podslug.com Blog

HTTP Live Streaming and the History of Streaming Media

Erik — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:13:27 +0000

Dan Dilger has posted an interesting article here on Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming protocol for the iPhone that includes a short history of streaming media. Dan thinks that the Apple TV is next: “The obvious followup is to add support for HTTP Live Streaming in Apple TV, allowing for HD streams direct from broadcasters, facilitating the ability to only pay for channels you want to watch, skipping around the local cable monopoly while gaining access to content they don’t carry.”

Why Developers Love iPhone Apps

Erik — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:40:32 +0000

I had a conversation with a buddy, Jimmy Acosta, who said something that I found very interesting. He has been a long-time MFC and .NET programmer but now has a MAC, an IPhone 3GS, and wants to build iPhone apps. He said that the move to browser-based software has taken away some of the fun of building stand alone applications. He said that iPhone apps allow developers to once again build their own stand-alone products that they can distribute and sell as applications rather than as services.

HTML 5 Video Codec Discussion

Erik — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:28:57 +0000

I found this article interesting and would like to hear what others think about it.

Google Chrome TV Ads

Erik — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:55:20 +0000

Google has been heavily promoting Chrome on its main search page and on the YouTube home page. Now they plan to run TV ads. What I find interesting about this is how Chrome will implement the new HTML 5.0 video tag. This will provide native video support in the browser. FireFox 3.2 already supports OGG video. Google and Apple may be in a position to provide an alternative video platform to Flash by extending the video support in WebKit. I predict that both Chrome and Safari will support native H264 streaming via RTSP. Apple’s new MPEG-TS via HTTP for the iPhone could be another protocol that is more widely adopted by Chrome and Safari. Either way, I believe that Google Chrome and Apple Safari will provide an alternative to Flash video with their native support for the HTML 5.0 tag.

Live From Las Vegas: Backpack Journalism

Erik — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:32:30 +0000

I am working with the folks at H264web.com on a solution that fits the new VBrick H264 appliance, a GPS-enabled cellular router from WAAV, and a 12v battery into a 10×6x4 inch mobile pack. The WAAV router pulls the GPS coordinates and pushes this data to a web service that plots your location on a Google map and displays live streaming video from from VBrick encoder. I should have this up and running later this morning here: http://h264web.com/wireless … please let me know what you think by emailing podslug(at)gmail.com. Thanks!

The cable tv business model moves to the web

Erik — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:14:49 +0000

Content owners may benefit from the recent trend to move Internet content back behind paywalls and “affiliated ISPs”. Here are a few interesting links: one, two, three. There is lots of discussion about Net Neutrality issues here. Most of these seem to position “us users” who “want the web to be free” versus “the networks” who control and distribute the content. However, if “us users” are also the content owners then this puts a new spin on this. Content owners can offer premium content (live and in depth coverage) in a retail or subscription form then push it to a free archive after the market has stopped bearing significant revenue for it. Subscribers will pay for the added value if the content is worth it. Content owners can start with this model, grow their subscriber base, and then look to Comcast, Verizon, and other ISPs to pay for the right to carry this premium content to their subscribers. We can all be content owners and subscribers today.

Broadcasting the Serie Del Caribe live

Erik — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:16:24 +0000

I am now broadcasting a Spanish and English feed of the Serie Del Caribe here.

Great Hulu Ad

Erik — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:54:06 +0000

I predict that Hulu will rise to the #2 spot for online video for the month of February; mostly as a result of this super bowl commercial.

Siere Del Caribe Live Broadcast

Erik — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:56:20 +0000

I am planning on broadcasting the Serie Del Caribe live in Spanish and English here. We plan to be twittering status from Mexicali to be notified of game highlights and then attempting to cut and post these in real time before the end of the following inning. This should be a fun challenge. I set up 24 highlights players for the 12 games in Spanish and English that will have these highlights. The goal is to drive traffic back to the live and full-length archive streams that are pay-per-view.

I remember working on the MLB project at Virage where we were clipping games but could not post the clips until the game was over because we had to wait for the encoder to finish the session. This time I am using two VBrick appliances per stream. One to encode and archive the premium video in 3 bitrates and another to just grab highlight clip files. This second brick will automatically push clips as we grab them up to our publishing server. It will be interesting to see how well this works.

Broadcasting live from DC

Erik — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:19:47 +0000

I am now webcasting live from DC … Please tune in!