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Die gute Nachricht vorweg: Mikes PC läuft wieder! Es war das Netzteil. Wenn es schon die Einleitung mit der guten Nachricht gibt, muss es natürlich auch schlechte Nachrichten geben und davon leider einige. Derzeit gibt es einen Verkaufsstopp für Geräte von Asus und Acer. Aber warum? Nokia (oder was davon heute noch übrig ist) hat die beiden Hersteller verklagt wegen Verletzung von Patenten, die den Video-Codec H.265 bzw. HEVC betreffen. Und falls euch das bekannt vorkommt: Ja, das macht Nokia öfter. Sony wollte auch mal wieder in die Schlagzeilen und hat Bluepoint Games geschlossen. Die haben zuletzt das exzellente Remake zu Demon’s Souls zum Start der PS5 herausgebracht und galten als absolute Meister ihres Faches. Was haben die seitdem gemacht? Sie haben an God of War: Ragnarök mitgearbeitet und danach ein Service-Game im God-of-War-Universum entwickelt. Das wurde natürlich schon letztes Jahr eingestellt. Dabei gäbe es so viele Titel in der Playstation-Historie, die sich für ein Remake oder Remaster anbieten würden… Und weil Microsoft es anscheinend nicht ertragen kann, wenn Sony der Buhmann ist, ließen sie kurz vor unserer Aufnahme eine kleine Bombe platzen: Phil Spencer, CEO von Microsoft Gaming, ist zurückgetreten, direkt mit ihm Sarah Bond, President of Xbox. Nachfolgerin von Spencer wird Asha Sharma, bisher President of CoreAI Product bei Microsoft, war also für die ganzen tollen „AI“-Produkte wie Copilot und Recall verantwortlich. Das scheint auch nur die Spitze des Eisbergs zu sein. Zum Ausklang haben Mo und Mike „Norse: Oath of Blood“ gespielt, Rundentaktik gewürzt mit Rollenspiel-Elementen im Wikinger-Setting. Mike hat direkt wieder Lust auf die Serie „Vikings“ bekommen. Viel Spaß mit Folge 296! Sprecher:innen: Meep, Michael Kister, Mohammed Ali DadAudioproduktion: Michael KisterVideoproduktion: Mohammed Ali Dad, Michael KisterTitelbild: MeepBildquellen: Sony/Pixabay/pngfindAufnahmedatum: 20.02.2026 Besucht unsim Discord https://discord.gg/SneNarVCBMauf Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/technikquatsch.deauf Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@technikquatsch https://www.youtube.com/@technikquatschgamingauf TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@technikquatschauf Instagram https://www.instagram.com/technikquatschauf Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/technikquatsch RSS-Feed https://technikquatsch.de/feed/podcast/Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/62ZVb7ZvmdtXqqNmnZLF5uApple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/technikquatsch/id1510030975Deezer https://www.deezer.com/de/show/1162032 00:00:00 Herzlich willkommen bei Technikquatsch Folge 296! Mikes PC-Probleme und die (vorläufige) Lösung 00:11:16 teure Monitor-Halterungen fürs Auto, die einen 3D-Drucker rechtfertigen würden 00:18:16 Verkaufsstopp für Asus und Acer in Deutschland wegen Patentstreit mit Nokia, Treiber über Umwege zu laden.https://www.computerbase.de/news/notebooks/patenturteil-acer-und-asus-stellen-notebook-verkauf-vorerst-ein.96162/https://www.computerbase.de/news/mainboards/fuer-treiber-oder-bios-wie-man-trotz-sperre-auf-asus-de-und-acer-de-kommt.96210/ 00:25:56 Festplattenkontingente von WD und Seagate für 2026 komplett ausverkauft, für 2027 teilweise.https://www.heise.de/news/WD-und-Seagate-bestaetigen-Festplatten-fuers-Jahr-2026-ausverkauft-11178815.html 00:27:53 Welche Auswirkungen hätte es, wenn die Blase platzt. 00:35:14 Internetsuche nahezu unbrauchbar, Autocorrect auch immer schlechter 00:40:04 Sony schließt Bluepoint Games (u.a. Remakes von Shadow of the Colossus und Demon’s Souls).https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mfab6e43uc2x 00:45:04 Phil Spencer verlässt Xbox, Sarah Bond tritt zurück; neue Chefin wird Asha Sharma, ehemals Präsidentin der Microsoft AI Plattform.https://www.ign.com/articles/phil-spencer-retiring-sarah-bond-out-matt-booty-promoted-as-microsoft-ai-exec-asha-sharma-named-new-xbox-boss-exclusive 00:54:39 PS6 soll wohl auf 2028/2029 verschoben werden.https://www.polygon.com/ps6-sony-playstation-6-release-date-price/ 01:05:08 Norse: Oath of Blood gespielt. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3054690/NORSE_Oath_of_Blood/ 01:18:43 Random Dudelsack-Geschichte von Mo 01:22:18 Abschluss zu Norse: Oath of Blood 01:25:49 Vorschau, Mo im Kurzvideo-Wahn und bis zum nächsten Mal!
The RAM-apocolypse continues of course, with hints of it hitting general manufacturers, and delay of gaming systems and even spinning harddrives. At least Micron is making some PCIe 6 drives you cannot have. Also, since we are sometimes audio geeks as well as PC, we talk about some bananas. Seriously. You'll just have to listen to get the scoop on bad Chrome extensions, bad Copilot, and bad password managers. Until then, enjoy Unread Tournament 2004!Timestamps:0:00 Intro01:15 Patreon03:22 Food with Josh05:20 Acer and ASUS caught up HEVC patent dispute07:15 Intel's new annual GPU cadence09:00 Micron is making PCI-E 6.0 SSDs that you can't have11:10 WD CEO says storage is already sold out for 202614:07 Warning - many consumer electronics companies will fail this year22:25 Sony may push PS6 launch as far as 202922:55 US reportedly removes two Chinese memory companies from banned list25:54 RTX 5090 LIGHTNING is 5090 USD (list price, anyhow)29:35 Audio dragged through the mud - and a banana34:34 (In)Security Corner45:07 Gaming Quick Hits50:35 Jeremy reviews 25 USD speakers from Cyber Acoustics56:53 Picks of the Week1:08:51 Outro ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Tony: -Carbonation Station: 3D Energy Blueberry Mist -Smart Phones are risky for kids (duh): https://futurism.com/health-medicine/grim-happenings-kids-smartphones -Stop me if you've heard this one before…: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/researcher-finds-undocumented-microphone-and-major-security-flaws-in-sipeed-nanokvm -New Amazfit watch leaked: https://www.techradar.com/health-fitness/smartwatches/forget-the-apple-watch-se-3-it-looks-like-a-big-sequel-to-our-best-ever-cheap-fitness-watch-has-just-leaked Jarron: -Dell and HP disable HEVC support in their laptops for some reason: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/11/21/0616243/hp-and-dell-disable-hevc-support-built-into-their-laptops-cpus?utm_source=rss0.9mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed -Cool gadget: https://www.theverge.com/news/838885/xteink-x4-e-reader-magnetic-apple-iphone-google-pixel -Maybe don't buy that toilet camera. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/despite-accessing-user-data-kohler-still-says-its-smart-toilet-cameras-use-e2ee/ Owen: -Australia bans social media for kids under 16. https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/09/2112230/millions-of-australian-teens-lose-access-to-social-media-as-ban-takes-effect -I would LOVE to see Monsanto get sued out of existence. https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/12/09/053254/science-journal-retracts-study-on-safety-of-monsantos-roundup Lando: -New Smart Ring! https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/09/pebbles-founder-introduces-a-75-ai-smart-ring-for-recording-brief-notes-with-a-press-of-a-button/
This week, we detail the viewship stats from Amazon, ESPN, FOX, and Paramount for NBA and NFL games during the Thanksgiving holiday, as well as the changes we saw in Black Friday OTT discounts. We also discuss what we consider a bad decision by Netflix, removing support for casting shows from mobile devices to most TVs and streaming devices, thereby affecting users who stream Netflix in hotel rooms. We also cover NBC News' announcement that it plans to launch a new ad-free paid streaming service, live programming including CFL, PGA TOUR, Formula 1, and FIFA coming to Bell Media's streaming service Crave, and Fubo's carriage dispute with NBCU.Finally, we do a news roundup of Versant Media Group's financials, and its acquisiton of Free TV Networks, Bending Spoons' acquisition of Vimeo closing, HP and Dell removing hardware decode support for the H.265/HEVC codec in several business and entry-level models, and CW Network calling out Nielsen for "lacking credibility" and being "fundamentally flawed" with regards to their viewership methodology.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media
Cloudlflare asks Amazon to hold it's virtual "beer", HEVC and H.265 support being removed from CPUs ... sorta, Steam Machine priced like lobster and will Intel bLLC compete with AMD 3D-vCache? But we mostly complain about DDR5 in this exciting episode!00:00 Intro00:30 Patreon01:44 Food with Josh04:10 We talk about the DDR5 problem for the third week in a row18:44 TSMC confirmed September power outage at Arizona fab23:01 Dell and HP removing HEVC from some laptops26:33 Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data32:32 Is Intel bLLC really an X3D competitor?34:13 (in)Security Corner42:01 Gaming Quick Hits46:18 Picks of the Week1:06:12 Outro ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Mon, 24 Nov 2025 22:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/591 http://relay.fm/upgrade/591 The Apple TV Draft 591 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley It's Thanksgiving week, and Myke and Jason are using the occasion to draft their favorite Apple TV shows. There's also some drama at the Rumor Roundup corral involving Apple's succession planning, and Google engineers AirDrop for Android. It's Thanksgiving week, and Myke and Jason are using the occasion to draft their favorite Apple TV shows. There's also some drama at the Rumor Roundup corral involving Apple's succession planning, and Google engineers AirDrop for Android. clean 7298 It's Thanksgiving week, and Myke and Jason are using the occasion to draft their favorite Apple TV shows. There's also some drama at the Rumor Roundup corral involving Apple's succession planning, and Google engineers AirDrop for Android. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: KRCS: Apple Premium Reseller. Get free next-working-day delivery. Ecamm: Powerful live streaming platform for Mac. 40% off annual plans until December 2nd. Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Udacity: For 40% off your order, head to Udacity.com/UPGRADE and use code UPGRADE Links and Show Notes: Draft picks (avert your eyes if you don't want to be spoiled!) Ted Lasso Severance Shrinking Murderbot For All Mankind Silo Slow Horses Pluribus Foundation Bad Monkey Mythic Quest The Studio Stick Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Submit Feedback Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D | LEGO This incredibly elaborate LEGO stadium has escalators, extended netting and bullpen carts | MLB.com Seinfeld | LEGO Apple's Corporate Governance Guidelines Apple iOS 27: Snow Leopard-Like Quality Focus, AI Features; Tim Cook Retirement - Bloomberg Apple and F1 already discussing more ways to partner - 9to5Mac Amazon.com: Soundbot SB510 HD Upgrade #122: The 2016 Upgradies - Relay Amazon.com: REOKILY 2026 Upgraded Vacuum Magnetic Car Phone Holder Widgetsmith - Jobs The B in Bluetooth – Upgrade – YouTube Android Quick Share can now work with iOS's AirDrop – Google Blog Google cracked Apple's AirDrop and is adding it to Pixel phones | The Verge HP and Dell disable HEVC support built into their laptops' CPUs - Ars Technica List of Apple TV original programming - Wikipedia NASA Vending Machine - The Incomparable Downstream - Relay iPadOS 26 review:
Mon, 24 Nov 2025 22:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/591 http://relay.fm/upgrade/591 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley It's Thanksgiving week, and Myke and Jason are using the occasion to draft their favorite Apple TV shows. There's also some drama at the Rumor Roundup corral involving Apple's succession planning, and Google engineers AirDrop for Android. It's Thanksgiving week, and Myke and Jason are using the occasion to draft their favorite Apple TV shows. There's also some drama at the Rumor Roundup corral involving Apple's succession planning, and Google engineers AirDrop for Android. clean 7298 It's Thanksgiving week, and Myke and Jason are using the occasion to draft their favorite Apple TV shows. There's also some drama at the Rumor Roundup corral involving Apple's succession planning, and Google engineers AirDrop for Android. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: KRCS: Apple Premium Reseller. Get free next-working-day delivery. Ecamm: Powerful live streaming platform for Mac. 40% off annual plans until December 2nd. Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Udacity: For 40% off your order, head to Udacity.com/UPGRADE and use code UPGRADE Links and Show Notes: Draft picks (avert your eyes if you don't want to be spoiled!) Ted Lasso Severance Shrinking Murderbot For All Mankind Silo Slow Horses Pluribus Foundation Bad Monkey Mythic Quest The Studio Stick Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Submit Feedback Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D | LEGO This incredibly elaborate LEGO stadium has escalators, extended netting and bullpen carts | MLB.com Seinfeld | LEGO Apple's Corporate Governance Guidelines Apple iOS 27: Snow Leopard-Like Quality Focus, AI Features; Tim Cook Retirement - Bloomberg Apple and F1 already discussing more ways to partner - 9to5Mac Amazon.com: Soundbot SB510 HD Upgrade #122: The 2016 Upgradies - Relay Amazon.com: REOKILY 2026 Upgraded Vacuum Magnetic Car Phone Holder Widgetsmith - Jobs The B in Bluetooth – Upgrade – YouTube Android Quick Share can now work with iOS's AirDrop – Google Blog Google cracked Apple's AirDrop and is adding it to Pixel phones | The Verge HP and Dell disable HEVC support built into their laptops' CPUs - Ars Technica List of Apple TV original programming - Wikipedia NASA Vending Machine - The Incomparable Downstream - Relay iPadOS 26
