Google’s(On2) VP8 and the video future
May/100
Google has made “public” and “open-source”, “patent-free” and “royalty-free” their recently acquired with the purchase of On2 video codec VP8. It’s an amazing step for the world of digital video. This step obviously was coordinated with other companies like Adobe, which ensured support for the new codec in further versions of Flash and Sorenson that presented an encoder ready to work with the new codec. They have also provided patches for the hugely popular transcoding programs ffmpeg and mencoder that
This is big news and consequences for web video may be really profound. It’s an amazing amount of events for a single month and they did in in a single day. Well done Google!
Video on-demand
Jul/090
When video is stored and the played by request it said to be on-demand. The majority of the video on the web today is prerecorded on-demand material. When video is stored it can be regarded as content rather then a broadcast and thus can be categorized an linked in a more complex manner.
Streaming Video
Jul/091
Streaming is the ability to use content without (down)loading it in whole first. This is very important for web video since a user would usually want to watch the video online instead of downloading it first. When it comes to web video on a technical level streaming is achieved in two main ways:
- Streaming network protocols – this is the low level concept it involves sending(or broadcasting) packets over an IP network. A media server is required for this process and a player compliant with that server’s protocol. This method is also referred as “true streaming” or “live streaming” when it is used with a real time feed. Examples of this concept are Macromedia(now under Adobe) Flash Media server and it’s RTMP protocol and Helix Server(Real Media) with the RTSP.
- File container formats – Some video container formats are designed to be like a stream of packets and can be used in a streaming context. This is also called “Progressive Download” a regular HTTP web server is used for the process. Examples of file formats used for streaming include: .flv(Flash Video), .wmv(Windows Media Video) and many others popular formats.
There is also a hack to progressive download called PHP Streaming. This hack concept solves(sort of) some of the limitations of progressive download namely: random access capability.
Web video
Jul/090
Web video is any video accessible through the web. Web video is a distinct type of medium. This type of medium is usually related to video that is directly viewed online, on a web page, through an internet browser. It can be live broadcast or on-demand. In the sense of technology a slightly better term for web video is – streaming video.
Web video has become a significant medium in the last years largely due to the huge popularity of video sharing services, specifically youtube.com.
Common cases of web video usage are:
- Video sharing sites
- Web TV
- Video blogs (vlogs)
- Corporate News
- Video Advertising
- Product reviews
Web video example:
get Adobe Flash Player
This web site makes use of the Adobe Flash Player.
VIDEO PLAYER and video hosting service.