Multimedia, AV Archive

XBMC for Android announced

Thom Holwerda 2012-07-14 Multimedia, AV 39 Comments

"We have been keeping a little secret.... The kind that is so much fun to share when the time comes. Today we announce XBMC for Android. Not a remote, not a thin client; the real deal. No root or jailbreak required. XBMC can be launched as an application on your set-top-box, tablet, phone, or wherever else Android may be found." So, this just made Google TV useful, right?

A walk-through on digital collages

Eugenia Loli 2012-06-01 Multimedia, AV 8 Comments

Following our recent interview with the iPhone collage artist _meta_, a few readers asked for more such articles. So here's one on how to create your own such digital collages! Technically-speaking, digital collage, illustrations, and photo-montage are the same thing. It's just pictures or drawings put together in a single image, made look like a seamless, coherent piece. However, there are distinct differences in the way these are perceived and enjoyed, they essentially are different sub-genres.

Who’s pirating Game of Thrones, and why?

Thom Holwerda 2012-05-21 Multimedia, AV 61 Comments

"With over 3 million downloads per episode, the HBO hit series Game of Thrones is without doubt the most pirated TV-show of the season. Data gathered by TorrentFreak shows that most of the pirates come from Australia, while London tops the list of pirate cities. But why have these people turned to BitTorrent?" Because in order to get it legally, I have to take a monthly subscription costing me â‚¬15 per month. So instead, I buy the season box sets as they come out, and download them every Monday morning in the meantime.

DVDs, Blu-rays will carry two unskippable government warnings

Thom Holwerda 2012-05-09 Multimedia, AV 53 Comments

"Will the two screens be shown back to back? Will each screen last for 10 seconds each? Will each screen be unskippable? Yes, yes, and yes. An ICE spokesman tells me that the two screens will 'come up after the previews, once you hit the main movie/play button on the DVD. At which point the movie rating comes up, followed by the IPR Center screen shot for 10 secs and then the FBI/HSI anti-piracy warning for 10 secs as well. Neither can be skipped/fast forwarded through.'" That'll surely teach the pirates who don't buy DVDs or Blu-rays.

Fiona Apple’s new single: “Every single night”

Thom Holwerda 2012-04-23 Multimedia, AV 33 Comments

This is kind of a big deal for me. No, this shouldn't be on OSNews, and no, at this particular moment, I really don't care that you're right about that. All our silly stupid pointless discussions about Windows iPhone Galaxies and patents and whatnot - no matter how angry it sometimes makes me, how much energy I spend on it - it all becomes so trivial and meaningless the moment I realise this beautiful world still produces things like this. I'm going to enjoy the sunshine for a moment. And I'm leaving my phone on vibrate in the kitchen.

Top-five tips to animate your comics

Eugenia Loli 2012-04-20 Multimedia, AV 23 Comments

I recently delved into the world of hand-drawn comics-style animation, after a lifetime of just sketching on paper. While I have a long experience with video editing, I had no experience with video animation of that kind. When I first got the idea to do the video it felt like a mountain to me, excessively complex. But the steep learning curve got easier with time. This is my top-5 cheat list to get you up and running.

Lib-Ray video standard: using Google/On2’s VP8 video codec

Submitted by fsmag 2012-04-20 Multimedia, AV 30 Comments

"When I started working on a no-DRM, open-standards-based solution for distributing high-definition video on fixed media ('Lib-Ray'), I naturally thought of Theora, because it was developed as a free software project. Several people have suggested, though, that the VP8 codec would be a better fit for my application. This month, I've finally gotten the necessary vpxtools and mkvtoolnix packages installed on my Debian system, and so I'm having a first-look at VP8. The results are very promising, though the tools are somewhat finicky."

XBMC 11.0 released

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-25 Multimedia, AV 6 Comments

"XBMC 11.0 Milestones include Addon Rollbacks, vast improvements in Confluence (the default skin), massive speed increases via features like Dirty-region rendering and the new JPEG decoder, a simpler, better library, movie set scraping, additional protocol handling, better networking support, better handling of unencrypted BluRay content and structures, adjustable display refresh rate in OSX (to match the already available feature in Windows and Linux), AirPlay support, an upgraded weather service with geoip lookup, and much, much more. Check out the highlights in the summarized changelog."

United, a tech conglomerate can take over Hollywood

Eugenia Loli 2012-03-14 Multimedia, AV 67 Comments

By reading various media news in the last year or so, a very disturbing pattern appeared. When media providers like Amazon, Apple, Google, Netfix, Microsoft tried to license content off of Hollywood, they were either given extremely high prices, or they were being rejected altogether. Microsoft even canceled a finished XBoX360-related video product recently because they couldn't license content easily, Netflix is given harder and harder time as time goes by (notice how only a few good movies were added to their streaming service in the last few months), and even the almighty Apple had the door shut on its face numerous times.

TV is even more broken in The Netherlands

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-24 Multimedia, AV 115 Comments

An interesting anecdote at MinimalMac about television being broken. The author's young daughter, who is growing up in a Netflix/Hulu/iTunes/etc. household, was confronted with actual TV for the first time, and wonders why she can't pick what to watch, why the shows are being interrupted all the time, and so on. Clearly - TV is broken.