Timestamps: 0:00 livin' in the past 0:10 Google forces AirDrop to support Android 1:32 Qualcomm's new Terms worry Arduino lovers 2:50 HP, Dell disable laptop HEVC support 4:07 UPDF! 5:13 QUICK BITS INTRO! 5:21 Xbox Fullscreen Experience on all W11 PCs 6:01 Sturnus Android malware 6:38 Meta ordered to pay Spanish media outlets 7:25 an embryo gene editing startup? 8:16 Grok praises Elon Musk NEWS SOURCES: https://lmg.gg/X4iIu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Anbernic RG476H features a 4.7-inch LTPS In-Cell multi-touch display with a resolution of 1280×960 and a 120Hz refresh rate. It runs on the Unisoc T820 octa-core processor (1×A76@2.7GHz, 3×A76@2.3GHz, 4×A55@2.1GHz) with a Mali-G57 GPU at 850MHz. The device includes 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, 128GB UFS2.2 storage, and operates on Android 13. Connectivity options include dual-band Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n/ac) and Bluetooth 5.0. Additional features: 5000mAh battery, stereo speakers, 3D Hall joysticks, six-axis gyroscope, RGB lighting, USB Type-C with 1080p display output, and support for TF card expansion up to 2TB.✨Featured items:476H at Anbernic: https://rh-go.link/RG476H476H at AliExpress: https://rh-go.link/Anbernic-RG476H_AELearn more: https://retrohandhelds.gg/anbernic-rg476h/Timestamps:- [00:00] Stream start- [00:23] Introduces the $150 RG476H handheld and compares it to similar 4x3 devices- [04:05] Specs include T820 chipset, 4.7" 120Hz display, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, Android 13, and a 5000 mAh battery- [06:55] Features mushy face buttons, small Hall sticks, clicky shoulders, and a pocketable, comfy build- [09:39] Compared to the 477M, it's lighter and sleeker, with a premium glass front and sharp 120Hz screen- [12:05] 120Hz panel improves streaming fluidity and latency with HEVC decoding- [17:26] Covers GeForce Now setup and latency performance- [23:44] Runs indie titles like Silk Song and The Messenger via GameHub- [38:25] Includes FM radio and music player that work without headphones- [41:23] Android games perform well with solid screen and speaker quality- [53:23] Handles emulation for PSP, PS2, GameCube, and some 3DS titles- [01:46:00] Final verdict: a premium-feel mid-range handheld with great value, launching September 18th 〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰✨Became a Supporterhttps://patreon.com/RetroHandhelds or Discord sub• Access to Patron only Discord chat & marketplace• Earn merch, enter giveaways, and get free stuff• Device Modding Services
First up in the news: Mint Monthly News, Linux 6.16 To Add Asahi UAPI Header For Apple Silicon, Switzerland battles privacy intrusions, Firefox adds HEVC playback in Linux, Debian releases APT 3.0, Apple may add Mx GCC core support, Git turns 20, ProtonMail adds advanced features, ArcoLinux ends it all Then in our Wanderings: Bill is having trouble on the road and won't be here, Joe returns to us, Moss juggles tablets, Majid learns things, and Eric is AWOL In our Innards section: we talk travel computing In Bodhi Corner, Robert Wiley releases a script which can be used to install Moksha on any version of Debian, including Trixie
Ant Williams is a freediving athlete featured in the third episode of The Adventure Series titled "Ice Dive" that's co-produced by Apple and Atlantic Studios (formerly Atlantic Productions). In the episode, Williams attempts to swim a world record distance 182 meters under ice, and I wanted to get some additional behind-the-scenes context on his experience as well as what it was like to have the most intense month of his life condensed down into a 15-minute Apple Immersive Video. Williams is a sports psychologist who wanted to put his theories into practice by taking what he calls "positive, calculated risk-taking challenges" that allow him to deal with overwhelming anxiety, and overcome his fears, uncertainty, and self-doubt. I also wanted to get some additional context on the production of the episode as Apple has otherwise been pretty tight-lipped about the series, launched with which launched with "Highlining" on the same day as the Apple Vision Pro launch on February 2, 2024. Apple Immersive Video is a different format than spatial video. Apple says "spatial videos are captured in 1080p at 30 frames per second in standard dynamic range," and these are what can be captured by either an iPhone or Apple Vision Pro, and they are displayed in a windowed frame where you see the stereoscopic effects. Apple describes Apple Immersive Video as "a remarkable storytelling format that leverages 3D video recorded in 8K with a 180-degree field of view and Spatial Audio to transport viewers to the center of the action." Apple Immersive Video is much closer to what we've seen from the XR industry and VR 180 filmmakers from the past decade, and Apple's technology is likely derived from their 2020 acquisition of NextVR. NextVR focused on live stereoscopic broadcasts of sports events on VR headsets starting with the Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Rift in 2014. A lot of the technical specifications of the Apple Immersive Video format have not been officially confirmed by Apple, but there are a couple of breadcrumbs that give us some more details. Thanks to iFixIt's breakdown of the Apple Vision Pro on February 7, 2024, then we know the microOLED display size is reported as "the lit area totals 3660 px by 3200 px." 360 Labs' Mike Rowell wrote a post on March 19, 2024 saying, "Apple Vision Pro's screens are a whopping 3660 x 3200 pixels per eye. Although they haven't made any official claims as to the FOV of the headset, 3rd party developers claim that it looks to be around 100° horizontal. With each screen having 3,660 horizontal pixels, this would mean that a 180° immersive experience would need about 6,000 x 6,000 pixels per eye to saturate the display. Apple's own immersive experiences have been reported at being 4320x4320 per eye at 90fps and in HDR10." The reporting of Apple's immersive experiences was detailed by Mike Swanson, who announced a spatial video tool on March 7, 2024 that leverages the Apple's AVFoundation to properly encode video into the "multiview extensions of the HEVC codec, known as MV-HEVC" format. Swanson says in his post, "I receive multiple messages and files every day from people who are trying to find the limits of what the Apple Vision Pro is capable of playing. You can start with the 4320×4320 per-eye 90fps content that Apple is producing and go up from there. I've personally played up to “12K” (11520×5760) per eye 360-degree stereo video at 30fps." Another clue can be found in the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera that was announced on June 10, 2024, which says, "The sensor delivers 8160 x 7200 resolution per eye with pixel level synchronization and an incredible 16 stops of dynamic range, so cinematographers can shoot 90fps stereoscopic 3D immersive cinema content to a single file." Incidentally, Currents director Jake Oleson told me that he used Swanson's tool to create his immersive film after shooting it in 8k on the Canon EOS R5 Camera Body with Canon's Dual Fisheye lens.
Thunderbird announces Thundermail and Thunderbird Pro Services, Firefox enables HEVC playback on Linux, Windows 95 on Fedora, and April Fools' tech articles are awesome!
The filmmaking world turns its attention to Japan as FUJIFILM enters the professional digital film camera market with the FUJIFILM GFX ETERNA Filmmaking Camera that's in development. Johnnie traveled to Japan to interview Yuji Igarashi-san from FUJIFILM about the groundbreaking new camera. But that's not all—Nino shares insights on the brand-new update to Final Cut Pro 11 for Mac, Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1 and Final Cut Camera 1.1 for iPhone, all of which were just released by Apple. Additionally, they talk about the new RØDE Wireless Micro for smartphone shooters, and the new super high-end ZEISS Supreme Radiance Zooms. Stay tuned until the end! Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by FUJIFILM. Check it out at (37:08). Chapters & articles mentioned in this episode: (00:00) - Intro (00:51) - FUJIFILM Filmmaking Camera Unveiled – “GFX ETERNA”, Large Format Sensor, Planned Release in 2025 https://www.cined.com/fujifilm-filmmaking-camera-unvailed-gfx-eterna-large-format-sensor-planned-to-be-released-in-2025/ (11:44) - Final Cut Pro 11 Introduced: Magnetic Mask & Transcribe to Captions https://www.cined.com/final-cut-pro-11-introduced-magnetic-mask-transcribe-to-captions-more/ (31:40) - Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1: Enhance Light and Color Added https://www.cined.com/final-cut-pro-for-ipad-2-1-enhance-light-and-color-added/ (34:19) - Final Cut Camera 1.1 Released: Log Recording in HEVC and More https://www.cined.com/final-cut-camera-1-1-released-log-recording-in-hevc-and-more/ (38:09) - RØDE WIRELESS MICRO Released – Pocket-Sized Wireless Mic for Smartphones https://www.cined.com/rode-wireless-micro-released-pocket-sized-wireless-mic-for-smartphones/ (44:01) - ZEISS Supreme Zoom Radiance Zoom Lens Trio Unveiled https://www.cined.com/zeiss-supreme-zoom-radiance-zoom-lens-trio-unveiled/ We hope you enjoyed this episode! You have feedback, comments, or suggestions? Write us at podcast@cined.com
In this episode, we welcome cinematographer Nancy Schreiber, ASC. Nancy has a long career working in film, television and documentaries. Some of her credits include Your Friends and Neighbors, Loverboy, The Nines, November, Path to War, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, Mapplethorpe, Visions of Light — and TV shows such as “P-Valley,” “Station 19,” “The Family,” “Blue” and “The Comeback.” In our chat, Nancy shares about her upbringing in Michigan, early days working in New York City, on through lensing countless feature films and TV shows. She also talks about her workflow, technologies used, and other insights from a life making movies. “The Making Of” is presented by AJA:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Learn more hereOWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Check it out hereFrom our Friends at Broadfield…All-new pricing for RED KOMODO and KOMODO-X unlocks exceptional cinema quality, global shutter performance, and the power of RED to filmmakers at every level. The KOMODO is a compact cinema camera featuring RED's unparalleled image quality, color science, and groundbreaking global shutter sensor technology in a shockingly small and versatile form factor. The KOMODO-X is the next evolution with all-new sensor technology that multiplies frame rate and dynamic range performance within a new advanced platform.Inquire hereFeatured Event:Cine Gear Atlanta | October 4-5thThousands of industry professionals will surge to attend this year at Trilith Studios in Fayetteville, Georgia. A focal point of Southern filmmaking, Cine Gear 2023 drew thousands to the studio, which houses productions like Black Adam and Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. Visitors met with equipment exhibitors from across the globe, attended panels and workshops from the International Cinematographer's Guild, the ASC, and numerous tech brands, and partied at the Friday night Southern Cine Soirée.Comp passes hereFeatured Book:Cronenberg on CronenbergCronenberg on Cronenberg charts Cronenberg's development from maker of inexpensive 'exploitation' cinema to internationally renowned director of million-dollar movies, and reveals the concerns and obsessions which continue to dominate his increasingly rich and complex work.Available here Podcast Rewind:Sept 2024 - Ep. 48…“The Making Of” is published by Michael Valinsky.Partner with us and feature your products to 85,000 film, TV, video and broadcast professionals reading this newsletter. Email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome cinematographer Richard Rutkowski, ASC. Richard has lensed top television shows such as “Masters of the Air,” “Sugar,” “The Americans,” “Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan,” “Castle Rock” and “Manhattan” — and films including “Interview with the Assassin.” In our chat, Richard shares his backstory, film education, road to working in television, and approach to crafting various projects. He also provides invaluable advice and tips for emerging filmmakers today.The Making Of is presented by AJA:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Find out more hereFrom our Friends at Broadfield…All-new pricing for RED KOMODO and KOMODO-X unlocks exceptional cinema quality, global shutter performance, and the power of RED to filmmakers at every level. The KOMODO is a compact cinema camera featuring RED's unparalleled image quality, color science, and groundbreaking global shutter sensor technology in a shockingly small and versatile form factor. The KOMODO-X is the next evolution with all-new sensor technology that multiplies frame rate and dynamic range performance within a new advanced platform.Inquire hereIgelkott Studios Offers World Class In-Camera Visual EffectsOur expertise lies in delivering end-to-end ICVFX productions, which include 360 plate creation and directing the in-studio operation. We are proud to have been industry leaders in ICVFX, image development, and image workflows since 2018.Visit us hereFeatured Event:Cine Gear Atlanta | October 4-5thThousands of industry professionals will surge to attend this year at Trilith Studios in Fayetteville, Georgia. A focal point of Southern filmmaking, Cine Gear 2023 drew thousands to the studio, which houses productions like Black Adam and Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. Visitors met with equipment exhibitors from across the globe, attended panels and workshops from the International Cinematographer's Guild, the ASC, and numerous tech brands, and partied at the Friday night Southern Cine Soirée.Get your passes hereOWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Check it out hereFeatured Coffee: New York-based Devoción is a game changer as the only true Origin-to-Cup roaster flying in their direct trade, single-source beans via FedEx from Bogota to NYC weekly. With year-round harvests, Devoción ensures its coffee's supreme purity, freshness, and integrity. Taste the difference in a single sip.Click here to subscribe today. Podcast Rewind:Sept 2024 - Ep. 47…“The Making Of” is published by Michael Valinsky.Partner with us and promote your products to 85,000 film, TV, video and broadcast professionals reading this newsletter. Simply email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Jonah Kessel. Jonah is the Deputy Director of Opinion Video at The New York Times. His work there is a hybrid of explanatory and investigative short form documentary and other innovative forms of visual journalism. In his career, he's been recognized by a variety of organizations, including two World Press Photo awards, four times as a Multimedia Journalist of the Year from Pictures of the Year International, the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Justice and Human Rights Reporting, and the Innovative Storytelling Award from the National Press Foundation. In our chat, Jonah shares his backstory, path to The New York Times, and his experiences helping run the Opinion Video department. In addition, he talks at length about covering the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. The Making Of is presented by AJA:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Find out more hereZEISS Cinema & The Making Of present: A Conversation with Lawrence Sher, ASCZEISS Cinema is pleased to host a live interview with Lawrence Sher, ASC. Join Michael Valinsky from the podcast The Making Of as he discusses Lawrence's work on the upcoming feature JOKER: FOLIE à DEUX, as well as his past films and the indispensable filmmaking website ShotDeck. The ZEISS team will be on hand with our lenses and camera technologies as well!Join us for bites, beer, wine and a conversation not to be missed! Register for free hereFrom our Friends at Broadfield…All-new pricing for RED KOMODO and KOMODO-X unlocks exceptional cinema quality, global shutter performance, and the power of RED to filmmakers at every level. The KOMODO