August 19, 2005

O'Reilly Digital Media has published a instructional guide on building a MythTV digital video recorder system using off-the-shelf PC parts, Linux, and the MythTV open source software.

August 6, 2005

O'Reilly Digital Media has published an informative article explaining how to get started with Vlogging, or video blogging. The article goes over the basic steps, including creating a video, posting a video, and syndicating a video.

June 15, 2005

DivX Networks today released the DivX 6 video encoding format, featuring enhanced performance, video quality, and editing capabilities. DivX was originally designed for computer video but is now being used more and more for consumer electronics. The most visible new feature of DivX 6 allows video editors to create enhanced menu pages and chapter titles.

June 15, 2005

JVC announced the launch of new Everio G camcorders featuring 20 GB and 30 GB internal hard disks. The new Everio GZ-MG20 and Everio GZ-MG50 camcorders are able to record up to 7 or 10.5 hours of high-quality video, respectively. Movies are recorded using the MPEG-2 format, which makes DVD burning of recorded video that much easier. The devices are also able to function as 1.33 megapixel digital cameras.

June 9, 2005

PC World has published an article containing dozens of TiVo tips and tricks, some well known, others not so well known. These include a number of navigation shortcuts, advanced commercial skipping, sorting of recorded shows, sound system control, adding unlisted channels, enhanced TiVoToGo functionality, replacing the internal hard drive with one that is larger, and many more. The article also contains links to a number of TiVo enthusiast sites, which contain even more TiVo tips and tricks.

June 6, 2005

CVS stores in the Northeastern U.S. have started selling a $29.95 one-time-use digital video camera. The device from Pure Digital Technologies records 20 minutes of video at 15 frames per second with a 640 by 480 pixel resolution. It saves the digital video to internal memory, and requires users to send the camera back for processing to DVD output. The processing charge is $12.95. Currently there is no way to transfer the video from the device to your PC, but we are sure that someone will come up with a hack to do exactly that.

May 23, 2005

Informit.com has published a very useful introduction to broadcasting video over the web. The article looks at various requirements and methods for successful web broadcasting. Among the different formats discussed are Microsoft's Windows Media, Apple's QuickTime, Macromedia's Flash Video, and RealNetworks' RealVideo.

May 16, 2005

An article over at Informit.com shows you how to set up a video broadcast server to transmit live television to any device on your network, including wireless laptops. All you really need is a TV tuner card and the free Windows Media Encoder software. If you want, you can even stream live television to anyone on the Internet via HTTP.

May 11, 2005

MacDevCenter has published an in-depth look at the recently released QuickTime 7 media framework, which is built into Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, available as an update in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, and will soon be available as an update in Windows XP. Among the new features are the powerful H.264 video codec, "live resize" capability, live recording from webcams and microphones, enhanced player controls, and much more.

May 11, 2005

ExtremeTech has an article showing you how to build your own home television server, which lets you centralize recording, storage, and distribution of video over your home network. With a home television server you can watch what you want, when and where you want it. The typical home television server can: receive broadcast video; provide full personal video recorder (PVR) functionality, including pause, rewind, fast forward/reverse, and selection of shows to record; compress recorded video allowing for storage of many hours of content; record video on a server for playback on multiple networked clients; play recorded video, MP3 audio, and DVDs; provide a client user interface suitable for use on a television screen, from across the room, via remote control; and create DVDs from recorded video or other sources.

April 26, 2005

Two former Netscape executives have launched the Open Media Network, a non-profit P2P media distribution startup. Combining the functionality of TiVo with peer-to-peer distribution, the service lets media publishers distribute their content inexpensively. The network uses commercial P2P technology from Kontiki. Open Media Network is initially focusing on delivering public domain content, indie films, podcasts and videoblogs. Later versions will support digital rights management and micropayments so that publishers can get paid for their content.

April 23, 2005

According to a Wired article, the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN are moving quickly toward indexing and aggregating video content. Initially much of the content will be from existing television networks, but further down the road a lot of content will come from independent producers, video blogs, and other sources. These new services will allow users to search for and stream video based on their preferences.

