download it for free. Some of the videos were fairly long, but I thought would be fun to watch on the bus. For example, the UW Chamber Dance has a video of their dancing, which I would like to watch. I suppose I could probably find somewhere to convert the file. But it seems like so much work to first convert it from mpeg-4 and then convert the wmv to smv.

This isn’t technically DRM. This is more of a standards issue. I usually listen to Internet radio so I don’t download music. While I might consider paying to download a video to watch on the bus, most of the rentals are so restrictive that I wouldn’t be able to finish it in time – assuming the DRM didn’t prevent me from putting the video on my device. So my main experience with DRM is avoiding it.

I understand that companies want to increase their market share and they see proprietary formats as a way to push out competitors. But it’s so frustrating trying to sort out all the different formats and find a way to make this work on this player and that on another player.

I am often faced with a similar situation when students are using the Communication labs and are learning to use Windows Movie Maker to edit video. WMM will import avi files or wmv files. So inevitably students will ask how to make files that will work with Movie Maker. There are a couple web conversion programs that work, but it’s hard to keep track of everything and no site really does everything so it feels like a constant battle to get content to work on the player you need it to work on. Things would be so much simpler with standards.

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National Geographic video using Brightcove

August 6, 2008 at 9:47 pm · Filed under streaming media ·Tagged , ,

To get oriented with the Brightcove video player I watched the webinar that is advertised on the home page. I was impressed with the customization and ease of use of the Brightcove player. I was also impressed with the integration of video with other content such as advertisements and viral distribution. The demonstration of adding content was also impressive. It looks like an incredibly easy UI.

After getting a feel for how Brightcove works, I explored National Geographic Wild. I was surprised that the featured video, Journey Into Amazonia, was 55 minutes long (after the Waste Management ad played of course). It turns out that National Geographic features a full-length “Program of the Week.” The other videos are shorter. Anywhere in the range of a minute to 20 minutes.

I watched about 15 minutes of Amazonia. It would have been more, except the video would just stop about every 5 minutes and I would have to reload the video, watch another ad and then skip to the part where it had left off. The third time I did this, while watching piranhas in a feeding frenzy, I gave up on Amazonia. I’m sure my broadband connection was probably acting up again – but I wish that the video player had handled it better. It didn’t say buffering or anything, it just stopped.

I do wish National Geographic Wild would find a few other advertisers. I got rather tired of watching Waste Management ads. Surely they can find some more sponsors?

The search function also did not work. I tried typing in a few of the animals that I had already watched short pieces on (and whose names were in the titles of the movies) – bears, elephants, lions – none of them returned any hits.

It was easy to browse the videos, but it would probably be difficult to find anything specific. None of the tabs are very specific. I finally realized the “On Air” tab was to show previews of upcoming programs that will appear on National Geographic. It seems like National Geographic would want to promote these programs higher up in its list.

I like that National Geographic has customized its player, though I do think they need to make some changes in how their video content is organized. I enjoyed watching the videos, however, and watched several. The video looks good in full screen too, with just the basic controls for the player. The embedded player on the web page includes the “share” information button.

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Finding and watching embedded QuickTime

July 29, 2008 at 11:34 pm · Filed under streaming media ·Tagged , , ,

In order to search for QuickTime movies I first had to switch from Firefox to Internet Explorer. For some reason I can’t get Firefox to recognize that I have QuickTime installed and it asks to me install it every time I try to play something that uses QuickTime. I’ve tried reinstalling it a couple times and still no luck. So now whenever I want to watch a QuickTime movie I open IE. Which was why I found it humorous that while exploring the QuickTime site it said QuickTime has trouble sometimes playing on IE and recommended using a different browser.

While the QuickTime site has an extensive selection of samples of HD video, when I went to the sites for some of the video (such as BBC) it looked like it was Flash. To make things more confusing I found some vague information that sounded like Flash will stream QuickTime format – so does that mean that even though it’s in a Flash player I’m actually watching QuickTime video?

After watching a few HD video clips it was difficult to go back to the regular clips (even though my computer couldn’t really handle the HD clips and kept pausing to buffer). I finally did find a neat blog post on how to embed QuickTime files with a WordPress plug-in. The video that was shown on the blog as a sample looked really clean and played right away. It was also nice to have the clip right on the screen. If I was watching something that was really long I would want it to play in a player, but with something so short it’s much more convenient for the file to be embedded.

Granted, it was a short clip, but it seems like QuickTime is a good platform for video on the web. But it seems so complicated to embed QuickTime on web pages. The file is also larger than most of the files I’ve downloaded at 2 MB so it seems like with longer videos that would slow the time it took for the video to load. I’ve also noticed that QuickTime buttons sometimes don’t work so well on my computer. For example, the volume button on the embedded blog video was a click and drag rather than a click, release, move the button. Also when I was playing some of the HD video the pause button would stop working occasionally. And when I paused and navigated away from the page and came back, the video would start playing again automatically.

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New York Times video

July 24, 2008 at 12:11 am · Filed under streaming media

The New York Times has several points of entry for its videos. Scrolling down a bit on the home page will take the reader to an embedded Flash player that has a default video selected and ready to play. The video loads quickly after playing a 15-second ad and includes a few seconds of branding that show the company’s logo and a short jingle.

The video is also found embedded within the article itself. Readers usually have to scroll down a bit in the story to see the video so they are unlikely to see it if they don’t find the story interesting enough to scroll down. This is probably fine since most people who would be interested in watching the video would read at least enough to find it down the page.