is a compact cinema camera featuring RED's unparalleled image quality, color science, and groundbreaking global shutter sensor technology in a shockingly small and versatile form factor. The KOMODO-X is the next evolution with all-new sensor technology that multiplies frame rate and dynamic range performance within a new advanced platform.Inquire hereUpcoming Event: Cine Gear Atlanta | October 4-5thThousands of industry professionals will surge to attend this year at Trilith Studios in Fayetteville, Georgia. A focal point of Southern filmmaking, Cine Gear 2023 drew thousands to the studio, which houses productions like Black Adam and Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. Visitors met with equipment exhibitors from across the globe, attended panels and workshops from the International Cinematographer's Guild, the ASC, and numerous tech brands, and partied at the Friday night Southern Cine Soirée.Get your passes hereOWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Check it out herePodcast Rewind:Sept 2024 - Ep. 46…“The Making Of” is published by Michael Valinsky.Partner with us and promote your products to 82,000 film, TV, video and broadcast professionals reading this newsletter. Simply email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Andy Hutton. Andy is the Head of Product Management for Batteries at Videndum Production Solutions. His role at Anton/Bauer is to help innovate and oversee the legendary brand, used daily by professionals in film, TV, broadcast, sports production, and beyond. In our chat, Andy shares his backstory from England, his education and career arc — and all about his role running product at Anton/Bauer. He also provides best practices for keeping your power solutions in optimal shape, and other insights from his world of supporting the industry. The Making Of is presented by AJA:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Find out more hereFrom our Friends at Broadfield…All-new pricing for RED KOMODO and KOMODO-X unlocks exceptional cinema quality, global shutter performance, and the power of RED to filmmakers at every level. The KOMODO is a compact cinema camera featuring RED's unparalleled image quality, color science, and groundbreaking global shutter sensor technology in a shockingly small and versatile form factor. The KOMODO-X is the next evolution with all-new sensor technology that multiplies frame rate and dynamic range performance within a new advanced platform.Inquire hereOWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Check it out hereFeatured Coffee:New York-based Devoción is a game changer as the only true Origin-to-Cup roaster flying in their direct trade, single-source beans via FedEx from Bogota to NYC weekly. With year-round harvests, Devoción ensures its coffee's supreme purity, freshness, and integrity. Taste the difference in a single sip.Click here to subscribe today. Talking Cinematography with Documentarian Jennifer CoxJennifer Cox is a director of photography, documentarian and owner of Moto Films LLC based in New York. Cox procured one of the first sets of ZEISS Nano Prime lenses and used them on three diverse documentary projects. She tested the unique traits across a Beatles Fan Fest feature film shoot, a short form promotion for non-profit Free Arts NYC and as part of the 2024 Courage Awards from PEN America.Podcast Rewind:Sept 2024 - Ep. 45…“The Making Of” is published by Michael Valinsky.Partner with us and promote your products to 78,000 film, TV, video and broadcast professionals reading this newsletter. Simply email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Tony Denison. Tony is a veteran actor with starring roles in Michael Mann's “Crime Story,” “The Closer” and “Major Crimes” — and in films such as City of Hope, The Amy Fisher Story, and Getting Gotti. He's also played characters in “Wiseguy,” “Melrose Place,” “JAG,” “Prison Break,” “Sons of Anarchy” and “Criminal Minds.” In our chat, Tony shares his backstory, about his early theater work in New York City, and how he landed his seminal role in “Crime Story.” From there, he walks us through other key parts and offers invaluable advice for creatives coming up in the business today. The Making Of is presented by AJA:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Find out more hereOWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Check it out hereFeatured Film Book:Kiss Me Quick Before I ShootThis film memoir is all about the magic of filmmaking and forging a cinematic personal life in Hollywood. It's full of invaluable experiences and unique industry stories of a celebrated film/TV career, and should be required reading for every film lover. It includes stories of a producer turning out to be the assassin of the Mafia boss who allowed The Godfather to film in NY, to shooting the pyramids of Egypt for Battlestar Galactica, to directing a grumbling Mr. T on The A-Team, to almost decapitating a young Drew Barrymore right after ET, and to unwittingly almost delaying James Cameron's career!“Finally, a book for all who love the movies written by a filmmaker who has walked the walk in TV and film. A very entertaining journey of fascinating industry stories providing a true look behind the curtain of filmmaking.” — Joe Alves, Production Designer - JAWS, British Academy Award for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND.Pickup a copy at KISS ME QUICK BEFORE I SHOOT Kindle Ebook AmazonFrom our Friends at Broadfield…All-new pricing for RED KOMODO and KOMODO-X unlocks exceptional cinema quality, global shutter performance, and the power of RED to filmmakers at every level. The KOMODO is a compact cinema camera featuring RED's unparalleled image quality, color science, and groundbreaking global shutter sensor technology in a shockingly small and versatile form factor. The KOMODO-X is the next evolution with all-new sensor technology that multiplies frame rate and dynamic range performance within a new advanced platform.Inquire hereHonoring a Pioneer: Nancy Schreiber ASC Receives the Trailblazer AwardThe Manaki Brothers Film Festival introduces the Trailblazer Award, a prestigious honor celebrating individuals who have not only excelled in their craft but have also forged new paths for future generations. The inaugural Trailblazer Award will be presented to the distinguished cinematographer Nancy Schreiber, ASC. Schreiber's illustrious career spans decades, contributing to some of the most visually compelling projects, particularly in the independent filmmaking sector. As one of the first women to join the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), Schreiber has been a driving force in challenging industry norms and advocating for greater inclusion.More about the festival hereTalking Cinematography with Documentarian Jennifer CoxJennifer Cox is a director of photography, documentarian and owner of Moto Films LLC based in New York. Cox procured one of the first sets of ZEISS Nano Prime lenses and used them on three diverse documentary projects. She tested the unique traits across a Beatles Fan Fest feature film shoot, a short form promotion for non-profit Free Arts NYC and as part of the 2024 Courage Awards from PEN America.Featured Coffee: New York-based Devoción is a game changer as the only true Origin-to-Cup roaster flying in their direct trade, single-source beans via FedEx from Bogota to NYC weekly. With year-round harvests, Devoción ensures its coffee's supreme purity, freshness, and integrity. Taste the difference in a single sip.Click here to subscribe today. Podcast Rewind:August 2024 - Ep. 44…“The Making Of” is published by Michael Valinsky.Partner with us and promote your products to 78,000 film, TV, video and broadcast pros reading this newsletter. Simply email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Tim Smith. Tim is Executive Director for the Americas at Angenieux. In our chat, Tim shares about his upbringing in Maine, his early interest in photography, and stories from his tenure at Canon, where he witnessed the “DSLR Revolution” up-close. He also talks about his current role at Angenieux and about their high-end lenses for cinematographers. In addition, Tim provides insights about the state of the industry and where things may be headed in 2025.The Making Of is presented by AJA:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Find out more hereFrom our Friends at Broadfield…All-new pricing for RED KOMODO and KOMODO-X unlocks exceptional cinema quality, global shutter performance, and the power of RED to filmmakers at every level. The KOMODO is a compact cinema camera featuring RED's unparalleled image quality, color science, and groundbreaking global shutter sensor technology in a shockingly small and versatile form factor. The KOMODO-X is the next evolution with all-new sensor technology that multiplies frame rate and dynamic range performance within a new advanced platform.Inquire here Featured Film Book: Kiss Me Quick Before I Shoot This film memoir is all about the magic of filmmaking and forging a cinematic personal life in Hollywood. It's full of invaluable experiences and unique industry stories of a celebrated film/TV career, and should be required reading for every film lover. It includes stories of a producer turning out to be the assassin of the Mafia boss who allowed The Godfather to film in NY, to shooting the pyramids of Egypt for Battlestar Galactica, to directing a grumbling Mr. T on The A-Team, to almost decapitating a young Drew Barrymore right after ET, and to unwittingly almost delaying James Cameron's career!“Finally, a book for all who love the movies written by a filmmaker who has walked the walk in TV and film. A very entertaining journey of fascinating industry stories providing a true look behind the curtain of filmmaking.” —Joe Alves, Production Designer - JAWS, British Academy Award for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND.Pickup a copy at KISS ME QUICK BEFORE I SHOOT Kindle Ebook AmazonMeet Igelkott Studios:Our expertise lies in delivering end-to-end ICVFX productions, which include 360 plate creation and directing the in-studio operation. We are proud to have been industry leaders in ICVFX, image development, and image workflows since 2018.Learn more hereIntroducing Something New…OWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Check them out hereTalking Cinematography with Documentarian Jennifer CoxJennifer Cox is a director of photography, documentarian and owner of Moto Films LLC based in New York. Cox procured one of the first sets of ZEISS Nano Prime lenses and used them on three diverse documentary projects. She tested the unique traits across a Beatles Fan Fest feature film shoot, a short form promotion for non-profit Free Arts NYC and as part of the 2024 Courage Awards from PEN America.Podcast Rewind:August 2024 - Ep. 43…The Making Of is published by Michael Valinsky.To showcase your products to 75,000 filmmakers and industry pros reading this newsletter, please email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Larry O'Connor. Larry is the founder and CEO of OWC, the industry leader in storage solutions. We also welcome Jon Hoeg, OWC's Director of Marketing Communications. In our chat, we hear Larry's backstory, how he created his company from the start, and its evolution over the last thirty-six years. In addition, Larry and Jon share about their solutions for production and post pros, offer best practices for storage and archiving your assets, and provide insights on A.I.The Making Of is presented by AJA:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Find out more hereTalking Cinematography with Documentarian Jennifer CoxJennifer Cox is a director of photography, documentarian and owner of Moto Films LLC based in New York. Cox procured one of the first sets of ZEISS Nano Prime lenses and used them on three diverse documentary projects. She tested the unique traits across a Beatles Fan Fest feature film shoot, a short form promotion for non-profit Free Arts NYC and as part of the 2024 Courage Awards from PEN America.From our Friends at Broadfield…V-RAPTOR® [X] 8K VV combines the strengths of RED's two families of cameras into one powerful all-purpose workhorse. The frame rates, lowlight performance, and resolution of the V-RAPTOR® line combined with the global shutter advancements of KOMODO®, the V-RAPTOR [X] 8K VV sensor is the culmination of the latest advancements in digital cinema image making. Using RED's newest 8K VV sensor, V-RAPTOR [X] leverages the benefits and flexibility of large format, global shutter, high framerate, 8K acquisition, all inside of a compact and feature rich body weighing just over 4lbs.Read more hereFeatured Book: Images: My Life in FilmIn this new edition, Ingmar Bergman presents an intimate view of his own unique body of work in film. His career spanned forty years and produced more than fifty films, many of which are considered classics: The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring, Persona, Smiles of a Summer Night, Wild Strawberries, and Fanny and Alexander, to name but a few. When he began this book, Bergman had not seen most of his movies since he made them. Resorting to scripts and working notebooks, and especially to memory, he comments brilliantly and always cogently on his failures as well as his successes; on the themes that bind his work together; on his concerns, anxieties, and moments of happiness; on the relationship between his life and art.Available here OWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly, and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Learn more herePodcast Rewind:August 2024 - Ep. 42…The Making Of is published by Michael Valinsky.To promote your products to 70,000 filmmakers and industry pros reading this newsletter, please email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Ed Begley Jr. Ed is a legendary actor with roles in films including This Is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, Best in Show, Pineapple Express, Whatever Works, Recount, For Your Consideration, The Accidental Tourist, Paul Schrader's Auto Focus, Blue Collar, and Cat People — and shows such as “Better Call Saul,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Arrested Development,” “Portlandia,” “Six Feet Under,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “Battlestar Galactica” and “St. Elsewhere”. In our chat, Ed shares all about his background, experience as a Camera Assistant, and path from early roles on through working on today's top films and TV shows. He also describes his process for preparing for each project, and offers priceless advice for storytellers today.The Making Of is presented by AJA:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Find out more hereTalking Cinematography with Jack Schurman:Emmy Award winning cinematographer Jack Schurman sat with ZEISS Cinema to talk about using the new ZEISS Nano Primes for his upcoming short, We Regret to Inform You.Watch the conversation hereFrom our Friends at Broadfield…V-RAPTOR® [X] 8K VV combines the strengths of RED's two families of