Ever wondered how Netflix encodes their video material for their streaming service? This blog post from their chief product office, Neil Hunt, goes into some considerable detail.
I love Netflix and I love their Watch Instantly feature, which enabled me to discover and catch up with Heroes, re(discover) classics and watch some admittedly dubious films that I would have never otherwise bothered with. Mostly, I use the feature on my Windows Media Center Edition PC that is plugged into my plasma at home. Netflix' Windows client uses Windows Media DRM to secure their content, but left Mac users out in the cold.
Now, Netflix has a public beta of their Silverlight 2-based player, which works great in both Safari and Firefox on my MacBook Pro (currently running MacOS 10.5.5) It works in Windows too of course, and once you opt-in to the public beta you opt-in to the Silverlight experience for both platforms.
Below are some screen captures for your enjoyment. Video quality is on par with the Windows version, though I've not tried plugging the Mac into the plasma for the full screen experience yet.
What is particularly useful is the scrubbing view, which is activated when you click and drag the playhead across the timeline. You get the current play position in the centre of the screen and smaller thumbnails of neighbouring frames to its left and right. The longer the material, the more frames you see (TV shows tend to show one frame on each side of the current position, movies tend to show two frames on each side).
Close up of scrubbing view
Normal playback view (click to enlarge)
Scrubbing view (click to enlarge)
Loading stage (click to enlarge)
Video quality check (click to enlarge)
Acquiring DRM license (click to enlarge)
Geotate is a very interesting British company who were showing their automatic geotagging technology at Photokina. Now there are a number of geotagging products out there, some of which rely on GPS and some like EyeFi that refer to surrounding WiFi networks. I have a little Sony lanyard GPS receiver and it stores locations to its internal flash memory. The problem with GPS receivers is that they take time to get a fix on your position by finding satellite signals, measuring their distance, decoding satellite data and finally calculating the position. Geotate’s technology uses a “capture and process”-based approach, which relies on capturing a sample of the ambient GPS satellite signal and storing that. Processing is done off-line and as a result Geotate’s technology tags in less than a second whereas traditional GPS receiver can take up to 30 seconds to get a fix. Since only the raw satellite data is being captured, the Geotate device does not ever store the actual fix, so the geotagging process must happen on the computer. Cameras with built-in GPS receivers like the Nikon Coolpix P6000 or their GP-1 GPS accessory write the geotag information directly into the metadata of each image. However, most people who geotag using GPS use GPS dongles like my Sony and have to combine the GPS track that the device captures with their images based on timestamps – a computer-based after the shoot activity.
Geotate have a nice white paper on their technology here and below is Paul Gough from Geotate explaining how it works and some of the benefits at Photokina. I hope to see their technology built into real devices that consumers can buy soon.
The hotshoe-mounted device shown in the video will be sold by Jobo. You can see more information here.
At Photokina, we were lucky enough to have a local Expression Media fan who spent pretty much the entire week of his own time demoing Expression Media at our booth. Wolfgang works for Microsoft in Germany, but does not actually work on the product itself! Below is a snippet of him demoing Expression Media in German. I wish the video were longer, but unfortunately trade show internet connectivity being what it is, we lost it at the critical moment of demoing Virtual Earth integration.
(note that I wasn’t dumb enough to leave the German translation of the title to an automated translation service, or I would have ended up with Demonstration der Meinungsfreiheit Medien in Deutsch…)
I spent some time with the Mac Office guys at Photokina who were showing the Special Media Edition version of the product, which includes Expression Media. Below is a video that shows Mac users some of the cool things they can do when they use Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition to manage and create documents.
Be sure to check out the split screen action as Mike shows how you can easily compose documents by dragging and dropping visual and content assets from Expression Media into Word and PowerPoint!
Expression Media 2 SP1 is now available. If you are a Windows user and have opted to receive updates for other applications besides Windows, you should be offered the download next time Windows Update runs. If you wish to download the update manually, you may do so here.
The Mac version is available for download here and will become is now available through Microsoft AutoUpdate that is installed with Expression Media 2 or with Microsoft Office on the Mac.
The release notes telling you what’s new are below, but if you’re an Expression Media 2 user, I would highly recommend this release.
Overview
Expression Media 2 SP1 provides the latest updates to Microsoft Expression Media Version 2. Expression Media 2 SP1 has taken the customer feedback from the Expression Media 2 release and the goal of driving both stability and quality to a new level.
To achieve this goal the team fixed over 400 bugs in SP1 and added the following improvements to the Expression Media 2 product by feature:
Hierarchical Keywords
- Child nodes are removed automatically when the parent node is removed.
