Is Apple rolling out the welcome mat for XviD? Probably not. XviD has made it to the QuickTime Components listing over at QuickTime’s resources page. Xvid of course is one of the more popular video compression formats out there, with most torrents coming in this variety.

We believe that the adding of Xvid was simply based on the codecs popularity, and the immediate AppleTV hack to support the format. With this codec you can now properly export your XviD movies to a more Apple friendly M4V format.

Whoever updated the site, forgot to change the logo to point to XviD’s site rather than DIVX!

We meet people on the various IPTV, mobile TV and web video circuits who always comment that VC-1, after a flying start, has fallen back and that pretty much these days the codec of choice is either VP6 from On2 Technologies for web video and H.264 for everything else, with no VC-1 in sight.

Just over three weeks ago the MPGE LA issued a final license for the Microsoft-inaugurated VC-1 codec, after forming a group to assess essential patents and to discuss terms for it, back in March 2004, the process taking precisely three years. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

On April 26, 2007, Apple sent out short notices to their iTunes partners who provide the music content to the iTunes store. The notices let partners know that they would soon be able to offer DRM-free music and DRM-free music videos to customers through iTunes. Read the rest of this entry »

An experimental Apple TV extension was added in build 3678. As I don’t have an Apple TV on hand, no testing can be done. The parameters are coded with the spec available on the Internet. So feedback needed.

In the same build, the iPod extension was rewritte to provide more adjustable options.

Sometimes we need to encode with VFW codecs (mainly closed-source codecs which only comes in the form of VFW codecs). A scratch VFW encoder backend has been added to MediaCoder. To encode with VFW codecs, follow these steps:

• Set Backend to “VFW Encoder” on video tab (you need to first uncheck the Auto Select option on the right)
• Click the Backend button, in the Settings dialog, enter the name of codec DLL file.
• When VFW Encoder set as backend, Video Format option has no effect.
• You can set the path of compdata file or simply leave it free and this will bring out the configuration dialog of VFW codec.

Please note that encoding with VFW in MediaCoder is just AS-IS and may not work at all with some codecs. So don’t complain.

You may need to set resolution, frame rate and resample options to make it work. If you are upgrading from previous builds, be sure to download and update the full pack if you need join mode work for audio-only transcoding.

Transcoding is a life-or-death issue facing manufacturers and service providers as they try to realize the explosive growth in video entertainment. Consumers have an insatiable appetite for immersion in entertainment, and transcoding among multiple formats will be mandatory for all future video products to be successful. Digital signal processing technology will be an essential piece in laying the foundation for transcoding among multiple consumer devices.

As the accelerating video market extends its reach to products such as cell phones, portable media players and automotive infotainment systems, consumers are demanding easy access to their video content throughout the home and on the go. Multi-format transcoding will enable the seamless transmission of video content between all types of video devices.

Transcoding will be essential for the continued evolution of the video entertainment market. Why? Content is king and consumers are demanding that it be easily transportable and available on any device. Transcoding is the ability to take existing video content and change the format, bitrate and/or resolution in order to view it on another video playback device. This is also true for high definition (HD) content where transcoding extends the reach of content beyond the TV, making it possible to send, receive and view HD source content on any video device at any resolution. For more information on HD, check out the links on the left hand side of this web page.

Transcoding a single video format is available today but that will not meet consumers’ needs to easily navigate the changing video environment. The ability to seamlessly view content on any device in real-time requires the need to transcode many video formats, thus multi-format transcoding is key.

Multi-format transcoding is the most important challenge to overcome for manufacturers and service providers to solve before realizing the potential tremendous growth in video. Consumers have an insatiable appetite for immersion in entertainment, and transcoding multiple formats in real-time will be a necessary function for all future video products to be successful.

* This is a collected article.

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