DC Video Production Company

Have you ever looked wondered what a particular website looked like ten years ago? Or have your ever found yourself wanting to instantly watch footage from a video about “High-Tech” in India from 1989? Well now you can do just that and a lot more with a website called archive.org, which is a non-profit project that is attempting to be an on-line digital repository for things originated in the digital domain. As more and more things do not have actual physical copies to store away in physical libraries it is becoming important to have an on-line way of storing copies of items in the cloud.

This project started in 1996 and it has been actively keeping snapshots of a variety of web pages for years. For example you can go to the “Wayback Machine” and search our website “www.puritano.com” and see what it looked like back in 1997 all the way to the present. You can do that with virtually any web address that you want to find. The idea originated with the concept of the ancient Library of Alexandria whose purpose was to hold copies of all the worlds books (although it eventually burned down). The Internet Archive is attempting to do this with websites, TV programs, radio programs, internet based texts and many other items.

So next time you get a random impulse to look at some cool archival footage without leaving your laptop at the coffee shop or your IPhone/Droid on the go, check out The Internet Archive. This site is also very useful for inspiration when designing motion graphics, art direction, editing video any any other creative outlets. I know that I will certainly be coming back here often for inspiration.

(P.S. You can also download obsolete patches for old video games like Red Alert).

Check out what Francis Ford Coppola has to say about 3D…Coppola On 3D

At PMG we are video and web professionals who are constantly using the web to display our product to potential customers and encoding video for our customers. I am constantly reading blogs and other sources to stay up to date on the latest developments in technology and the restrictions on them. One of the most widely used encoding standards for the web is H.264, MPEG4 and a variety of other flavors of H.264. This is a great compression technique as it’s size to quality ratio is excellent, but being a professional and using this video compression standard to make money may come with some legal hang ups.

If you read the user agreements for Apple’s Final Cut Pro and a variety of other professional and consumer software you will see scary looking legalese like this, “To the extent that the Apple Software contains AVC encoding and/or decoding functionality, commercial use of H.264/AVC requires additional licensing and the following provision applies: THE AVC FUNCTIONALITY IN THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED HEREIN ONLY FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (“AVC VIDEO”) AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND/OR AVC VIDEO THAT WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO.”(from Apples FCP license agreement).

When I first read phrases like “… licensed herein only for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer…”, I was a bit worried. We encode videos into H.264 all the time for clients so that websites like YouTube can re-encode them in an optimal way. A lot of the cameras that we acquire on shoot to some form of H.264, whether its MPEG4 or a type of AVC Intra.

While I was worried at first I did some research and came across a really good article posted on CNET. This article included an interview with MPEG LA’s director of global licensing that shed some light on why the licensing terms seem so tough. MPEG LA is the organization that handles the licensing of a wide variety of H.264 patents. They are the people that you would need to license the use of H.264 from(depending on the use of the encoding standard).

“The purpose of the provision in the MPEG LA license is to ensure that the license doesn’t cover commercial distribution of H.264-encoded video,” Homiller said. “It would be nice if there were a ‘gentler’ way to convey this, but it might be challenging to do so without opening up some loopholes that the licensers would regret.” read the rest from CNET here.

There is some other general good news about H.264- the general consensus is that the person at the end of the distribution chain would be the one paying a licensing fee if one is required. For most users of H.264 this means that the video hosting site such as YouTube, Vimeo or Facebook is paying the licensing fees to use H.264. Also MPEG LA announced recently that they would extend the free licensing of H.264 for internet distribution through 2015.

The other interesting piece of the puzzle is Google‘s new entry into the online video encoding. Google acquired On2 and is now open sourcing their video compression standard, VP8, for anyone to use and says that it will be compatible with HTML5. The new standard is called WebM.

“WebM is a newly open-sourced multimedia format, consisting primarily of the video format formerly known as VP8. The goal is to provide an open, easy video experience that works across modern browsers and integrates with HTML 5…,” read more here.

There are still many unanswered questions as to what WebM will look like, how well it will work and if it will provide a viable alternative to H.264.

The time has arrived. We have a preview of the first E-Week video. See if you can guess who the famous skater is. Hint: He won the favorite male athlete for the Kids Choice Awards. Make your guess mentally before you view the promo!