April 23, 2005

Tom's Hardware has published a multi-part article covering the happenings at National Association of Broadcasters 2005 Conference (NAB 2005). The focus of NAB 2005 this year was high definition (HD). The first part looks at new software from Apple, including Final Cut Pro 5, Motion 2, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro 4, and new HD projectors from Sony. The second part looks at the Panasonic AG-HVX200 high definition 3CCD camcorder which can record in the following resolutions: 480i and 480p at 30 or 24 fps, 720i and 720p at 60 or 30 or 24 fps, 1080i and 1080p at 30 or 24 fps. Recording formats supported by the Panasonic AG-HVX200 include: DVCPro HD (100 Mb/s), DVCPro50 (50 Mb/s), DVCPro (25 Mb/s), and DV (25 Mb/s). The third part looks at new special effects available in Serious Magic's Ultra 2 software including chromakeying, HD Plus 90, virtual shadows and reflections. The fourth part looks at AMD audio processing, Gestpoint controls, Gyrocam, HDRadio, Jadoo Power Systems, Newtek's Tricaster, and the PNY Quadro FX540.

April 14, 2005

Tom's Hardware has published a review of four moderately priced 16:9 HDTV capable projectors, including the BenQ PE 5120, the Sanyo PLV-Z3, the Epson EMP-TW200H, and the NEC HT410. The Benq PE 5120 and the NEC HT410 use a 854x480 pixel DLP chip, while the Sanyo PLV-Z3 and Epson EMP-TW200H use true 1280x720 pixel tri-LCD imagers. All four projectors use scaling for 1080i images, while the Sanyo and Epson can display 720p without any scaling. These projectors have various combinations of HDMI, DVI, component YUV, VGA, and S-Video connectors, so it's worth checking out the review to make sure can get the video connection you need.

April 13, 2005

The Tech Reprt has published a comparison and review of three popular TV tuner cards supporting hardware MPEG-2 encoding. These cards are a critical component of any quality home theater PC (HTPC). For those building their own Media Center Edition 2005 HTPC, a card with hardware MPEG-2 encoding is a strict requirement. The article reviews the ATI TV Wonder Elite, the eVGA NVIDIA NVTV, and the Hauppauge PVR-150MCE L.P. See how these cards compare in terms of video quality, MPEG2 encoding, CPU utilization, and PVR features.

April 11, 2005

This TV tuner card features ATI's latest Theatre 550 Pro video processor, a DVD quality MPEG-2 encoder, worldwide stereo audio support, 12-bit analog-to-digital conversion, an advanced hardware motion-adaptive 3D comb filter, hardware noise reduction, FM radio functionality, closed captioning, integrated anti-aliasing filters, and many PVR functions. The card comes with the ATI Remote Wonder Plus, ATI's next generation RF remote control, which features cursor control, six programmable buttons, and several predefined shortcut buttons. The only thing this card doesn't support is HDTV signals, so if you want that, then you might want to look at ATI's more expensive HDTV Wonder card. Read more for the Bytesector.com review of the ATI TV Wonder Elite.

April 8, 2005

Manufacturers of digital video recorder (DVR) devices and software applications are now the targets of patent claims by Forgent Networks. The outcome may determine which features can continue to be available in your favorite DVR products.

April 7, 2005

MTV is testing a new broadband content site called MTV Overdrive. The site features entertainment news, music, and videos. The content is sent to users as Windows Media with digital rights management. In addition, MTV is also working on a specialized version of MTV Overdrive just for Media Center Edition users.

April 6, 2005

SiliconValleyWatcher is reporting that Apple has contracted with a small British company to use a powerful video processing chip designed for mobile devices. The chip can perform 3D rendering, play video on a 3.5 inch color LCD, and capture 8 megapixel images. The speculation is that Apple is working on a video player iPod that is also a gaming device, 8 megapixel digital camera, and possibly a cell phone.

April 5, 2005

Ulead has announced VideoStudio 9, the latest version of its video editing software. Features include a new DV-to-DVD Wizard which creates a fully-edited DVD directly from raw DV camcorder input, as well as video editing tools like chroma keying, flash animation overlays, pan and zoom, and a number of video and audio filters. The software can publish final output to DVD, WMV HD, MPEG-4, and a variety of device formats for mobile phones and Pocket PCs.