Flash Player for Linux becomes Pepper-only

Submitted by Ajeet 2012-02-22 Multimedia, AV 102 Comments

On my mark... Get set... Start not caring! Adobe has announced it plans to discontinue the stand-alone Flash Player for Linux, instead focussing all its effort on the version available through the Pepper API - which, besides Chrome, no one else is going to support.

VLC 2.0 ‘Twoflower’ released

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-19 Multimedia, AV 54 Comments

VLC 2.0 has been released. "With faster decoding on multi-core, GPU, and mobile hardware and the ability to open more formats, notably professional, HD and 10bits codecs, 2.0 is a major upgrade for VLC. Twoflower has a new rendering pipeline for video, with higher quality subtitles, and new video filters to enhance your videos. It supports many new devices and BluRay Discs (experimental). Completely reworked Mac and Web interfaces and improvements in the other interfaces make VLC easier than ever to use. Twoflower fixes several hundreds of bugs, in more than 7000 commits from 160 volunteers."

Boxee 1.5 for Desktops Arrives, but the End Is Nigh

David Adams 2011-12-27 Multimedia, AV 21 Comments

Boxee released version 1.5 of its free multimedia streaming software for Mac, Windows, and Linux desktops today, but simultaneously announced that it will cease offering the Boxee desktop software after January 2012. Thereafter, the company will limit its focus to devices such as the D-Link Boxee Box.

Logitech CEO: Google TV “Cost us Dearly”

Thom Holwerda 2011-11-11 Multimedia, AV 24 Comments

"Yesterday, Logitech hosted an Analyst and Investor Day and during his remarks, CEO Guerrino De Luca pulled absolutely no punches in describing the 'mistakes' the company made with its Logitech Revue Google TV set top box. Calling the company's Christmas 2010 launch 'a mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature', De Luca told investors that the company had 'brought closure to the Logitech Revue saga' by making plans to let inventory run out this quarter and that there are 'no plans to introduce another box to replace Revue'."

It May Be A While For WebM In Adobe’s Flash

Submitted by RichterKuato 2011-10-31 Multimedia, AV 31 Comments

While Adobe previously said it would support Google's WebM video format within their Flash Player software, it doesn't look like this support will be arriving soon. Adobe's MAX 2011 conference took place last week in Los Angeles. During a Q&A session, WebM support in Flash was talked about. After Adobe was questioned about the WebM support, the response was, "Yes, on the priority list it's not very high because we don't have a lot of customers or real customers who want to do production with WebM. The problem on the production side is that encoding WebM is simply too slow, it's not real time. And it's not JDI too (just do it). Yes, it's a lot of work for us."

The Case for Piracy

Guest post by twitterfire 2011-10-25 Multimedia, AV 35 Comments

ABC.net.au has published an article titled "The Case for Piracy". The writer shows how copyright has been hijacked by corporations and that publishers are their own worst enemies. "One of the main reasons we all have anti-piracy slogans embedded in our brains is because the music industry chose to try and protect its existing market and revenue streams at all costs and marginalise and vilify those who didn't want to conform to the harsh new rules being set."

Dutch Public Broadcasting Company Investigates WebM Viability

Thom Holwerda 2011-09-30 Multimedia, AV 35 Comments

So, anyone remember WebM? A reader emailed me about a pilot study (in English!) performed by a collaboration between the NPO (the Dutch version of the BBC, basically) and TNO (the largest research institution in The Netherlands, often employed by our government) into the viability of using WebM and associated tools instead of H.264 and associated tools, including the perceived quality of VP8. The outcome of the pilot shouldn't surprise anyone - the toolchain needs work, WebM itself isn't there yet, but the future looks bright.

Skype Now Supports The Open Source VP8 Video Codec

Submitted by Debjit 2011-08-04 Multimedia, AV 9 Comments

In a blog post, John Luther, the Project Manager of Google's WebM Project, has announced that Skype now supports the VP8 codec. The VP8 support is already available for Windows users who are using Skype 5.5. VP8 will be used to encode and decode the Skype video call if both the caller and receiver have clients that support the codec.

MPEG-LA: 12 Companies Hold VP8 Patents

Submitted by kristoph 2011-07-31 Multimedia, AV 27 Comments

Ah yes, the MPEG-LA, the company that patent-trolled before it was cool (now every schmuck like Apple and Microsoft do it too). Remember how they once called for companies to step if they had any patents Google's VP8 might be infringing upon? After almost a decade of empty threats against Theora, the MPEG-LA finally started actually doing something. Now they claim (in an interview with streamingmedia.com) twelve companies have stepped up - but, in true MPEG-LA fashion, which patents VP8 supposedly infringes upon remains shrouded in mystery.

VLC Suffers from Companies Spreading Malware Bundled with VLC

Submitted by sawboss 2011-07-11 Multimedia, AV 164 Comments

This is a problem I hadn't yet heard of, so it fascinates me to no end. We all know VLC, right? It's one of the best video players out there, and while I myself generally just install the K-Lite Codec Pack, VLC is definitely a good alternative - and pretty much the norm on Linux. They're having a problem, though: malicious folk are bundling VLC with malware, offering it up for download as the official VLC, and misleading users in the process. Not only does this violate the GPL - it's pretty damn low, too.