What I like about the placement of the video within the article is that it is obviously content and not an ad. It is in the left column with the text – not in the right column with the ads. It loads quickly and includes an option for changing the quality – something the embedded video on the home page does not include. What I didn’t like was when I changed the quality I had to start the video over. It would be nice if the video could shift seamlessly to a lower or higher quality like video sites such as Hulu do.

The video did not play perfectly – there was some buffering here and there – but overall it was a good user experience. The screen is small but adequate for the content. There is also a box under the player with a title and short description of the video. The title screen of the video also gives a description and the name of the reporter. These additions to the video help to add context for the reader. It also helps that the video is within the written article.

I’m not sure if the site uses any DRM besides streaming, but this seems to be enough to prevent the average person from downloading it – at least I wasn’t able to download it using the RealPlayer Download feature. The videos also include a watermark (the Times T) so that if someone does capture the content they will able to identify it.

The third place to find the video is on the New York Times video page, which plays the videos in a slightly larger player. The quality also seems to be higher. I wonder how many times the content must be compressed in order to have the different versions for each player.

New York Times is respected for their commitment to embracing new ways to tell stories through video and other multimedia and digital technologies. Digital media can add a layer to a story that is not possible with words alone and I think New York Times does a good job figuring out what stories will benefit from the extra work of creating, editing and compressing video.

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Comparing Colbert on Comedy Central and Hulu

July 17, 2008 at 8:35 am · Filed under streaming media

As a Colbert Report fan I decided to compare the players on Comedy Central and Hulu while watching the full episodes. The full episodes are a fairly recent addition to the sites.

With Comedy Central there was of course a 15-second commercial at the beginning that you can’t skip through. In some ways ads on streaming media might be more effective because you can’t skip through them – at least not that I know of yet – and as long as they keep them short people are unlikely to get up and go do something else while waiting for the commercial to finish. I suppose you could “channel surf” by going to another site, but it’s not really worth it for 15 or 20 seconds.

On Comedy Central I had the option to switch from high quality or auto to low quality when I right-clicked on the video or on the settings menu. The low quality was noticeably different, but if I had to choose between that and constant buffering I would definitely choose the low quality.

In full screen mode, the video is understandably distorted, but it’s nice to be able to watch the video on the entire screen. In the menu items, there are several options you can go to that allow you to change the quality settings, share the video url using facebook, digg and other social sites and also episode info – all while the video continues to run.

Commercials were in the same spot where commercials would normally be, but they were only 20 seconds instead of a couple minutes like they would be on cable. Overall, I was very impressed with Comedy Central’s player and user interface. The video-watching experience was very enjoyable.

Hulu also has full episodes. Instead of four options for video quality (low, medium, high, auto) there are two: standard def and high def. I did have some buffering problems even in standard def so I wish there was a lower resolution I could watch in. To see the details of the Colbert Report, the movie actually stops, which some people might like though I prefer that the movie keep playing.

Both players allow you to skip forward and rewind (though you might have to watch the 20-second ad first – or again). Want to hear the Rush performance again? Just rewind the stream.

With Hulu’s high-def settings the audio quality is also better than in standard def. The Comedy Central player doesn’t seem to have a difference in audio quality between settings. I would have liked to listen to the Rush performance in a little higher quality sound than what Comedy Central gave me.

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Testing Samsung’s instincts

July 9, 2008 at 9:47 pm · Filed under streaming media ·Tagged , , ,

I came across Samsung’s promotional site for its Instinct phone on the Sprint network (I’m sorry, make that the Now Network) and was quite impressed with the advertising campaign (what they refer to as “the greatest product placement of all time”). The site starts out with a movie-trailer-like introduction in full screen, but with minimal visuals – black screen with text and animation of a phone. It looks great, but I didn’t have any trouble loading it. I have a Comcast connection at home, but I don’t think our wireless router is the best so I have trouble streaming audio and video sometimes.

The Instinct clips seemed to play pretty well on my computer though. The quality also seemed pretty good. Once you get into the site (past the humming helicopters and the sonic booms that go off every time you mouse over something) you get to where you can play clips from “as seen in the movie,” otherwise known as commercials, you can look at the features of the Instinct and you can compare the Instinct and iPhone. All of these use flash movie clips. There is quite a bit going on while the clip is buffering, which distracts the viewer from the fact that they are actually waiting for a movie. I like the percentage circle that you can watch go around to 100%. There is also some animation built into the Flash player itself and it moves while the movie is loading, further reassuring the viewer that something is happening and that the movie will play momentarily. Also, while the video is buffering, other parts of the flash screen are still active and you can still make noises by running your mouse over the screen.

The quality of the video is good, but I’m most impressed with the audio. They really tried to make the audio sound like you’re in a movie theater with surround sound. The player uses a simple, but effective skin that has a play/pause button and a “share video” button. There is also a progress bar that can be moved around.

Toward the end of the Instinct “movie” my connection became much slower (maybe Comcast decided I had used enough bandwidth for the evening) and I had to wait about a minute for things to load rather than the 5 seconds it had taken earlier, but when things did finally load I only had a couple clips skip.

I like the convergence of Flash effects and video at this site and I don’t know that there is much I would do differently. They even make it easy to share the video by embedding, posting to facebook, myspace, digg or sharing the url.

For those of you who want to get past all the “product placement” there’s also a user forum on the site. Two weeks after the phone’s release it sounds like there are plenty of unhappy customers who want a better browser, but most of them seem willing to give Sprint a chance to come up with updates to solve the problems. But I think Sprint better act fast.

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