- The interaction between hierarchical keywords and flat list keywords is improved.
- The drag behavior between a parent node and a child node is improved.
Geo-tagging/Virtual Earth
- Drag-and-drop capabilities have been added to the Virtual Earth window.
- Keywords display when you drag an image to a Virtual Earth window.
- The GPS annotation field is now user editable.
- GPS locations can be sniffed from URLs with embedded Lat/Long info.
- More latitude and longitude formats have been added.
- Latitude and longitude tags can be added for display in HTML galleries.
Raw Image support
- You can now catalog and manage media that is shared on a network by using Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV).
Info Panel
- The template event data can be saved correctly.
- Author details can be displayed correctly.
- The annotated date can be displayed correctly when you import .nef files.
Catalog Editing
- Long paths and long file names are supported when paths are reset.
- Unexpected duplicates are no longer created.
- Expression Media now remembers the last used open location.
- Catalog finder shows the full paths of image files.
Import
- Large files, such as 16000x8000 images, are now supported in HTML galleries.
- Rendering performance for the Nikon .nef files is improved.
- .arw files display the Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) data.
- Issues related to imports from camera disks are fixed.
Light Table
- Multi-item drawing issues are fixed.
- The behavior of the delete button has changed.
- The position of the magnifier pointer is fixed.
- Keyboard shortcut issues are resolved.
- The user experience when switching between full-screen and windowed mode is improved.
In application help
- More than 50 updates to help contents.
Action Log and Error reporting
Date Finder
Reading Annotations on Import
- An intermittent problem in which only some imported files had the correct Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) annotations is fixed.
Long file names and file names with extended characters
File Info Panel for Adobe Applications
Exchangeable Image File (EXIF)
Color Profiles
- A problem in which some color profiles may be reported incorrectly is fixed. For example, the color matching of Nikon .nef images in some circumstances is improved.
Export to Movie Maker
- Export to Movie Maker is now supported regardless of whether Quicktime is installed. Removed option to password protect a catalog
Catalog Passwords
- Earlier versions of Expression Media and iView MediaPro included the password option to protect a catalog. This option was removed to encourage users to use a more secure method for protecting personal information. For more information, see the Expression Media Help.
Yesterday was the first day of Photokina. I spent much of the day on the Microsoft stand talking to people about Expression Media. I did get a chance to walk around a little and stopped by the Canon stand over in Hall 3. Most of the interest was around the 5D Mark II and to a lesser extent the 50D. All of Canons new cameras use the DIGIC 4 processor, which does lots of new fun things including 14-bit colour resolution and 1080p video. With the mad throng of people around the 5D Mark II, I didn't actually get a chance to play with one, but I did take some video. Sadly, I left the appropriate cable at home and probably won't get a chance to upload the video until I get back next week.
The Canon G10 was of surprising interest, since I thought it was just a minor update to the G9. It too uses DIGIC 4 but more importantly has a wider lens than the G9 (28mm versus 35mm on the G9). This makes quite a noticeable difference as you'll see when I post the video. It also does better face detection, can do face detection at oblique angles, has more megapixels, a higher resolution LCD display and a larger optical viewfinder. Interestingly, they've move the exposure compensation settings to a dedicated dial where the ISO settings used to be. The ISO dial and mode dial now sit atop each other on the right hand side, completing the G10's rangefinder-like look.
Another interesting new camera is SD990 IS, which also uses DIGIC 4. Even though it has even more megapixels than previous models, the use of DIGIC 4 apparently means lower noise, so Canon's message is now all about processing power rather than just sensor resolution or noise. The SD990 comes in black or silver and looks very smart indeed. I'm a sucker for metal boded cameras and this does not disappoint, feeling reassuringly sturdy. It is even contoured (in the shape of an athlete's back apparently) and this gives it a somewhat organic softer feeling than if it were an angular slab of metal. Another interesting move and one which hasn't really been well publicised is the use of H.264 as a video codec across the new Canons. The 5D Mark II uses it for its 1080p HD and the SD990 uses it for its VGA quality video, enabling them to put more video on a card. Not sure what the bitrates are, but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.
On the video side, there were no surprises and nothing new - all the new updated consumer camcorders were there (HF11, etc.) and the tapeless HD ones are AVCHD based. There were no new tape-based units as far as I could see, perhaps signaling a deinvestment in tape formats in the consumer video space.
Some of you know what goes into making a trade show happen. For those who don't, the day before the show opens can be crazy: making sure that everything works while the booth is getting built around you. Here are some behind the scenes photos.
