10/19, 1:45pm
Controversy surrounds H.264 on iPhone
Apple is not playing fair in terms of supporting video hosting services beyond YouTube, claims the chief technical officer of Dailymotion. Olivier Poitrey comments that the iPhone edition of Safari relies on a special plug-in for YouTube videos, allowing it to jump straight to H.264-encoded copies. Because of Apple's battery and processor worries, Flash is not supported in any form on iPhones or iPod touches.
more
07/15, 1:25pm
Widget Bazaar now out
Subscribers to Verizon's fiber optic Internet and cable service, FiOS, now have access to the Widget Bazaar, which lets them check out Twitter apps and log onto Facebook right on their TVs. Users won't be able to post Twitter updates or view their friends' pages, as the young version of the app only allows users to get updates on what they're watching and standard community Twitter updates. The Twitter app remains on the screen as a vertical ticker, even when users are watching TV.
more
07/09, 9:00am
Sony BRAVIA Gets Netflix
Sony today said its Internet-aware BRAVIA TVs now have access to Netflix. Both newer sets with support built-in, as well as older sets using the add-on Internet Video Link, can access (but not add to) the Watch Instantly queue and stream movies or TV shows directly to the set. Whether or not it's capable of HD footage isn't clear.
more
03/03, 3:00pm
YouTube Resolution
Google's primary video site YouTube is quietly increasing the quality of its videos, viewers have found over the weekend. The Flash-based site has begun re-encoding the web versions of its videos when possible, increasing their resolution from 320x240 to 480x360. Audio quality has also improved to include stereo AAC audio versus the lower bitrate mono sound of before, users note. The improvement primarily applies to newly uploaded videos, which are automatically produced in both the regular and high-quality versions, but is also being applied to older videos. The extra quality currently remains optional and must be activated by adding a tag to the address of the improved videos.
more
02/18, 4:20pm
HD on Web and YouTube
DailyMotion on Monday added HD content to its web video service, becoming one of the first general-purpose web video sites to do so in the more universal Flash format. The France-based service now allows users to both upload and play back up to 720p video without the downsampling that often occurs at these sites. While the feature will generally require a fast single-core or average dual-core processor, a site algorithm can automatically determine whether a video can play at the full resolution or will scale back to standard definition. A 1.6Mbps Internet connection or faster is also required for steady playback regardless of the system's speed, DailyMotion says.
more