cameras into one powerful all-purpose workhorse. The frame rates, lowlight performance, and resolution of the V-RAPTOR® line combined with the global shutter advancements of KOMODO®, the V-RAPTOR [X] 8K VV sensor is the culmination of the latest advancements in digital cinema image making. Using RED's newest 8K VV sensor, V-RAPTOR [X] leverages the benefits and flexibility of large format, global shutter, high framerate, 8K acquisition, all inside of a compact and feature rich body weighing just over 4lbs.Read more hereFeatured Book:To the Temple of Tranquility... and Step on It!: A MemoirBeloved actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr. shares hilarious and poignant stories of his improbable life, focusing on his relationship with his legendary father, adventures with Hollywood icons, the origins of his environmental activism, addiction and recovery, and his lifelong search for wisdom and common ground.Ed Begley Jr. is truly one of a kind, a performer who is known equally for his prolific film and television career and his environmental activism. From an appearance on My Three Sons to a notable role in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman to starring in St. Elsewhere—as well as films with Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, and mockumentarian Christopher Guest—Begley has worked with just about everyone in Hollywood. His "green" bona fides date back to 1970, and have been the topic of two books, a reality show, countless media appearances, and even repeated spoofs on The Simpsons (in one episode, Begley's solar‑powered car stalls out on train tracks, but is saved when the train is revealed to be an "Ed Begley Solar‑Powered Train”).Begley's unmistakable voice is honest and revealing in a way that only a comic of his caliber can accomplish. Behind all the stories, Begley has wisdom to impart. This is a book about family, friends, addiction, failure, and redemption.Pickup a copy hereOWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly, and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Learn more hereUpcoming Event: Celebrate the top talent in entertainment at the HPA Awards, hosted at the Television Academy's Wolf Theatre on November 7, 2024. Since 2006, the HPA Awards have set the standard for creative achievement, exceptional artistry, and engineering excellence in an industry that continues to embrace groundbreaking technologies and expanding creativity.Tickets now available herePodcast Rewind:August 2024 - Ep. 41…The Making Of is published by Michael Valinsky.To promote your products or services to 51,000 industry pros and filmmakers reading this newsletter, please email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Charlotte Brändström. Charlotte is an award-winning Director working on today's top shows including “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Shōgun,” “The Consultant,” “The Outsider,” “The Witcher,” “The Man in the High Castle,” “Madam Secretary,” “Conspiracy of Silence” and “Outlander”. In our chat, Charlotte shares about her early days in Europe, path into the industry, on through directing many of the biggest shows streaming today. She also speaks about her creative workflow, collaborating with cinematographers and editors — and offers recommendations for up-and-coming filmmakers. The Making Of is presented by AJA Video Systems:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources.Find out more hereFrom our Friends at Broadfield…V-RAPTOR® [X] 8K VV combines the strengths of RED's two families of cameras into one powerful all-purpose workhorse. The frame rates, lowlight performance, and resolution of the V-RAPTOR® line combined with the global shutter advancements of KOMODO®, the V-RAPTOR [X] 8K VV sensor is the culmination of the latest advancements in digital cinema image making. Using RED's newest 8K VV sensor, V-RAPTOR [X] leverages the benefits and flexibility of large format, global shutter, high framerate, 8K acquisition, all inside of a compact and feature rich body weighing just over 4lbs.Read more hereFeatured Book:To the Temple of Tranquility... and Step on It!: A MemoirBeloved actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr. shares hilarious and poignant stories of his improbable life, focusing on his relationship with his legendary father, adventures with Hollywood icons, the origins of his environmental activism, addiction and recovery, and his lifelong search for wisdom and common ground.Ed Begley Jr. is truly one of a kind, a performer who is known equally for his prolific film and television career and his environmental activism. From an appearance on My Three Sons to a notable role in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman to starring in St. Elsewhere—as well as films with Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, and mockumentarian Christopher Guest—Begley has worked with just about everyone in Hollywood. His "green" bona fides date back to 1970, and have been the topic of two books, a reality show, countless media appearances, and even repeated spoofs on The Simpsons (in one episode, Begley's solar‑powered car stalls out on train tracks, but is saved when the train is revealed to be an "Ed Begley Solar‑Powered Train”).Begley's unmistakable voice is honest and revealing in a way that only a comic of his caliber can accomplish. Behind all the stories, Begley has wisdom to impart. This is a book about family, friends, addiction, failure, and redemption.Get your copy hereTalking Cinematography with Jack Schurman:Emmy Award winning cinematographer Jack Schurman sat with ZEISS Cinema to talk about using the new ZEISS Nano Primes for his upcoming short, We Regret to Inform You.Watch the conversation hereOWC Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFexpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly, and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.See hereFilmmakers Call for Change:Join the dozens of global organizations urging Camerimage to increase its support for women by signing the petition below. These include: Women Behind the Camera, IMAGO Diversity & Inclusion Committee, illuminatrix, fDOP, WIFT-tech, CINEMATOGRAPINNEN, Crew United, Apertura, Primetime, Indian Women of Cinematography, Directoras de Fotografía, DAFB, Lumbre Colectiva. Women and dissidents of Chilean cinematography, Women in Media, & more.Read more hereSupport a Friend of The Making Of…Unfortunately, our friend Mark Foley has been diagnosed with cancer. He has started a treatment plan including both chemotherapy and radiation. With that said, he's facing medical and day-to-day expenses. It'd be incredibly helpful if you could support Mark and his efforts in this battle. Anything you can do is most appreciated.Please visit herePodcast Rewind:August 2024 - Ep. 40…The Making Of is published by Michael Valinsky.To promote your products or services to 50,000 industry pros and filmmakers reading this newsletter, please email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Eric Hasso. Eric is the founder of Igelkott Studios, a world-class In-Camera Visual FX company. His clients include studios such as Netflix, Warner Bros, Amazon Prime, MAX, and Sony Pictures. In our chat, Eric shares about his early days in Sweden, about launching his company, Igelkott Studios, and his experience working on shows such as “The Playlist.” Eric also provides insights on the art and science of in-camera visual FX.The Making Of is presented by AJA Video Systems:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources. Find out more here From our Friends at Broadfield…V-RAPTOR® [X] 8K VV combines the strengths of RED's two families of cameras into one powerful all-purpose workhorse. The frame rates, lowlight performance, and resolution of the V-RAPTOR® line combined with the global shutter advancements of KOMODO®, the V-RAPTOR [X] 8K VV sensor is the culmination of the latest advancements in digital cinema image making. Using RED's newest 8K VV sensor, V-RAPTOR [X] leverages the benefits and flexibility of large format, global shutter, high framerate, 8K acquisition, all inside of a compact and feature rich body weighing just over 4lbs.Browse hereTalking Cinematography with Jack Schurman:Emmy Award winning cinematographer Jack Schurman sat with ZEISS Cinema to talk about using the new ZEISS Nano Primes for his upcoming short, We Regret to Inform You.Watch the conversation hereOWC Atlas Ultra CFExpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFExpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly, and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Learn more hereFilmmakers Call for Change:Join the dozens of global organizations urging Camerimage to increase its support for women by signing the petition below. These include, just to name a few: Women Behind the Camera, IMAGO Diversity & Inclusion Committee, illuminatrix, fDOP, WIFT-tech, CINEMATOGRAPINNEN, Crew United, Apertura, Primetime, Indian Women of Cinematography, Directoras de Fotografía, DAFB, Lumbre Colectiva. Women and dissidents of Chilean cinematography, & more.Read more hereRecommended Film Book: A History of Narrative FilmSophisticated in its analytical content, current in its coverage, and informed throughout by fascinating historical and cultural contexts, A History of Narrative Film is one of the most respected and widely read texts in film studies. This Fifth Edition features a new chapter on twenty-first century film, and includes refreshed coverage of contemporary digital production, distribution, and consumption of film. Buy hereHat Tip to Jay Holben Support a Friend of The Making Of…Unfortunately, our friend Mark Foley has been diagnosed with cancer. He has started a treatment plan including both chemotherapy and radiation. With that said, he's facing large medical and day-to-day expenses. It'd be enormously helpful if you could support Mark and his efforts in this battle. Anything you can do would be most appreciated.Please visit herePodcast Rewind:July 2024 - Ep. 39…The Making Of is published by Michael Valinsky.To promote your products or services to 45,000 filmmakers and industry professionals reading this newsletter, please email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome Neil Matsumoto. Neil has a long history in the industry and has worked at Panasonic LUMIX for many years. In our conversation, he shares all about his roots, early independent filmmaking experiences, path into the industry, and current role at LUMIX. Neil also provides insights for filmmakers and other recommendations for cinematographers and creatives today.The Making Of is presented by AJA Video Systems:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources. Find out more hereOther World Computing Atlas Ultra CFexpress Cards:Experience the unparalleled performance and reliability of Atlas Ultra CFExpress Type B 4.0 cards purpose-built for professional filmmakers and photographers to capture flawlessly, and offload files quickly in the most demanding scenarios.Check it out hereFrom our Friends at Broadfield…V-RAPTOR® [X] 8K VV combines the strengths of RED's two families of cameras into one powerful all-purpose workhorse. The frame rates, lowlight performance, and resolution of the V-RAPTOR® line combined with the global shutter advancements of KOMODO®, the V-RAPTOR [X] 8K VV sensor is the culmination of the latest advancements in digital cinema image making. Using RED's newest 8K VV sensor, V-RAPTOR [X] leverages the benefits and flexibility of large format, global shutter, high framerate, 8K acquisition, all inside of a compact and feature rich body weighing just over 4lbs.Inquire here Support a Friend of The Making Of: Unfortunately, our friend Mark Foley has been diagnosed with cancer. He has started a treatment plan including both chemotherapy and radiation. With that said, he is facing tremendous medical and day-to-day expenses. It'd be incredibly helpful if you could support Mark and his efforts in this battle. Anything you can do would be most appreciated.To support, visit hereZEISS Conversations with Jack SchurmanJoin us on August 1st LIVE as Matt Duclos of Duclos Lenses interviews cinematographer Jack Schurman live in our showroom. Jack will discuss his most recent work, We Regret to Inform You, shot for Sony on the new ZEISS Nano Lenses. This event will include live lens demos and a Q&A about the creative and technical aspects of the lenses. You'll definitely want to join us for this one!Register for free herePodcast Rewind:July 2024 - Ep. 38…The Making Of is published by Michael Valinsky.To promote your products or services to over 40,000 filmmakers and industry pros reading this newsletter, please email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome cinematographer Alicia Robbins. Alicia has worked on top television shows such as “Bridgerton” Season 3, “Grey's Anatomy,” “Quantum Leap,” and “For The People,” as well as feature films including Creed II and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. In our chat, she shares about her early years, path to studying at AFI, experiences working on low-budget projects, on through shooting one of Netflix's most popular titles of all time. Alicia also discusses her favorite films, what keeps her inspired, and other insights from a life on set.The Making Of is presented by AJA Video Systems:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources. Find out more: hereFrom our Friends at Videoguys…Ninja your iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max into a 1600nit, 10-bit, 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 460ppi, HDR OLED, ProRes monitor-recorder for any pro HDMI camera. Attach the Ninja Phone to your iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, plug in an HDMI-equipped camera, and you've got the best display on the planet with fast, low-latency connectivity.Take a look hereExplore ZEISS' Nano Prime LensesZEISS Nano Primes are the first high-speed (T1.5 throughout) cine lenses made specifically for mirrorless full frame cameras – initially available with Sony E-mount. These primes offer a pleasing, versatile look that is adaptable for an extensive range of shooting situations and a compact, lightweight design that makes them easy to use on any set or location. Available in six focal lengths (18mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm), this matched set conveniently covers wide-angle to telephoto. Learn more hereFeatured Book: In Rebel Without a Crew, screenwriter and director Robert Rodriguez discloses all the unique strategies and original techniques he used to make his remarkable debut film, El Mariachi, on a shoestring budget. This is both one man's remarkable story and an essential guide for anyone who has a celluloid story to tell and the dreams and determination to see it through. Get a copy herePodcast Rewind:June 2024 - Ep. 37…The Making Of is published by Michael Valinsky.To advertise your products or services to over 35,000 filmmakers and industry pros reading this newsletter, please email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, we