The Daily Grind

At least, I think I’m running MT under FastCGI. I’ve previously had problems with client posting, but we’ll see if that’s still the case with the .htaccess file I’m now using.

I’m trying to add a comment to this entry linking here, to help people who (like me) might be confused by Movable Type’s distinction between ‘tags’ and ‘categories’.

Frustratingly, MT’s docs system is telling me I’m not signed in… but only when I submit a comment. Up to that point, it’s telling me I am signed in, and is refusing to sign me out.

So… let’s see if the Trackback ping from this post gets picked up. Otherwise, it’s down to Google to link this stuff together.

[sigh]

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen said at the NewTeeVee Live conference that high-quality video streams are coming soon to the ‘Tube. But further, he’s reported thus:

… the need to buffer the video before it starts playing will change the experience. Hence the experiment, rather than just a rapid rollout of this technology. On stage, he said the current resolution of YouTube videos has been “good enough” for the site until now.

What?

I can only assume — or rather, hope — Chen is talking about genuinely high-quality video. Like ‘high def’ high quality. Because the issue with YouTube quality (apart from often shitty source material, which isn’t their problem) is that they’re using the video codec in Flash 5. This makes sense, because it means they can run ffmpeg on their server farm to transcode uploads, but there is a cost: Flash 5 video sucks.

The codec is Sorenson Spark, which is a close cousin of H.263 and H.264 but is visibly lacking compared to more modern implementations of the latter. Lacking, that is, at the same bitrates. There’s no shame in this, since Spark was designed years ago, for systems with far less compute power than can now be thrown at the challenge. But current H.264 implementations will deliver better quality and/or a larger frame and/or higher frame rate for the same compressed file size. And you tend to maintain audio sync, which is a particular weakness of Spark in Flash.

Higher-quality video needn’t mean lengthier buffer times. So… what was Chen talking about, again?

[Update: slightly more plausible report in the NewTeeVee Live official transcript. Still doesn’t make complete sense, though — Spark is old and shitty, they’re already doing better H.264 for iPhone and Apple TV… so… huh?]

Oooh. Forget the EX1 (archive to BluRay XDCAM discs? I don’t think so) – this is the new hot game in town. Sony’s Z1-replacement Z7, incorporating an interchangeable lens, HDV tape recording, and simultaneous recording to Compact Flash. Yes, Compact Flash. Oh, and it does 1080p, too.

Sounds darn-near perfect, if you ask me. I wonder what the low light performance is like?

Coming February 2008, for more money than I’ve got. Blast!

YouTube is already serving H.264 to iPhones and Apple TV; Adobe is rolling H.264 support into the next version of Flash; both high-def DVD standards can use H.264; and now DivX has bought MainConcept, an H.264 codec developer.

Two thoughts:

1. Can we now stop with the ‘DivX is just as good’ arguments?

2. Microsoft are the only vendor not doing H.264 (RealPlayer will handle it, if anyone still cares)

Give it another year, and the main delivery method for video will be H.264.

Oh, happy, happy day.

I’m happy, for I have bought drugs. Hard-core solvent-dispersed rapid-action long-lasting… nah, I’m not going to keep this up.

I have Lemsip and Strepsils. And a big box of tissues that have this slightly weird waxy balm thing going on that I’m not entirely sure I like.

Poor me.