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MPEG-4 pwned by AT&T
MPEG-4, everyone's favorite format that could potentially give you high definition video in small enough sizes to fit on a regular DVD, is officially embroiled in controversy. According to PC Magazine, AT&T claims to hold several patents to key underlying technology of MPEG-4. Right now they are targeting Apple, CyberLink, DivX, InterVideo, and Sonic as unlicensed offenders. MPEG-LA, the group that oversees patent licensing for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, says AT&T is not a part of them, but they can't do anything about it and they make no claim to have licenses to all technologies included in the format.Nero and Pentax have already made deals with AT&T, so don't be surprised if the next DVD burning software you buy has a bump in price for AT&T's taste. You have to wonder how this is going to affect satellite, cable and IPTV companies looking to roll out MPEG-4; we didn't see any of them or set-top box manufacturers listed. Also, no word if their notification letter to included any references to Steve Jobs as a "n00b".[Via Data Compression News]
Intervideo & NVIDIA = hardware assisted h.264 decoding
At HDBeat, we like High Definition not Working Hard, so anything that makes things easier works for us. We've been talking about how ATI and NVIDIA are including technology in their videocards to make watching high definition video easier on your PC, so it's a double bonus. Now Intervideo has announced that they will support NVIDIA's PureVideo hardware assisted h.264 decoding in their WinDVD software. The software will work with GeForce series 6 & 7 GPU's.With both Blu-ray and HD-DVD expected to make use of h.264 compression, your computer will need all the help it can get.
More competing formats? EVD/VMD High definition players coming to CeBit 2006
Who needs blue lasers? Not New Medium Enterprises or Beijing e-world, as they have announced they will be showing off a combo EVD/VMD player at next year's CeBit in germany. Amazingly, while Blu-ray and HD-DVD continue to fight in the streets over who has the birthright to the high definition throne, a little collaboration could be a big boost to two other formats.EVD (Enhanced versatile disc) is a Chinese backed format that has produced very little since being originally announced in 2003, but promised high definition DVD's with standard red laser technology.VMD (Versatile Multilayer disc) is a new format pushed by NME, where they say they can increase the storage of a standard red-laser DVD, by adding additional layers, all the way up to 100GB storage (theoretically).Could all this Blu-ray/HD-DVD posturing be for naught? If these companies can get any studio support and cheap but high quality (MPEG-2 apparently) high definition DVD's on store shelves before the big guys get traction.......2006 will be an interesting year. Read on for the full press release.
Local Channels in MPEG-4 HD on DirecTV starting today for New York and LA
It seems DirecTV is getting the MPEG-4 AVC party started a little early. We knew New York and LA were going to get local channels in high definition, but we thought it would take until January, we were wrong. Starting today, both cities can enjoy their local programming via satellite as long as you have the right equipment.Subscribers who already get their local channels in HD via MPEG-2 equipment don't worry, nothing has changed (yet) for you.New York channels: WABC/Channel 7 WNBC/ Channel 4 WCBS/Channel 2 WNYW (FOX)/Channel 5 LA Channels: KABC/Channel 7 KTTV (Fox)/Channel 11 KCBS/Channel 2 KNBC/ Channel 4
Rumors of MPEG-2's death greatly exaggerated? Digigami does HD on a regular DVD
What's that funny taste in my mouth? Not very familiar at all, it's like chicken but not. Oh, it's crow, and Digigami says they're going to be bringing plenty more for every MPEG-2 doubter. Many people (including me) thought Sony was crazy for sticking to MPEG-2 for their Blu-ray offerings. I mean, why do it, even with their new Blu-ray discs, such an ancient codec is taking up valuable space that could be used for yet another director commentary. But thats not so, according to their press release today, they can encode a 720p file with an average bitrate of between 3-7 mbit/s, good for the same size as a regular DVD without any newfangled h.264 technology. Of course, we all know many people are squeezing the bitrate out of our HD already (cable, satellite providers) with varied results, so the real question is if your eyes can tell the difference. They have a few sample movies up on their site, so take a look.Reading the press release, their tone is downright cocky, with Digigami's CTO stating "It amuses us that our MPEG-1 VBR encoder can also match and outperform H.264 on many progressive encoding tasks at HD frame sizes. MPEG-1 is 6 years older than MPEG-2 and even more widely adopted, reliable, proven and trustworthy". They also have a blog, with the writer saying they will "take on all comers", I like this, time we got some personality into the fight.It will be interesting to see if their compression technology is utilized by Sony or others and how this will affect the HDTV arms race.
Good compression settings for iPod videos
I've been tinkering with compression settings on videos, trying to find the best balance of size, quality, compression settings and compatibility for my video-capable iPod ever since the beginning of November. H.264 is very nice and cool, but it takes forever and a day to compress using QuickTime Pro's export to iPod option. Since I'm not really interested in projecting my videos in large on the wall via an HD-capable projector, there's no need to pick it over MPEG-4. Also, I want to make sure that my videos, especially ones like the video podcasts we do here at TUAW, are viewable by as many people as possible. So the best option is to wrap it in a .mov wrapper. That way, anyone with QuickTime should be able to watch the file.So, in order to do this nicely, I first installed 3ivx as the codec to use. I've been meaning to try the new Divx codec, but haven't had a chance yet. I open the file I want to convert in QuickTime Pro and choose Export to Movie and hit the Options button. This will bring up a Movie Settings panel like the one pictured with this post: Choose Settings... and pick the 3ivx D4 4.5.1 codec, set the quality to medium, the frame rate to 24 and bitrate to 400 kbits/sec. Then adjust the size. If you have a 740x480 video file, then shrink it down to 360x240. Set the sound to AAC 44.100 kHz Stereo at 160kbps. If you are hosting the file online, check the Prepare for Internet Streaming box and select Fast Start. That's it. The resulting file will be reasonably sized and playable in a browser, on your iPod or on any QuickTime compatible system.