welcome cinematographer Christopher Ross, BSC. Chris has worked on critically-acclaimed series including “Shōgun,” “Top Boy” and “Trust” as well as films such as Yesterday, The Great Escaper, Eden Lake, and Room. In our chat, we hear his backstory, how he started in the industry, and about his process prepping and shooting various projects. Chris also takes us behind-the-scenes of “Shōgun” — sharing the techniques and technologies used to create this epic show. The Making Of is presented by AJA Video Systems:Meet AJA Ki Pro GO2Easily record up to four channels of simultaneous HEVC or AVC to cost-efficient USB drives and/or network storage with flexible connectivity, including four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs, to connect to a wide range of video sources. Find out more: here From our Friends at Videoguys…Ninja your iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max into a 1600nit, 10-bit, 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 460ppi, HDR OLED, ProRes monitor-recorder for any pro HDMI camera. Attach the Ninja Phone to your iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, plug in an HDMI-equipped camera, and you've got the best display on the planet with fast, low-latency connectivity.Take a look here“I of The Lens” Photo Exhibit At Euro Cine Expo 2024 in MunichA unique exhibit showcasing the external and internal expression of a cinematographer.IMAGO Camera, the world's only analogue, large format camera designed for life-sized, self-portraits, captivated audiences with an extraordinary exhibition featuring stunning black and white portraits of cinematographers from across the globe. This collection, curated by Vika Safrigina, producer and Susanna Kraus, the visionary artist behind IMAGO Camera, is on display at the Euro Cine Expo in Munich, June 27-29.The IMAGO Camera is a true interactive object d'art and transcends traditional photography by allowing cinematographers to step into the spotlight and become authors of their own images. This unique walk-in camera was invented by the physicist Werner Kraus and artist Erhard Hoesle in 1972 in Munich, 20 years before the IMAGO federation was founded. As photographer and subject converge, each sitter transforms into the artist behind the lens, creating captivating self-portraits that reveal a unique perspective of themselves.In partnership with IMAGO — International Federation of Cinematographers' Diversity and Inclusion Committee, SUMOLIGHT lighting solutions, and Leitz Cine, the exhibition aims to celebrate the diversity of filmmakers who breathe life into the grand canvas of the movie screen.Learn more here Explore ZEISS' Nano Prime Lenses ZEISS Nano Primes are the first high-speed (T1.5 throughout) cine lenses made specifically for mirrorless full frame cameras – initially available with Sony E-mount. These primes offer a pleasing, versatile look that is adaptable for an extensive range of shooting situations and a compact, lightweight design that makes them easy to use on any set or location. Available in six focal lengths (18mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm), this matched set conveniently covers wide-angle to telephoto.Thanks to the integrated electronic interface, metadata such as focal length, focus distance and aperture value are transmitted to the camera in real time. Additional lens data for distortion and vignetting is available in the ZEISS CinCraft ecosystem and thus for post-production (CinCraft Mapper) as well as in the recently introduced CinCraft Scenario camera tracking system. Adding to their versatility, Nano Primes are ready for the simple exchange of additional mounts thanks to the proven ZEISS IMS (Interchangeable Mount System). Learn more hereTips from theC47:Beach Read:The JAWS LogWinner of three Oscars and the highest-grossing film of its time, Jaws was a phenomenon, and this is the only book on how twenty-six-year-old Steven Spielberg transformed Peter Benchley's number-one bestselling novel into the classic film it became.Hired by Spielberg as a screenwriter to work with him on the set while the movie was being made, Carl Gottlieb, an actor and writer, was there throughout the production that starred Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. After filming was over, with Spielberg's cooperation, Gottlieb chronicled the extraordinary yearlong adventure in The Jaws Log, which was first published in 1975 and has sold more than two million copies. This expanded edition includes a photo section, an introduction by Benchley, and an afterword by Gottlieb that gives updates about the people and events involved in the film, ultimately providing a singular portrait of a famous movie and inspired moviemaking.Get yours herePodcast Rewind:June 2024 - Ep. 36…The Making Of is published by Michael Valinsky.To advertise your products or services to over 30,000 filmmakers and industry pros reading this newsletter, please email us at mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe
View in HD at . By default your iPhone saves photos as HEIC files. These are compressed images, like JPEG files, but will use less space on your iPhone, Mac and iCloud. You can easily convert these to JPEG files when you need to. Your iPhone also saves video files in HEVC format.
As iPhone cameras continue to get more powerful, the settings and UI for the Camera app gets more complicated. Rosemary Orchard and Mikah Sargent walk you through every Camera app setting, button, dial, and interface feature, giving you loads of photography tips and tricks along the way. News Apple introduces new Apple Pencil, bringing more value and choice to the lineup Apple developing 'pad-like device' that can update iPhone firmware while still sealed in the box Shortcuts Corner Jake wants to create a Shortcut that turns off an LED light strip when charging an iPhone after 10 p.m. Feedback & Questions Mike wants the iPhone to cease auto-unlocking when using AirPods to take calls. Ken needs help locking in camera orientation whilst taking top-down photos and help in keeping the iPhone from auto-switching camera lenses during photo capture. App Caps Rosemary's App Cap: Hush Nag Blocker Mikah's App Cap: Permission Slip Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit You can contribute to iOS Today by leaving us a voicemail at 757-504-iPad (757-504-4723) or sending an email to iOSToday@TWiT.tv. Sponsor: mylio.com/TWIT
As iPhone cameras continue to get more powerful, the settings and UI for the Camera app gets more complicated. Rosemary Orchard and Mikah Sargent walk you through every Camera app setting, button, dial, and interface feature, giving you loads of photography tips and tricks along the way. News Apple introduces new Apple Pencil, bringing more value and choice to the lineup Apple developing 'pad-like device' that can update iPhone firmware while still sealed in the box Shortcuts Corner Jake wants to create a Shortcut that turns off an LED light strip when charging an iPhone after 10 p.m. Feedback & Questions Mike wants the iPhone to cease auto-unlocking when using AirPods to take calls. Ken needs help locking in camera orientation whilst taking top-down photos and help in keeping the iPhone from auto-switching camera lenses during photo capture. App Caps Rosemary's App Cap: Hush Nag Blocker Mikah's App Cap: Permission Slip Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit You can contribute to iOS Today by leaving us a voicemail at 757-504-iPad (757-504-4723) or sending an email to iOSToday@TWiT.tv. Sponsor: mylio.com/TWIT
As iPhone cameras continue to get more powerful, the settings and UI for the Camera app gets more complicated. Rosemary Orchard and Mikah Sargent walk you through every Camera app setting, button, dial, and interface feature, giving you loads of photography tips and tricks along the way. News Apple introduces new Apple Pencil, bringing more value and choice to the lineup Apple developing 'pad-like device' that can update iPhone firmware while still sealed in the box Shortcuts Corner Jake wants to create a Shortcut that turns off an LED light strip when charging an iPhone after 10 p.m. Feedback & Questions Mike wants the iPhone to cease auto-unlocking when using AirPods to take calls. Ken needs help locking in camera orientation whilst taking top-down photos and help in keeping the iPhone from auto-switching camera lenses during photo capture. App Caps Rosemary's App Cap: Hush Nag Blocker Mikah's App Cap: Permission Slip Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit You can contribute to iOS Today by leaving us a voicemail at 757-504-iPad (757-504-4723) or sending an email to iOSToday@TWiT.tv. Sponsor: mylio.com/TWIT
This week we detail the language in the new terms announced by the WGA in their deal with the studios (AMPTA) that have come as a result of the writers strike. The new deal provides no real transparency into viewership numbers outside of total hours streamed and only for self-produced high budget streaming programs. We also discuss Amazon's news that starting in early 2024 Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements. Finally, we provide some details on the recent ruling from a German court that Netflix is infringing on Broadcom's video patent related to HEVC.
ATSC 3.0 and HEVC patent disputes could have big impacts on Netflix and NextGen TV. NextGen TV could see adoption slow, and Netflix could see streaming costs grow.
On iOS Today, Mikah Sargent explores Apple's Camera app and how to use it to its fullest potential. Mikah and co-host Dan Moren go over choosing the best frame rate and format, in addition to the Scene Detection and Smart HDR features. Finally, they discuss how to zoom and capture photos/videos. Full episode at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today/episodes/669 Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren You can find more about TWiT and subscribe to our podcasts at https://podcasts.twit.tv/ Sponsor: GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT
On iOS Today, Mikah Sargent explores Apple's Camera app and how to use it to its fullest potential. Mikah and co-host Dan Moren go over choosing the best frame rate and format, in addition to the Scene Detection and Smart HDR features. Finally, they discuss how to zoom and capture photos/videos. Full episode at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today/episodes/669 Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren You can find more about TWiT and subscribe to our podcasts at https://podcasts.twit.tv/ Sponsor: GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT
greggy, "casey" and someone who isn't houston follow Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's leading exorcist, as he investigates the possession of a child and uncovers a conspiracy the Vatican has tried to keep secret
Bienvenue dans cet épisode 123 d'iWeek (la semaine Apple), le podcast. La (vraie) puissance du Mac mini M2 Pro révélée. Enregistré le mardi 7 février 2023 à 17h50. Présentation : Benjamin Vincent. Intervenants : Elie Abitbol, Fabrice Neuman. Production : OUATCH Audio. Pour soutenir iWeek : patreon.com/iweek. Cette semaine : le Mac mini M2 Pro ressemble de plus en plus au Mac dont nous avons toujours rêvé. Tout petit, il offre une puissance phénoménale dont on mesure un peu plus l'étendue grâce à notre invité, Pierre Chevalier, directeur technique chez Softron Media Services, éditeur de logiciel de capture, de playout (lecture) et de diffusion pour les radios et chaines TV. Pierre partage avec nous ses tests ultimes d'encodage ProRes HQ et HEVC et il les compare avec le Mac mini M1 et d'autres Mac. Et c'est très impressionnant. Une semaine marquée par une accélération sur le front de l'intelligence artificielle appliquée au moteur de recherche. Mardi soir, Microsoft, Bing avec chatGPT et OpenAI ; mercredi après-midi, Google, BARD et LaMDA, son modèle conversationnel ; et la semaine prochaine, Apple qui tiendra son sommet interne annuel sur l'IA... resté confidentiel jusqu'à ces derniers jours. Bref, ça chauffe et les enjeux sont énormes puisqu'après 25 ans d'existence et de quasi-monopole, Google se retrouve bousculé sur son terrain de jeu : la recherche sur Internet. Apple qui n'a a encore rien montré, en la matière, peut-il être plus qu'un observateur de ce duel ? Et puis, Apple est-elle en train de retomber dans ses vieux travers, alors que Cupertino cherche toujours une cohérence à sa gamme iPhone dont le 2e modèle - l'iPhone 14 Plus - tourne au bide. A vendre toujours plus et toujours plus cher, il est maintenant question d'un futur iPhone 15 ou 16 Ultra... Après Plus, Pro et Pro Max... quelle lisibilité pour la future gamme ? Retour sur l'évolution de notre présence sur Patreon avec le carton rouge vif adresse par Benjamin Vincent à la plate-forme de financement des créateurs de contenus qui, contrairement à ce qu'elle annonce sur son site, n'est pas encore en mesure de vous permettre de basculer sur un abonnement au mois ou à l'année. Nous voilà donc momentanément sans solution pour délivrer toutes les nouveautés que nous vous présentions, la semaine dernière. Nous cherchons activement un plan B. Et puis, ne manquez pas le bonus exclusif qui vous est réservé, chère communauté. À la tête de l'équipe Design chez Apple, Evans Hankey - qui avait succédé à Jony Ive - est partie et n'est pas remplacée. Et ça nous inquiète. Enfin, nos coups de coeur de la semaine ! Fabrice Neuman vous conseille Unshaky, l'utilitaire pour enlever les répétitions de touches avec un Mac (qui plus est, à clavier papillon). Elie Abitbol est enthousiaste devant la sortie de deux boitiers (non officiels) Carlinkit pour profiter de CarPlay sur une Tesla (100 à 130€ sur Amazon). Quant à Pierre Chevalier, il nous fait découvrir switchbot, un appareil avec un petit bras qui pousse sur un bouton pour controler à distance un appareil qui n'a pas d'intelligence. Rendez-vous mercredi 15 février 2023 au soir, pour l'épisode 124 d'iWeek (la semaine Apple) ! Par ailleurs, retrouvez la version vidéo du podcast en avant-première sur Patreon, puis, à partir du dimanche, sur la chaîne YouTube d'iWeek ! Abonnez-vous à la chaîne YouTube d'iWeek. Si l'actualité Apple vous passionne, abonnez-vous gratuitement à "la quotidienne iWeek", le 1er podcast quotidien sur l'actu Apple : 5 minutes par jour, 5 jours par semaine, du lundi au vendredi, avec l'essentiel de l'info Apple quotidienne. Un podcast désormais chapitré et illustré dans votre application de podcasts préférée. la quotidienne iWeek sur Apple Podcasts : https://apple.co/3lTrLe6 la quotidienne iWeek sur Spotify : https://sptfy.be/6reqf (attention : nouveau lien !) Pour avoir les dernières nouvelles d'iWeek, suivez notre compte Twitter : @iweeknews et notre compte Instagram : @iweek.news !
Our thoughts on IBM slicing up more of Red Hat, what stands out in Nextcloud Hub 3, and a few essential fixes finally landing in the Linux kernel.
Our thoughts on IBM slicing up more of Red Hat, what stands out in Nextcloud Hub 3, and a few essential fixes finally landing in the Linux kernel.