This week, I'm at Photokina with a large number of Microsoft people. If you're around, come and see us in Hall 0.41 Stand H049 G031.
We have lots of interesting things being shown including Expression Media 2 Service Pack 1, Photosynth, Microsoft Pro Photo Tools, Office 2008 Special Media Edition and Capture One by Phase One. There are continuous theatre presentations in both German and English and Peter Krogh of The DAM Book fame will be presenting integrated workflow with Capture One and Expression Media. Miss Aniela aka Natalie Dybisz is also on hand and will be talking about her workflow and production techniques.
Some of the Expression Media team will be in the UK the week of September 15th just before Photokina. I’ll be there to attend REMIX 08 in Brighton and am thinking about organising an informal meet up for iView and Expression Media users.
If there’s sufficient interest, I’ll set one up. So in order to gauge interest, possible dates and a venue, please complete the survey here.
Unfortunately, I didn't receive enough responses to make this worthwhile. Fpr those of you who were interested, sorry!
Thanks!
Expression Media will be represented at Photokina in Cologne, Germany from September 23rd to 28th. We’ll be there together with the Rich Media Group. If you’re attending, stop by Hall 04.1 Stand H049 G031 and say hello.
Also, let me know if you have any interest in having a user meeting at the event. If enough people are interested, I can look at setting something up.
Tchüss!
Some of the Expression Media team did an impromptu lunch session at the Microsoft ProPhoto Summit yesterday. We had about 30 people come in throughout our 90 minute slot during lunch. Kevin Bier, our illustrious Product Unit Manager, MCed the whole thing and introduced the program management, test and dev members of the team. While most of the attendees were existing iView MediaPro or Expression Media users, there were some folks who were new to the whole thing.
Washington DC-based photographer John Harrington, who writes the Photo Business News and Forum blog, gave us a nice mention.
Ziv Gilat's Eye-Fi demo at the ProPhoto Summit today was awesome. For those who don't know, Eye-Fi is a 2GB SD card that has built-in WiFi. When I first saw it at MacWorld in January, it simply used your home WiFi network to upload pictures you shot to your computer. Now, they have a couple of other versions:
Eye-Fi Home $80 - goes to your computer only
Eye-Fi Share $100 - goes to your computer and WebShare service, which uploads to sharing, printing, blogging or social sites.
Eye-Fi Explore $130 - this is the most interesting one since it adds geotagging and Wayport Wi-Fi access.
An important limitation to be aware of about these cards is that they will only upload JPEG images via WiFi, so if you shoot RAW you will only be able to use it like a standard SD card.
Here's a hot new feature that will enhance how we do cuts editing in Expression Encoder. We're looking at implementing this in a future version of Expression Encoder - check out the video! :)
Joking aside, this video shows the origin of the term "cuts editing" complete with razor blade and adhesive. I came across this footage on a site operated by former BBC videotape operators. Their site, VTOldBoys, celebrates the history of broadcast VT operation and editing and I applaud them for preserving these nuggets of broadcasting history. According to the website, the video itself was part of an internal BBC training video for VT operators made in 1967 and shot on film. There's also a sequence showing electronic cuts editing.
Next time you curse at the way you fat fingered an edit, your NLE or your computer, think about how far the technology has come.
Expression Media 2 includes support for publishing your catalogs as Silverlight galleries. Felix Andrew, who is the architect for Expression Media, recently wrote a nice article on how to customize one of the samples that is shipped with Expression Blend 2. Felix and I shot an 11 minute video earlier this week where he walks us through the process and shows the end result as well as all the steps in between.
Please note that the video is fairly high quality so that you can see the screens and code fragments. If you are on a slower Internet connection, either wait until you see the content bar at the bottom of the player turn dark grey or view the low resolution version here. The file size is about 160MB. Don't forget that you can double click on the player to make it full screen.
Do send us your comments on this - we'd like to do more of these for both Expression Media and Expression Encoder.
[Update on 30-Oct-2008] Please note that now that Silverlight 2 has been released to web, the templates need to be updated for these examples to work. We hope to make this update soon.
Double click on the video to make it full screen
The video was shot using our new Sony HVR-Z7U camera, which in addition to recording to tape also records to compact flash card. I edited it using Sony Vegas Pro 8 and produced the Silverlight video and player with Expression Encoder 2 at 720p using Ben's settings, which produce nice looking video with enough detail on the screen captures. The video itself is 160MB compared to an 850MB file WMV file I produced directly from Vegas.
