Category Archives: multimedia

adobe, bbc, flash, multimedia, silverlight

BBC iPlayer supporting H.264 in Flash – what’s the point of downloading now?

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The BBC’s streamed catch-up broadcasting, iPlayer, is about to be upgraded to the high-definition H.264 standard, according to this post, from the BBC’s Head of Digital Media Anthony Rose.

He says that the “Play high quality” option will be available “from this week”, though I couldn’t see any sign of it on a brief sampling of available content.

The question: where does this leave the download service, based on peer-to-peer file sharing? This is the thing that caused me considerable hassle this time last year, and which also drew criticism because it is Windows-only.

By contrast, the Flash-based embedded video seems to have performed as smoothly as Flash usually does.

When Flash streaming was introduced, the BBC said that the download option would remain for higher-quality viewing, but with H.264 Flash that argument has little force. It is still comforting to have a downloaded file, in case your Net connection fails or becomes congested, but other than that there is little advantage. My guess is that it will wither. Supporting both must be expensive.

It is unfortunate for Microsoft, whose technology is losing out to Adobe’s at the BBC, particularly since Silverlight would probably have worked nicely in this context. Unfortunately the old iPlayer is not Silverlight, but based on Windows Media Player, known to be hassle-prone as well as being single platform.

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.net, adobe, flash, internet, microsoft, mono, multimedia, silverlight, software, software development, web authoring, windows

Microsoft Silverlight: 10 reasons to love it, 10 reasons to hate it

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A year or so a go I wrote a post called Adobe AIR: 10 reasons to love it, 10 reasons to hate it. Here’s the same kind of list for Microsoft’s Silverlight, based on the forthcoming Silverlight 2.0 rather than the current version. The items are not in any kind of order; they also reflect my interest in application development rather than design. It is not a definitive list, so there are many more points you could make – by all means comment – and it will be interesting to have another look a year from now when the real thing has been out for a while.

This Silverlight developer chart is available in full on Brad Abrams’ blog here, or in Joe Stegman’s Deep Zoom version here.

The pros…

1. The Silverlight plug-in means developers can target a single, consistent runtime for browser-based applications, rather than dealing with the complexity of multiple browsers in different versions. You also get video and multimedia effects that are hard or impossible with pure HTML and JavaScript; though Adobe’s Flash has the same advantages.

2. Execute .NET code without deploying the .NET runtime. Of course, the Silverlight plug-in does include a cut-down .NET runtime, but instead of dealing with a large download and the complexities of the Windows installer, the user has a small download of about 4MB, all handled within the browser. In my experience so far, installation is smooth and easy.

3. Performance is promising. Silverlight comes out well in this prime number calculator, thanks no doubt to JIT compilation to native code, though it may not compare so well for rendering graphics.

4. Support for Mono (Moonlight) means there will be an official open source implementation of Silverlight, mitigating the proprietary aspect.

5. Silverlight interprets XAML directly, whereas Adobe’s XML GUI language, MXML, gets converted to SWF at compile time. In fact, XAML pages are included as resources in the compiled .XAP binary used for deploying Silverlight applications. A .XAP file is just a ZIP with a different extension. This also means that search engines can potentially index text within a Silverlight application, just as they can with Flash.

6. Third-party component vendors are already well on with Silverlight add-ons. For example, Infragistics, ComponentOne and DevExpress.

7. Take your .NET code cross-platform. With Macs popping up everywhere, the ability to migrate VB or C# code to a cross-platform, browser-based Silverlight client will be increasingly useful. Clearly this only applies to existing .NET developers: I guess this is the main market for Silverlight, but it is a large one. The same applies to the next point:

8. Uses Visual Studio. Microsoft’s IDE is a mature and well-liked development environment; and since it is also the tool for ASP.NET, you can use it for server-side code as well as for the Silverlight client. For those who don’t get on with Visual Studio, the Silverlight SDK also supports command-line compilation.

9. Choose your language. Support for multiple languages has been part of .NET since its beginning, and having the .NET runtime in Silverlight 2.0 means you can code your client-side logic in C#, Visual Basic, or thanks to the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) Iron Ruby or Iron Python.