This week we breakdown the viewership numbers from Amazon's first Thursday Night Football game and the differences between all the numbers reported. (11.8M, 13M, 15.3M) We also discuss the news of Google adding HEVC support in Chrome and some cost details given out by Twitch of how expensive it is to deliver HD, low latency, always available live video to nearly every corner of the world. Finally, we highlight IMAX's acquisition of SSIMWAVE and their goal to bring a specific level of video quality to consumers at home.Companies, and services mentioned: Amazon Prime Video, NFL, NBC Sports, DIRECTV, NFL+, NFL Sunday Ticket, CBS Sports, Bally Sports, Twitch, Chrome, IMAX, SSIMWAVE, Diamond Sports, Nielsen.Questions or feedback? Contact: dan@danrayburn.com
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Ideas on Video Communications | Wireless | Cellular | Fiber Optics | IPTV | Video over IP
The HCAM is highly flexible and features configurable mounting options and video interfaces, allowing the unit to be mounted to broadcast cameras for sporting events, ENG cameras for news and even prosumer cameras to broaden the market reach. With user interchangeable RF modules and a range of software options, the HCAM continues the line of innovative, high-performance wireless camera systems from Vislink. The post VISLINK HCAM HEVC/UHD Wireless Camera System with Camera Control [Recorded Download] appeared first on VidOvation Corporation.
Paul is Senior Vice President at Access Advance LLC where he is responsible for business development. He has been involved in multiple patent pools and licensing program during his 25+ years as an intellectual property attorney, including for MPEG 2, MPEG 4 Part 2, AVC, HDDVD, BluRay, HEAAC, HEVC and now VVC. Paul started his career to work for General Electric's licensing department. He went on to work for General Instrument, first as the IP Portfolio Law Director, and then as the Broadband Sector IP Law Director (for Motorola after it purchased GI) managing the IP law department and IP related matters. After that Paul worked for Microsoft as a Business Division Patent Counsel to then work for Acacia Research Group identifying, valuing, and purchasing patent portfolios. Since 2015, Paul has worked for Access Advance, first as Senior VP of Licensing building their HEVC Advance licensing program, and now as Senior VP of Business Development developing, launching and now building their VVC Advance licensing program. Paul believes that patent pools are important to facilitate standardized technologies such as HEVC or VVC. Paten pools reduce the transaction costs for all implementers. Havening more than just one patent pool (HEVC is subject to 3 patent pools, VVC currently has 2 patent pools set up), also will in his view not hamper standards adoption. Also, two or three patent pools still reduce the number of licensors. There has been criticism that HEVC was not as successful as AVC, where Paul argues that there is a lot of data tell a different story and that provides evidence of the success and wide adoption of HEVC. In his view the HEVC patent pool situation supported that success. Also, the recent litigation between Access Advance and Vestel was no setback for Access Advance, Paul argues. Here media did not tell the whole story. What is true due to a substantial number of overlapping patents in the HEVC Advance Patent Pool and MPEG LA's HEVC patent pool to which Vestel was licensed to, the German court In Düsseldorf found the Access Advanced HEVC license not FRAND. Access Advanced in March 2022 therefore revised its policy responding to the Düsseldorf District Court's December 21, 2021 ruling. Importantly, the court once again did not express concerns with any other facet of the HEVC Advance Patent Pool, including its royalty rates.One reason why more than just one patent pool was formed for VVC is that not only the licensing rates and licensing models differ across the pool programs, but also the internal revenue sharing policies can be very different. At Access Advance Paul states that the pool considers the internal royalty sharing counting patents on a patent family basis so that there are no incentives for patent pool licensors to file e.g. multiple divisional patent applications that cover very minor inventions just to increase their share in the patent pool. The different rules and licensing rates therefore attract different SEP licensors to either join Access Advance or MPEG LA's VVC patent pool.
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Thierry Fautier LinkedIn profile Harmonic websiteBen Mesander LinkedIn profile Wowza websiteWalid Hamri LinkedIn profile SeaChange websiteWade Wan LinkedIn profile Broadcom websiteOur previous panel on extending the life of H.264 is here---------------------------------------------------Join our LinkedIn Group so that you can get the latest video insider news and participate in the discussion.Email thevideoinsiders@beamr.com to be a guest on the show.Learn more about Beamr
Gregg Heil LinkedIn profileEncoding.com, Gregg's company, is hereBeamr CABR on encoding.com is here---------------------------------------------------Join our LinkedIn Group so that you can get the latest video insider news and participate in the discussion.Email thevideoinsiders@beamr.com to be a guest on the show.Learn more about Beamr
Michael Drazin LinkedIn profileRelated episode: HDR from glass-to-glass--------------------------------------The Video Insiders LinkedIn Group is where thousands of your peers are discussing the latest video technology news and sharing best practices. Click here to joinWould you like to be a guest on the show? Email: thevideoinsiders@beamr.comLearn about Beamr--------------------------------------
Download the Innovid 2020 State of Connected TV ReportLearn about InnvoidTal Chalozin LinkedIn profileRelated episode: Direct-to-consumer streaming service launches and first impressionsListen to Episode 20 for more information on interactive advertising and video monetization technology--------------------------------------The Video Insiders LinkedIn Group is where thousands of your peers are discussing the latest video technology news and sharing best practices. Click here to joinWould you like to be a guest on the show? Email: thevideoinsiders@beamr.comLearn about Beamr--------------------------------------TRANSCRIPT: (edited lightly to improve readability)Tal Chalozin: 00:00 Innovid is what we call a video marketing platform. It's a technology platform sold to marketers, brands executives, and agencies that lets them do three things. First and foremost what is called an ad server. It's a technology that actually streams the ad to every website. So if a marketer, let's say Chrysler, or Proctor & Gamble or Best Buy, or others is advertising on YouTube or Hulu or Fox or NBC or New York Times there's a centralized platform that you can actually manage the campaign, upload the MP4's and actually do the streaming and make decisions on now on which video file to serve. So right now we're very fortunate to be the largest video ad server in the world and in many other countries in the United States and many other countries that we operate in. Tal Chalozin: 00:51 A little over a third of all video ads in the United States are being streamed by Innovid. So if you tune into every website and every app, let's say Hulu, one out of three ads, and as a matter of fact on Hulu, it's probably even higher than that. Almost one of every two ads would be, one's coming from Innovid every day. We stream roughly 450 years' worth of ads. And this is just ads content. So we stream a lot of videos. To complete the story of our platform. At a core it's an ad server. And then on top of that there are two applications. One is around creative and the other one is around measurement. Announcer: 01:31 The video insiders is the show that makes sense of all that is happening in the world of online video as seen through the eyes of a second generation codec nerd and a marketing guy who knows what I-frames and macro blocks are. And here are your hosts, Mark Donnigan and Dror Gill. Dror Gill: 01:51 Today we have a very special guest and an old friend of mine Tal Chalozin who is the CTO of Innovid. Hi Tal. Welcome to The Video Insiders. Tal Chalozin: 01:59 Hello Dror. Hello Mark. Thanks for having me. It's a true honor. Mark Donnigan: 02:03 Yeah, welcome Tal. So tell us about Innovid. Tal Chalozin: 02:07 Innovid is a software company that I had the honor of starting together with my two friends and co founders, Zvika Netter our CEO and Zack Zigdon who runs all of our international business. And myself, it's a company that we started back in 2007. Before I explain what we do, just to take you back almost 13 years ago, this is the time after Google acquired YouTube and Hulu as a streaming site was kind of an inception mode. NBC and News Corp started this operation to bring streaming television into the internet. Tal Chalozin: 02:49 And what we said back then is that we believe that the future of television is over IP and to be streamed. We thought that when this would happen the one thing that we really want to tackle is the viewing experience around the advertising. Because it was clear that marketers and ad dollars take a very, very important part of the experience of television subsidizing content and creating the access to so many different people. But it's also clear that sitting through a pretty boring 30 second spot and that every person around the United States in a broadcast time window would see the exact same ad. It's kind of silly. And so we went on a journey to build a software that helps to create a better viewing experience around commercials. Tal Chalozin: 03:44 So we started with the technology, with technology that allows what is called in kind of layman terms virtual product placement. It was a computer vision technology that lets you process videos and reconstruct the 3D. So understanding occlusions and backgrounds and foregrounds and planes and allow you to render a product a 3D product in 3D images into the shot. And it looks like as if it was there while the content was shot while reproducing all the shades and lighting and again, occlusion and, and things like that. This was where we started. We got a bunch of patents. This is how we raised our A round back then. We got so many awards. It was awesome. But then what we learned is that it's amazing, but advertising is a business of scale for marketers to actually play. Tal Chalozin: 04:38 One of the main things that marketers gain out of television is a massive megaphone that lets you tell your story to millions, if not hundreds of millions of people in 30 seconds. So then we went on a journey to better learn this business and expanded more and more capability and fast forward to today. Innovid is what we call a video marketing platform. It's a technology platform sold to marketers, brands executives and agencies that lets them do three things. First and foremost what is called an ad server. It's a technology that actually streams the ad to every website. So if a marketer, let's say Chrysler or Procter and Gamble or Best Buy or others is advertising on YouTube or Hulu or Fox or NBC or New York times there's a centralized platform that you can actually manage the campaign, upload the MP4's and actually do the streaming and make decisions on which video file to serve to the individual that is streaming the content. Tal Chalozin: 05:48 So right now we're very fortunate to be the largest video ad server in the world. And in many other countries in the United States, many other countries that we operate in a little over a third of all video ads in the United States are being streamed by Innovid. At a core it's an ad server. And then on top of that, there are two applications. One is around creative and the other one is around measurement. Our headquarters in New York. There's 350 people, a big R&D center in Israel and then offices across the U S and in Europe. And in APAC. If you read the trades, it seems like the future of television has no ads. Disney Plus, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, all of the big services that made a lot of splash in the press toot the horn of no ads. Tal Chalozin: 06:43 This is very nice for marketing, but in reality advertising dollars pays the bills that makes so many pieces of content to be streamed. The subscription services could not really thrive on subscription alone, let alone when you're talking about a massive global service that would like to reach hundreds of millions of subscribers. You cannot do that only with subscribing. With subscription dollars or advertising is a very strong market and in the future will be that. Easy testament is that just last week NBC launched or Comcast launched there foray into that game called Peacock. And the main thing that they said is that, Hey there's so much noise around advertising, about no ads. This cannot work. We will include ads. Tal Chalozin: 07:36 And this makes to the second part of what I wanted to say about the future is that, but they put a lot of emphasis around ed experience. So it's not that you will see ads in the same way that you're used to watching television. There will still be ad breaks, but it will look and feel very, very different than what it used to be on television. And we play a very big role there and in other places. And we think that yes, the future of television is over the internet, over IP. The future of television is with ads, or at least in some capacity of it, but it would look and feel much different. Dror Gill: 08:14 I want to ask a question regarding the, the ad server component. And these ads go interleaved into content experiences sometimes before or after or during the actual streaming of the content. So how do you match the resolution and the quality of the ad that you provide to the actual content that is being streamed? Because I don't assume that somebody watching a 4K movie would like to be interrupted by like an, you know, an SD, low quality ad. It would probably be quite annoying. Tal Chalozin: 08:52 I have so many things to say about this stuff. First of all, before I answer exactly how we did it I can tell you that people think that the internet is so advanced in 2020 so all of this problem is practically solved. And there is no real problem to bring television over the internet and it's not really true. I'm sure you know you know, very well the general standard in the video ads industry right now is that we as the server that generated the file and hosts them, would create an XML template called vast V A S T and put multiple video renditions in a file and create a manifest that would have different renditions of and actually different encoders as well. Tal Chalozin: 09:44 Of the file. It used to be, we used to put FLV and other stuff. But right now it's all MP4 containers. But anyway, you put multiple renditions and then the actual player picks the right one and the player, essentially what it's doing is doing playlisting. So picking the right ad at the right time and there is a, in the last, the last few years, but honestly, just in the last year, there is a big change in the way video ads are being streamed. Moving from what used to be called CSAI client side ad insertion, AKA playlisting. So on the client you download some, some type of playlisting and then you just move between different files even if it's the main content - it doesn't matter the rendition, you would still switch between different files that you do progressive downloads for. Tal Chalozin: 10:45 Most of the very large sites and today apps are what is called SSAI server-side ad insertion. Essentially it doesn't matter what file we bring. You convert it into an HLS stream, create TS files, and then do kind of the, the term that everyone is using is manifest manipulation. So just manipulate the M3u8 and swap packets, TS files inside the M3u8. I hope that I don't need to explain everything that I'm just saying, but stop me if you want me to. So essentially let's say on Hulu, this is how it works. You will tune into a stream and you hit play on an episode of a, I don't know, The Good Wife on Hulu. What they will do, they will go, let's say this is 48 minutes of an episode or 21 minutes of an episode with multiple ads that need to be weaved throughout. So what they will do, they will do a server side call to all the different ads and then get either an MP4 and do just in time transcoding for it. Or, if it's pre-prepared, like a lot of the things that we do you would get the actual TS file and then just merge it into a single M3u8 with content TS files in the right rendition and the ads. Mark Donnigan: 12:09 So Tal, are you actually able to get the, you know, I'll call it the mezzanine file of the ad, and then you can create a high quality or at least the highest quality possible for the, you know, target resolution and bit rate or are you limited by the fact that sometimes, you know, you may get a mezzanine quality and other times it may just be a 1080p in which case Dror's example of like a 4K. You're just limited. I mean, you have the quality you have. So can you tell us, shed some light on that? Tal Chalozin: 12:43 It's a fascinating point. This is an uphill battle for us because we are, we're still an intermediary. We're not the post production shop at that makes the video file, so we're limited to whatever you would get. So yeah, the intention is to get a Pro Res or a mez file, mezzanine file, of the ad that allows us to do transcoding into whatever we want. But, that's not the reality all the time. In many cases we would get to your example, a 1080p is a good case. In some cases we get 720 and sometimes we even need to up convert it, which clearly is not really working. Tal Chalozin: 13:34 And the reality is that the 4K streaming of ad supported content is not a real thing as of right now. But, 1080p is definitely one that is. And again, we're in 2020 right now and you can open whatever app without naming names, but you can open one of the biggest apps out there and I'm sure you would get to an ad break and even an unaided eye can see that it's a totally different rendition of the ad, even different audio, let alone volume normalization. But even just the quality of the encoding is significantly different or lower than the actual content. And this is a common case or the state of the internet right now. Dror Gill: 14:24 But this is something you're trying to avoid? Tal Chalozin: 14:26 We're definitely trying to avoid the way that we're doing it is that if you think about it, there are two inputs to our system. One is the ad itself, literally, again the mez file, Pro Res, whatever container that is, an MP4. And then, what is called in ad terms a media plan. Media plan is saying that we are Chrysler, the campaign starts in this date and ends on this date, there is X number of million impressions on YouTube, then on Snapchat, then on Hulu, and then the full list. It's a very complicated meta data of the whole campaign. So those are the two inputs that we're getting. Historically that was just an upload. So in our system, you