News is out that the W3C won’t mandate what codecs must be supported by a browser as part of the HTML 5 spec.

They state:

Now the bit there about Apple worrying about patents in Theora peaks my interest, but only because I had an actual IP lawyer say the same thing to just a little while ago, but just that he has “concerns”.. I’m starting to think lawyers every where say that about everything just because it leaves the door open for them to make a few extra dollars (hello Mono).

But that aside, I wanted to talk about another aspect of all of this:

One of the things that really bugs us Linux guys is how the fanboi tards of Apple and Microsoft (does MS have fanbois besides guys like Paul Thrott?) is the way they latch on to buzz words from he company, and then regurgitate them when ever they are challenged for details, or are preaching their path to salvation to someone when they really have no idea of the real technology behind that buzzword or if it truly is that great of a implementation.

But here’s the thing everyone, I’m starting to really come to the overall conclusion that OGG is just becoming an OSS buzzword.

Hear me out:

Read the rest of this entry »

So what the heck is Flowplayer? Well if you ask Wikipedia it sounds like just another dang Flash player:

“Flowplayer is a video player for the World Wide Web. It allows users to embed video streams on their personal web pages. It is an open source project with a GPL 3+ license. Commercial versions are also available. Commercial versions allow users to add their own logos. It can play flash video.”

But let me tell you, it is so much more:

I don’t think I’ve ever been giddy over a video player until I meant my new crush, Flow. On top of being awesome (which I’ll get into in just a sec) it is an open source project with a GPL 3 license.  They also offer a few flavors of a commercial license that let you fully brand the player, and of course, support them with some cash.

Flowplayer’s real power comes in it’s advanced scripting options, their API is object-oriented and not just a flat list of functions. They have what is known as an event model, allowing you to link custom functionality to every player event (such as play, pause, rewind, stop). And if you are a jQuery user you will be delighted by the seamless way in which Flowplayer and jQuery work together.

On top of the incredible power that JavaScript and jQuery give you, they also have built in plugin support to Flowplayer. Some already-existing plugins allow you to, for example, place HTML content over the video when the playback ends, or implement custom playlists using only basic HTML skills, detect the viewers available bandwidth and dynamically select the best bit-rate for them. If you really want to go crazy, you can build (or use their free examples) all of the player’s controls out of HTML.

How am I using Flowplayer:

LIKE A PRO, that’s how! My day job wants to start creating tech help videos for our clients, and the general Internet audience. We kicked around the idea of hosting the flash version of our videos on YouTube, but we are worried that people leaving comments might scare our audience away (these are not computer savvy types), I am a big fan of blip.tv and started going that route with our videos. But in the end I realized that for a commercial company we need to have more control and flexibility… I realized I was going to have to roll my own solution.

My solution (note: files are hosted on Amazon S3):

1.    On initial page load, instead of loading the resource heavy flash player and flash, it loads a place holder image with a play button. This means our pages load FAST, and peeps with slower PC’s don’t take a performance hit on our page (a very common problem on Jupiter Broadcasting with all the flash videos).
2.    Using my mad skills, I got the Flowplayer plugin working that detects your bandwidth, and sends you one of three versions of the video, most appropriate for your connection speed. So we won’t be slamming client’s networks with our videos if they can’t handle them.
3.    Using Flowplayer’s ability to accept JavaScript commands, I have setup a central config file that all the players on our site will read from. So we can change all the players color themes, size, streaming properties, you name it, in one single config, and all the players will update. Even years down the road, with a huge video archive, they will all update. That? That’s called EPIC. HUGE. EPIC.
4.    That central config also means we can change out the pre and post roll ads, or even just turn them all on at any point.. So again, all flash videos on our site will always be able to feature our latest promos. Or if we want, we can override and setup a on-off video that has it’s own config outside the global config.. So a promo ad just for a certain video, or certain color scheme, etc.
5.    Google Analytics integrated into the player. YUP. Those handy action aware contexts in Flowplayer really pay off here. It knows when someone hits play, pause, fast forward, volume up/down, etc (still kinda basic, just getting going with this)… Leveraging Google Analytics, I’m be able to track at what point someone tunes out of the video, or fast forwards, or heck, even rewinds so we know when we needed to make something more clear.

Want to know more?

I’m still new to all of this, so I am probably not the best resource, but here are a few good ones:

• Flowplayer’s fantastic documentation with real work examples.
• Flowplayer also has a active user forum.
• They are also rockin a Flowplayer twitter account which they are very active on.

If you’d like to ask me a question about the stuff I’ve done, send me a tweet and I’d be happy to try my best to answer!

Watch as I edit some of our online videos, and shares tips and tricks with the community in the chat room, and they share their tips with me.

Watch to learn how the HD content for Jupiter Broadcasting is created, what is involved to produce and create online video Podcasts.

In a future episode I’ll cover SD video editing using open source software under Linux.

This episode aired live over my live show page, http://chrisfisherlive.tv a big thanks to those of you who joined me live, and showed me a few new tricks. Hope I was able to do the same for you!

This episode is just avaiable as an embed because it was a long one, so the file size if very huge. Future episode will be shorter, smaller, and available for download in several find formats from the Chris Fisher Live Recorded Shows Feed.