10. Isolated storage gives Silverlight applications local file access, but only in a protected location specific to the application, providing a relatively secure way to get this benefit.

The cons…

1. If Apple won’t even allow Flash on the iPhone, what chance is there for Silverlight?

2. Silverlight is late to the game. Flash is mature, well trusted and ubiquitous; Silverlight only comes out of beta in the Autumn (we hope) in the version we care about – the one that includes the .NET runtime – and will still lack support on mobile devices, even Windows Mobile, though this is promised at some unspecified later date.

3. The design tools are Expression Blend and Expression Design – but who uses them? The design world uses Adobe PhotoShop.

4. While having solution compatibility between Expression Blend and Visual Studio sounds good, it’s actually a hassle having to use two separate tools, especially when there are niggling incompatibilities, as in the current beta.

5. No support for the popular H.264 video codec. Instead hi-def video for Silverlight must be in VC-1, which is less common.

6. It’s another effort to promote proprietary technology rather than open standards.

7. Yes Linux will be supported via Moonlight, but when? It seems likely that the Linux implementation will always lag behind the Windows and Mac releases.

8. Silverlight supports SOAP web services, or REST provided you don’t use PUT or DELETE, but doesn’t have an optimized binary protocol like Adobe’s AMF (ActionScript Message Format), which likely means slower performance in some scenarios.

9. Silverlight is a browser-only solution, whereas Flash can be deployed for the desktop using AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). Having said that, yes I have seen this.

10. You have to develop on Windows. This is particularly a problem for the Expression design tools, since designers have a disproportionately high number of Macs.

apple, itunes, microsoft, multimedia

Why we don’t talk about Zune

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Brandon LeBlanc comments on last week’s Guardian article on DRM and says:

What is interesting to me is the article neglects to look at what Microsoft is doing with Zune in regards to DRM. Just like Apple and Amazon – the Zune Marketplace also offers DRM-free music.

According to this page on the Zune Marketplace:

Browse over three million songs you can preview and download—most are now available as MP3s that’ll play on your Zune device or any other MP3 player. Or get an instant music collection: Zune Pass gets you millions of downloads for just $14.99 a month.

Answering LeBlanc, one reason is that Microsoft has not made Zune available internationally, so its visibility in the UK is rather minimal. Nevertheless, the Zune developments are interesting. In fact, the Zune now has pretty much the business model many expect Apple’s iTunes and iPod/iPhone to have in the future – all-you-can-eat subscription, with a premium download option.

Still, Microsoft has a marketing problem with Zune. First, it’s perceived as a me-too answer to iTunes/iPod. Second, the branding is focused firmly on the Zune device, which has only a small market share. Amazon on the other hand makes great play of the iPod compatibility of its MP3 store. How can Microsoft promote Zune marketplace as a source for DRM-free iPod music, without undermining the whole Zune concept in which device and store are tied tightly together?

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drm, multimedia

Another DRM trainwreck

A former URGE subscriber tells her story on Valleywag:

I got an email that said Urge was closing and my membership would be transferred to Rhapsody 25 … I was unable to refresh my licenses because Urge had closed … turns out, they never moved the DRM over to their servers because “they couldn’t.” Something about DRM being specific to a server and when the Urge server was shut down all of the licenses were “lost.” … Basically, IMHO, Rhapsody stole $311 of CDs from me, which is what I told them.

This customer got all her money back.

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drm, multimedia

At last: legal music downloads, no DRM, no lossy compression

HDtracks is offering music downloads in no-compromise AIFF or FLAC formats. Currently they are CD quality; coming soon is 96/24 FLAC which is in theory better than CD, though some argue that the benefits are inaudible. All downloads are DRM-free. If you insist, you can have MP3 instead. Prices are $1.49 per track, $11.98 per album.

This is the kind of online music store I can enjoy. Although music files of similar quality are available from Linn and DGM (Robert Fripp’s download store), these are individual labels, whereas HDtracks carries a number of labels – though sadly restricted to speciality rather than mainstream companies. The company was founded by David and Norman Chesky of Chesky Records, which has a good reputation for both musical and audiophile quality. You will find a few well-known names here, though they are voices from the past: Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Jerry Garcia, Roger McGuinn, Tom Paxton, Blue Oyster Cult, The Byrds, Judas Priest, The Kinks, Don Mclean, and more. There’s also a generous selection of Jazz, Chesky’s first love.