would go and just upload the files. Tal Chalozin: 15:13 More and more we're trying to get down to the source and create some type of an integration with the, with the DAM, the digital asset manager. Let's say, again, this is a Chrysler commercial, Chrysler 300 commercial. Someone actually did the post for it, and they do have the approved asset at the best quality possible. But those are not our customers. So sometimes we don't get access to that and we need to beg the customer to get that and try to explain what's the outcome if they don't get it. So what we're trying to do is to get down to the source as close as possible. So then that post-production shop would actually have an API to us, or even if they upload, they would upload the source and not have a downsample of it. Mark Donnigan: 16:05 So our audience, are largely encoding engineers, video engineers, and we just hear over and over again incredible frustration about this. Dror and I were just talking to a very large live sports streaming service last week and the person responsible for encoding was lamenting that whenever there's issues with quality, it's because he can't do any better. It's a source issue! The high quality asset exists. Why can't we get access to it so that we can provide an incredible advertising experience. And I'm just wondering, how do we fix this? Tal Chalozin: 16:50 How do we fix that? As more hours per day continues to pour into the connected, let's call it the connected television space, and as more and more ad dollars flow in there, and then more and more people cut their cord or shave their cord or are cord nevers and haven't even been exposed to traditional television, this becomes the norm and not the new thing. It's essentially a supply chain or a workflow problem because as you said, the file is there. It's not that someone is shooting on an SD camera and now you, you're stuck with a shitty file. People are using RED cameras to shoot it. So yeah, so it's more of a workflow problem. And this is what we set out to do is to just remove the clutter and connect everything in an industry that wasn't connected. Ads on television, still are being delivered predominantly through FedEx with cassette tapes that are being sent to local TV stations. Tal Chalozin: 17:50 This is still a thing. We're moving from this world and now talking about getting a mezzanine or 4K file. I'll tell you about one thing that I'm very keen on, is that another thing is getting the raw asset is one thing. And then another thing, if you look at it, there's multiple parties on the internet that are getting an asset and transcoding it. So let's say that we get the video file. Probably Facebook got the video file as well, maybe not through Innovid. And they also transcoded the video file and then YouTube or Tik Tok got the video file somehow. And then sometimes clients would use Innovid. Sometimes you would go directly into YouTube and upload the raw file. And maybe NBC would get it through some other distribution channel to the broadcast side. Tal Chalozin: 18:44 And then when they run it online, they would take the broadcast file and transcode it as well. So there was multiple people or organization that got the raw footage and then they're in charge of transcoding. This is pretty stupid. It should be some type of a centralized repository because there is an ID to every file and there is an initiative called the Ad ID to make sure that there will be a unified numbering system, and a catalog. And by virtue of that, meta data and tracking just in the ad space so in every ad and then not only did you have a catalog, you can access all different resolutions in a centralized place. So then if YouTube wants a a downsampled version, then you just pick the resolution you want. You don't take the raw and then encode it as well. Tal Chalozin: 19:32 There's an initiative. There are several companies trying to do that. It's kind of a hurding cats type of an initiative. But it's almost a necessity because unless you do that, you will always have those artifacts. Mark Donnigan: 19:46 Yeah, that's right. And that Ad ID in your experience does that travel, I'll use the word seamlessly, you know, between these various systems or is that even an issue of keeping that ad ID intact? Tal Chalozin: 19:59 You know that it is a meta data but in reality again, we are one of the largest platforms that actually accesses files and stream them out and encode them. Most people that do encoding do not carry on all the meta data. That's one thing. Second thing is that most people, actually, most platforms don't even look into that meta data. So don't even expose that or do anything with it. Tal Chalozin: 20:22 Several encoders do not put it in there. So right now, yes, it is there, but it's not fully available. So the solution that is used mostly right now, which you would laugh, is putting it in the actual file name. So literally as an unstructured text on the file before the dot and before you put an underscore and then the the actual file, which clearly doesn't carry through anywhere. So that's the reality again, right now in 2020. It's almost like Dror do you remember Yossi Vardi's example of pigeons carrying DVDs in order to transfer a lot of files, large files? Dror Gill: 21:04 He also did another experiment. He took a snail and he stuck a USB drive on the back of the snail. And then he had two computers connected with a crossed ethernet cable and he was trying to see how the data will go faster through the cable or the snail that is moving slowly between the computers with the USB drive on his back. And I'm sorry to say, but the snail won! Tal Chalozin: 21:28 The industry from the outside seems like, again, it all problems are solved, but it's far from it. You know, the Superbowl is coming up very soon and Fox is going to air the Superbowl and like every year you can access it in streaming as well. And it's still a discussion every year. Is the internet already for that? The term for ad serving in real time in the world of television is called DAI dynamic ad insertion. Every broadcaster that gets the right to stream the Superbowl is asking, are we ready or are we safe to do DAI for the ads or to play it safe are we gonna take the broadcast feed and then just retransmit? I Can tell you a funny story, that last year we did a really cool experiment. Tal Chalozin: 22:19 CBS had the rights for the Superbowl and they use a system that takes the SCTE tone and converts it into an ID3 tag for digital systems. And then on the ID3 we put the marker of the ads, we put the actual Innovid URL of the the ad that is about to play. Originally the system was architected for measurement. So you can do measurements from the client side. So there is something on the client side, gate the ID3 tag and then fire that just do an HTTP get call that URL in order to track track the ads from the client in the most accurate way. But then what we did last year together with CBS is add the ability to also run overlays on top of the video. Tal Chalozin: 23:09 So that URL was not just for measurement, but also downloaded graphics to be displayed as a kind of, as a transparent layer on top of that on the device itself. So if you stream live stream. This is not VOD or anything like that. You do live stream of the Superbowl. Last year many devices on CBS Sports had a small SDK that again, took the SCTE tone converted to an ID3 tag, get a URL for a PNG file or whatever that is rendered in near real time. And then every house on the United States gets something else. We did an experiment together with Pringles. The whole commercial was some type of a game with Pringles. So you would get a message that is tailored to you. Tal Chalozin: 24:00 So, it literally featured the name of your city on it. And then it allows it to use your remote, let's say Apple TV. You can use your remote to left and right to swipe and play some, some kind of a funky game as the ad was playing. So funny thing again, this is 2019. You would imagine that we would have that technology available. This is not rocket science. We're talking about a lot more advanced things on the internet. But even that was super revolutionary and this year this capability will not be available because the way that Fox works is different. But that count is super cutting edge. Mark Donnigan: 24:40 Now Tal, I know that you're working very closely with Roku, so why don't you share with us what you're doing with them. Mark Donnigan: 24:49 Share what you can and tell us about what's happening on the Roku platform because I think that's very important to all of us in, in streaming media streaming video. Tal Chalozin: 25:00 Roku is a streaming device. It is divided into two parts of their platform. One is a device a streaming stick and streaming box. But, Roku first and foremost is an operating system that runs on that device or licensed to TV manufacturers, to TV OEMs. And right now there's eleven OEMs that carries that. Anything from TCL, or Insignia, all the way to LG, and on some SKUs from Sharp as well. And by numbers, Roku is the largest television operating system right now in the United States. The most amount of TV's purchased in 2019 was Roku powered or TVs or streams were powered by Roku. Tal Chalozin: 25:47 So this is larger than Amazon Fire, way way larger than Apple TV or Xbox or PlayStation or whatnot. So this is, this is Roku. Back in the early, early days of Roku this dating back to, to 2014 or 15, we did the first advertising oriented deal with Roku to create a small library and SDK that would be part of their firmware that many years later, the name is Roku ad framework, or RAF. Which is a set of libraries that lets app developers, Roku app developers get access to to stuff they need to run ads inside the app without a lot of work that allows us to create a technology for like, for example, interactive television, something that can be done in a very scalable way because now every app on Roku has the ability to render ads that can have overlays. Tal Chalozin: 26:47 You can press the remote and you can purchase things or send things to your phone or whatever activity you would like. So this is the first thing we've done with Roku and enabled that technology at a mass scale. This is many, many years before Roku was a big success. But at the end of last year, in September we, together with Roku, we announced kind of the second, second act of the innovation on the future of television, which is around measurement. I mentioned at the beginning, the top of the, of the show that we have three parts to our platform, the ad server, which we talked a lot about, different tools around creative. And the third one would be measurement capabilities. On the measurement side this is an area that the television industry, we talked a lot about things that require innovation. Tal Chalozin: 27:41 Measurement is maybe at the top of the list cause right now measurement on television is dominated by a company called Nielsen, which I'm sure many people know that the way they measure television because of lack of connectivity is by putting a people meter or a device in people's home. In very, very few households in the United States that act as a sample or as a panel which presumably should represent every household in the United States. So there's roughly 20,000 families in the United States that represent the television ecosystem, which there is north of 100 million households in the United States. And maybe 80 or 90 million households that are watching broadcast television and they're being paneled by 20,000 that essentially measuring what do people actually watch. Tal Chalozin: 28:42 So, we want to change that. We, and many other important, an important point is that many other companies are, are at it. Because, it's obvious this needs to be changed. But we teamed up with Roku that every one of the devices that carries their operating system, so every one of those TVs that have Roku as an operating system have a small chip called ACR. Stands for automatic content recognition that essentially knows what you're watching. So it records everything that hits the glass. And it doesn't matter if it hits the glass because it's an app on the Roku platform, let's say Hulu or YouTube or Netflix, or you plugged in via HDMI, your set top box or you plugged in an antenna to to the TV or even you have a DVR or VHS plugged into your television. Tal Chalozin: 29:32 Doesn't matter if it's rendered on the screen, then Roku would know what it is. They do a second by second or almost a frame by frame to a catalog. And then know what exactly you're watching and at what time code. We can talk about privacy as well, which is a very important part of it. But this is all opted in. You don't have to contribute this data, but most people do. And then we get this data. We don't care about the individual household, but we can use that as you don't, you don't need a panel anymore where every television is telling you what exactly you're watching. So we are, we're on a mission to reinvent that television measurement in a much better way. Dror Gill: 30:15 That's really amazing. So the television is actually watching what you are watching. Even if it's not streamed through that Roku platform, it's watching everything that is projected to the screen and not only you know, like recording the pixels or they're actually using this automatic content recognition system. Analyzing and knowing what content, what piece of content this is, whether it's a live broadcast or a video on demand. It could be a DVD or a VHS, time shifted or it's an ad. Exactly. Mark Donnigan: 30:51 Where is that fingerprint happening Tal? Tal Chalozin: 31:01 And by the way, a disclaimer, I don't work for Roku and I don't know any internal data about Roku. We have a strong partnership with them. So Roku is unique technology. And by the way, other TV manufacturers are doing the same thing. This is not limited to Roku. Vizio who made a lot of noise around that as well. And many others, Sony and Toshiba and others. Are using similar technologies. What's on the device is mainly picking up multiple pixels, hashing it together and sending it to the cloud. The matching to the catalog is not happening on the device. There's clearly no need for that. And there are several companies that create this catalog and does essentially the pattern matching between the set of temporal data of that set of frames, consecutive frames to a catalog to know exactly what you're watching. Tal Chalozin: 31:55 Is it - what show? What episode? Is it an ad? So one thing is to know the catalog. The other one is to know what is on right now in every... It's a very complicated problem, because sometimes you are you, you may be watching it live. Again, tuning into, I dunno, ABC, but right now because that show is a local show, you would watch it streamed by the Kansas city, Missouri ABC affiliate and it's not a national show. So you can't really match it to a catalog and know is it live or not live? And then when it comes to ads, it gets even more complicated because some of the ads are inserted in real time. So you need to know that that ad is inserted in real time so then it doesn't impact the idea of the stream. You didn't really change the channel. It's just dynamic insertion. Dror Gill: 32:48 So doing all of this measurement, I think it probably puts a lot of responsibility on your part of the value chain on the software that you create, on the reports that you generate. Because based on this I guess is how the content providers get paid right. For showing those ads, as you said. Tal Chalozin: 33:12 We are what is called the system of record for billing. So I mentioned that roughly a third of the ads are being transacted by us. This is a very rough number because the dollars don't go through us. We're just creating the billing. We are the actual counter of something like $5 billion of of ad dollars. So again, YouTube and Snapchat and New York times and NBC and Fox and TubiTV and many other channels and apps are being paid based on our numbers. And in order for that, we need to do a lot of filtration, detecting what is fraud, and making sure there's no false positives, and and many other things like that. And for it, we go through an audit process. So Ernst & Young is the auditor and there's an organization called the Media Rating Council that we go through an audit every year to make sure that what we say we do, we actually do. Tal Chalozin: 34:12 And there's no there's no problems in the counting. And yeah, it happens all the time that we are counting, but also clearly broadcasters or apps would count for their own use as well. And sometimes, unfortunately, the numbers are not the same. So we would say that P&G ran 10 million ads and the broadcaster, NBC, Discovery, what have you, would say that actually it's 10 and a half million ads. So then they need to get paid more. But the way that the contract is written is that Innovid numbers because we're unbiased is what is what will dictate the payment. So you're like the gold standard in measurements. But it's a very interesting, a very interesting world. Tal Chalozin: 35:08 It's an ever changing world. So counting ads 10 years ago and counting ads today is a very, very different business. Mark Donnigan: 35:14 There's a lot of studies and I think you even have one that you can cite if you'd like to that say very clearly that consumers are not opposed to ads. This whole notion that people "hate ads" is actually not true. What they hate is a bad or an irrelevant experience. If the platform happens to know that I'm looking for a new car and I get served a great car ad, guess what? And especially if it piques my interest, that's actually a good experience. Tal Chalozin: 35:48 100%. Yeah. We always use exactly the same term that you mentioned. People don't hate ads, they just hate bad ads. And that's absolutely true. And when you ask people, when you again, when you read the trades, it looks like ads are a very gloomy thing. Tal Chalozin: 36:06 And then you go to platforms like, in my mind, Instagram is the best ad experience ever made. When you see ads on Instagram, it's significantly better. And it's not disruptive at all. You have your thumb there and you can continue scrolling. And then many, many people choose to actually watch that. So completely reverse model. It's not that I'm forced to watch the ad. I literally can continue scrolling the same way that I'm scrolling there. But people literally are choosing to watch that because it's good ads. Mark Donnigan: 36:43 This has been a really amazing discussion and you know we have to do a part two. Yeah, there are few issues we did not cover and we must cover them and it's really been fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for joining us Tal. Tal Chalozin: 36:57 I'd love to, thank you so much. Thanks, Mark. Thanks Dror. Thanks everyone that listened. Thanks Beamr. Announcer: 37:04 Thank you for listening to The Video Insiders podcast, a production of Beamr limited. To begin using Beamr's codecs today. Go to beamr.com/free to receive up to 100 hours of no cost HEVC and H.264 transcoding every month.