Keeping things as geeky as possible, I also received the new Tricorder from the Star Trek movie, decided to stream the unboxing of that sucker too! If you missed it, you can watch the video here:

Very geeky, but it was fun. I unboxed the new USS Enterprise live and made a recording of it. If you did not catch it, you can watch the video here:

I stand by my review of the HP MediaSmart WHS unit that I released weeks ago. Even to this day I get comments and emails from people telling me I was way off, had no idea what I was talking about, or had a bad unit. All of which I smell fanboy BS off of, but it still makes me pause and wonder what they are seeing that I am not… Granted it is not an awful product, but I do feel it is still not where it needs to be for the target audience of the device.

So I thought I would record a quick video, and maybe get your take on the situation:

I think this really fits from Wikipedia:

Fanboy is a term used to describe any individual who is devoted to a single subject in an emotional or fanatical manner, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession.

We will be streaming the return of the big show LIVE this Saturday at jupiterbroadcasting.com/live we are not sure exactly what time, but we are aiming for 1:00 PM Pacific. As the event gets closer, will update everyone on our twitter feeds twitter.com/ChrisLAS and twitter.com/BryanLAS

We hope to see you there, and have you join us in the IRC chat room while we stream.
IRC Server: chat1.ustream.tv
IRC Room: #jupiterbroadcasting

Just started to setup the new MacBook Pro work bought me. I thought I would record my first impressions quickly in a short video. One thing I left out of the video, that after using the laptop for a bit longer is I realized the corners of the MacBook Pro feel a bit sharp on my wrists while I type if I have my arms off to the side of the machine… That’s not how I typically type… Because that would be ridiculous, but go figure it is how I am typing as I write this Check out the video below for more of my thoughts:

The following are my notes on what I have found works best for posting videos to YouTube in HD on our YouTube channel, that after some processing on YouTube’s part will be available in HD. The below steps focus on Adobe Media Encoder, but there is nothing specific to that application, these settings would work for any encode.

These settings have been developed after a lot of trial and error, and I have found they produce great looking video that is not huge in file size.

Step 1: Upload a HD video to YouTube with the following specifications:

-When using Adobe Media Encoder -

Video:
Compression: H.264
Size: 1280×720 px (HD/High Definition)
Bit Rate: 3000-5000 kbits/sec (Most say 4000 Kbits is the sweet spot)
Deinterlaced
Frame Rate: 30
Field Order: Non (Progressive)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixles (1.0)

Audio:
Apple Lossless 32Khz or 44Khz Stereo, or MP3 128kbps or AAC 128kbps.

Un-check everything else in Filters, Alternates and Others

After using those settings YouTube will take a lifetime to transcode. The first available video tends to look like junk, they are still processing the HD video in the background.

Step 2: Enable High Definition:

To enable HD viewing on a high definition YouTube video, just add to the end of the URL:

“&fmt=22″(without the quotes) or click the Watch in HD link below the video.

To enable HD embedding, first copy the video embed code and paste it to your web page. Then add

“&ap=%2526fmt%3D22″(without the quotes) at the end of the video URL in the embed code, note that you need to add it in two places (the lines with your video ID).

To get a widescreen embed player, just change the sizes values “width” and “height” to “595″ and “360″.

The above notes are for Adobe Media Encoder, but those generally settings will work for any encoding application, including ffmpeg and even QuickTime.

Starting back in Jully of 2008 Windows XP started to give Linux quite a run for its money in our web stats, surprisingly that  trend seemed to contiune for a few months straight. It was growing so fast for a while that I suspected it might be an error in the reporting software’s numbers.

Once I dug deeper I also noticed the iTunes RSS client agent was growing at the same rate as Windows XP was in our general web stats. Because I am not the smartest man in the world, it took me a few minutes to put the obvious bits of the puzzle together. July… What happened in July? Ah yes, the iPhone 3G was released! “That must be it” I thought to my self. People bought an iPhone, then fired up Windows XP for iTunes and iPhone sycning and starting using that environment. This was an interesting snapshot in time for us, do we continue down the strictly Linux focused content even though our webstats are quickly trending to Linux being the minority or do we mix it up, and go more of a balance between Windows, Mac and Linux. We spent some time kicking this idea back and forth and never really came to a final decision.

Though through the process of analyzing this type of shift in our viewer/listner base we realized that the best way to reach more people, would be to promote the technologies we felt passionate about through a more realistic approach. We came to the realization that if you want to convince someone that technology X is better than technology Y you need to speak to them like an adult, and not like a religious zealot that only sees things in basic black and white.

If I show you doing something fun or intresting using the technology I’m excited about, like say a Drobo, that is going to be a lot more effective of a message then me just simply ranting about how great a Drobo is.

It’s with this approach that we have focused our new format of shows, like In Depth look and while we have only been at it for just a few months, I am so happy with the results we are seeing. Honestly I think the data speaks for it self. Since the change to the new format 2.4 million people have watched our videos, and we’ve reached entirely new areas of the technology community that we’ve never spoken with before. I get emails daily from people who are being introduced to new technology through our videos, and emails from old pros who just love the content and find it engaging.

On top of that, I’m pleased to see that Linux has again climbed to a comfortable lead in our web statistics, to which I primarily contribute new eyes and ears to our content:

Our new format  understands and appreciates that not everyone uses computers in the same way we do. I have no doubt that this is going to be successful for us, and proves that there is a right approach that encourages audience growth and learning, and a wrong approach that is thick headed and talks down to their audience by not respecting their choices and their reasoning.

I hope everyone continues to enjoy the content we produce at Jupiter Broadcasting and I can’t wait to meet even more of you that are out there!