The bad news: US only for the moment.

What about Music Giants? These are lossless downloads too, and a wider selection, but mostly in DRM-protected WMA format. That said, DRM-free downloads are popping up there as well. Again, US only.

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apple, drm, multimedia, vista

Napster crashed my PC

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Oh dear. I’m writing an article on DRM and was trying out Napster. The way this works begins with installation of the Napster application. I ran setup on my Vista Business machine, and got a blue screen. Undeterred, I restarted and ran setup again. This appeared to work, although the PC demanded a restart and took ages to shut down. Unfortunately, when it did eventually restart, something was not right. I could log on, and the desktop appeared, but I could do nothing more than move the mouse pointer; even Ctrl-Alt-Delete could not pull up its menu. Solution: restart in safe mode, remove Napster, restart. All fine now.

I’m sure I was just unlucky; but it’s a nice illustration of why Apple owns this market – though iTunes can be problematic too.

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internet, multimedia, software development, web authoring

Role of web video in tech communications

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Last week’s Live Mesh announcement was a significant one for Microsoft watchers. It was interesting to note that all the in-depth information came in the form of web video.

Personally I dislike this trend. Video cannot easily be scanned to see what it contains; it also requires audio which is a nuisance. It is more work to quote from a video that to copy some text. I also resort to playing them at double speed where possible, to come closer to the speed of reading, and noting down the time of sections that I want to return to.

Some of these problems could be mitigated by better presentation. For example, you could have summary text on the page next to an embedded video, with links to indexed points.

However I also recognize that I may be in a minority. Video has obvious advantages; it is more informal, and can includes real demos as opposed to diagrams and screen grabs.

I am even contemplating trying some video publishing of my own; it is time I reviewed Adobe Visual Communicator.

Even so, I’d suggest that companies take the time to offer transcripts of important video content. Text has advantages too.

internet, microsoft, multimedia

Will Microsoft abandon DRM?

Ars Technica quotes an email apparently sent to customers of MSN Music:

As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers. You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.

Microsoft may not care about MSN Music any more, but this decision undermines all its DRM content sales and those from its partners.

Or will Microsoft abandon DRM? Seems unlikely; yet when I quizzed Microsoft on this general subject (what happens to DRM content when you switch PCs), the reply from Adam Anderson, Sr. product manager for Windows, included this phrase twice:

Music content providers and online music stores are increasingly moving to DRM-free downloadable tracks

As Anderson noted, this will “diminish user issues regarding rights restoration”. So will Microsoft follow this same principle in some future version of the Zune store, for example?

If it did, it might also do the right thing for its MSN Music customers, which would be to provide a tool to unlock the DRM on their purchased files. I suppose its agreement with the copyright owners does not allow for that; yet as the industry now seems willing to offer music DRM-free, it just might be possible.

Incidentally, I’d love to hear from anyone who has purchased music protected with Microsoft DRM, such as tracks purchased from Napster, CD Wow or HMV.com. Happy? Or if not, what problems have you had? I’m looking for examples for a future article.

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internet, multimedia

CDs,DVDs still account for more than 75% of music industry revenue, but shrinking

The RIAA has posted 2007 year-end manufacturers’ unit shipments and value statistics. This covers USA music and music video sales.

Here are my highlights:

  • CD sales down 17.5% in units and 20.5% in value year-on-year. The peak was 2000; value is down around 44% since then (actually a smaller decline that I would have expected).
  • Downloads are up 38.9% in units and 43.2% in value.
  • Mobile (ringtones etc) are amazingly only 30% less by value than other digital download sales, if I’m reading the chart right.
  • Revenue from physical media (mostly CDs) is more than 75% of the total.
  • Overall revenue is down by 11.8% – that’s the figure that hurts the music industry.
  • Finally, vinyl is up by 46% but from a small base; it’s only a tiny niche.

Every time I look another CD shop has shrunk or closed on the high street, so I expect there will more of the same next year.

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