Click to watch SPIE Future Video Codec Panel DiscussionRelated episode with Gary Sullivan at Microsoft: VVC, HEVC & other MPEG codec standardsInterview with MPEG Chairman Leonardo Charliogne: MPEG Through the Eyes of it's ChairmanLearn about FastDVO herePankaj Topiwala LinkedIn profile--------------------------------------The Video Insiders LinkedIn Group is where thousands of your peers are discussing the latest video technology news and sharing best practices. Click here to joinWould you like to be a guest on the show? Email: thevideoinsiders@beamr.comLearn more about Beamr--------------------------------------TRANSCRIPT:Pankaj Topiwala: 00:00 With H.264 H.265 HEVC in 2013, we were now able to do up to 300 to one to up to 500 to one compression on a, let's say a 4K video. And with VVC we have truly entered a new realm where we can do up to 1000 to one compression, which is three full orders of magnitude reduction of the original size. If the original size is say 10 gigabits, we can bring that down to 10 megabits. And that's unbelievable. And so video compression truly is a remarkable technology and you know, it's a, it's a marval to look at Announcer: 00:39 The Video Insiders is the show that makes sense of all that is happening in the world of online video as seen through the eyes of a second generation codec nerd and a marketing guy who knows what I-frames and macro blocks are. And here are your hosts, Mark Donnigan and Dror Gill. Speaker 3: 00:39 Dror Gill: 01:11 Today we're going to talk with one of the key figures in the development of a video codecs and a true video insider Pankaj Topiwala. Hello Pankaj and welcome to The Video Insiders podcast. Pankaj Topiwala: 01:24 Gentlemen. hello, and thank you very much for this invite. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. Mark Donnigan: 01:31 It is. Thank you for joining Pankaj. Dror Gill: 01:33 Yeah, it sure will be a lot of fun. So can you start by telling us a little bit about your experience in codec development? Pankaj Topiwala: 01:41 Sure, so, I should say that unlike a number of the other people that you have interviewed or may interview my background is fair bit different. I really came into this field really by a back door and almost by chance my degree PhD degree is actually in mathematical physics from 1985. And I actually have no engineering, computer science or even management experience. So naturally I run a small research company working in video compression and analytics, and that makes sense, but that's just the way things go in the modern world. But that the effect for me was a, and the entry point was that even though I was working in very, very abstract mathematics I decided to leave. I worked in academia for a few years and then I decided to join industry. And at that point they were putting me into applied mathematical research. Pankaj Topiwala: 02:44 And the topic at that time that was really hot in applied mathematics was a topic of wavelets. And I ended up writing and edited a book called wavelet image and video compression in 1998. Which was a lot of fun along with quite a few other co authors on that book. But, wavelets had its biggest contribution in the compression of image and video. And so that led me finally to enter into, and I noticed that video compression was a far larger field than image compression. I mean, by many orders, by orders of magnitude. It is probably a hundred times bigger in terms of market size than, than image compression. And as a result I said, okay, if the sexiest application of this new fangled mathematics could be in video compression I entered that field roughly with the the book that I mentioned in 1998. Mark Donnigan: 03:47 So one thing that I noticed Pankaj cause it's really interesting is your, your initial writing and you know, research was around wavelet compression and yet you have been very active in ISO MPEG, all block-based codecs. So, so tell us about that? Pankaj Topiwala: 04:08 Okay. Well obviously you know when you make the transition from working on the wavelets and our initial starting point was in doing wavelet based video compression. When I started first founded my company fastVDO in 1998, 1999 period we were working on wavelet based video compression and we, we pushed that about as much as we could. And at that, at one point we had what we felt was the world's best a video compression using wavelets in fact, but best overall. And it had the feature that you know, one thing that we should, we should tell your view or reader listeners is that the, the value of wavelets in particular in image coding is that not only can you do state of the art image coding, but you can make the bitstream what is called embedded, meaning you can chop it off at anywhere you like, and it's still a decodable stream. Pankaj Topiwala: 05:11 And in fact it is the best quality you can get for that bit rate. And that is a powerful, powerful thing you can do in image coding. Now in video, there is actually no way to do that. Video is just so much more complicated, but we did the best we could to make it not embedded, but at least scalable. And we, we built a scalable wavelet based video codec, which at that time was beating at the current implementations of MPEG4. So we were very excited that we could launch a company based on a proprietary codec that was based on this new fangled mathematics called wavelets. And lead us to a state of the art codec. The facts of the ground though is that just within the first couple of years of running our company, we found that in fact the block-based transformed codecs that everybody else was using, including the implementers of MPEG4. Pankaj Topiwala: 06:17 And then later AVC, those quickly surpassed anything we could build with with wavelets in terms of both quality and stability. The wavelet based codecs were not as powerful or as stable. And I can say quite a bit more about why that's true. If you want? Dror Gill: 06:38 So when you talk about stability, what exactly are you referring to in, in a video codec? Pankaj Topiwala: 06:42 Right. So let's let's take our listeners back a bit to compare image coding and video coding. Image coding is basically, you're given a set of pixels in a rectangular array and we normally divide that into blocks of sub blocks of that image. And then do transforms and then quantization and than entropy coding, that's how we typically do image coding. With the wavelet transform, we have a global transform. It's a, it's ideally done on the entire image. Pankaj Topiwala: 07:17 And then you could do it multiple times, what are called multiple scales of the wavelet transform. So you could take various sub sub blocks that you create by doing the wavelet transfer and the low pass high pass. Ancs do that again to the low low pass for multiple scales, typically about four or five scales that are used in popular image codecs that use wavelets. But now in video, the novelty is that you don't have one frame. You have many, many frames, hundreds or thousands or more. And you have motion. Now, motion is something where you have pieces of the image that float around from one frame to another and they float randomly. That is, it's not as if all of the motion is in one direction. Some things move one way, some things move other ways, some things actually change orientations. Pankaj Topiwala: 08:12 And they really move, of course, in three dimensional space, not in our two dimensional space that we capture. That complicates video compression enormously over image compression. And it particularly complicates all the wavelet methods to do video compression. So, wavelet methods that try to deal with motion were not very successful. The best we tried to do was using motion compensated video you know, transformed. So doing wavelet transforms in the time domain as well as the spatial domain along the paths of motion vectors. But that was not very successful. And what I mean by stability is that as soon as you increase the motion, the codec breaks, whereas in video coding using block-based transforms and block-based motion estimation and compensation it doesn't break. It just degrades much more gracefully. Wavelet based codecs do not degrade gracefully in that regard. Pankaj Topiwala: 09:16 And so we of course, as a company we decided, well, if those are the facts on the ground. We're going to go with whichever way video coding is going and drop our initial entry point, namely wavelets, and go with the DCT. Now one important thing we found was that even in the DCT- ideas we learned in wavelets can be applied right to the DCT. And I don't know if you're familiar with this part of the story, but a wavelet transform can be decomposed using bits shifts and ads only using something called the lifting transform, at least a important wavelet transforms can. Now, it turns out that the DCT can also be decomposed using lifting transforms using only bit shifts and ads. And that is something that my company developed way back back in 1998 actually. Pankaj Topiwala: 10:18 And we showed that not only for DCT, but a large class of transforms called lab transforms, which included the block transforms, but in particular included more powerful transforms the importance of that in the story of video coding. Is that up until H.264, all the video codec. So H.261, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, all these video codecs used a floating point implementation of the discrete cosign transform and without requiring anybody to implement you know a full floating point transform to a very large number of decimal places. What they required then was a minimum accuracy to the DCT and that became something that all codecs had to do. Instead. If you had an implementation of the DCT, it had to be accurate to the true floating point DCT up to a certain decimal point in, in the transform accuracy. Pankaj Topiwala: 11:27 With the advent of H.264, with H.264, we decided right away that we were not going to do a flooding point transform. We were going to do an integer transform. That decision was made even before I joined, my company joined, the development base, H.264, AVC, But they were using 32 point transforms. We found that we could introduce 16 point transforms, half the complexity. And half the complexity only in the linear dimension when you, when you think of it as a spatial dimension. So two spatial dimensions, it's a, it's actually grows more. And so the reduction in complexity is not a factor of two, but at least a factor of four and much more than that. In fact, it's a little closer to exponential. The reality is that we were able to bring the H.264 codec. Pankaj Topiwala: 12:20 So in fact, the transform was the most complicated part of the entire codec. So if you had a 32 point transform, the entire codec was at 32 point technology and it needed 32 points, 32 bits at every sample to process in hardware or software. By changing the transform to 16 bits, we were able to bring the entire codec to a 16 bit implementation, which dramatically improved the hardware implementability of this transfer of this entire codec without at all effecting the quality. So that was an important development that happened with AVC. And since then, we've been working with only integer transforms. Mark Donnigan: 13:03 This technical history is a really amazing to hear. I, I didn't actually know that Dror or you, you probably knew that, but I didn't. Dror Gill: 13:13 Yeah, I mean, I knew about the transform and shifting from fixed point, from a floating point to integer transform. But you know, I didn't know that's an incredible contribution Pankaj. Pankaj Topiwala: 13:27 We like to say that we've saved the world billions of dollars in hardware implementations. And we've taken a small a small you know, a donation as a result of that to survive as a small company. Dror Gill: 13:40 Yeah, that's great. And then from AVC you moved on and you continued your involvement in, in the other standards, right? That's followed. Pankaj Topiwala: 13:47 in fact, we've been involved in standardization efforts now for almost 20 years. My first meeting was a, I recall in may of 2000, I went to a an MPEG meeting in Geneva. And then shortly after that in July I went to an ITU VCEG meeting. VCEG is the video coding experts group of the ITU. And MPEG is the moving picture experts group of ISO. These two organizations were separately pursuing their own codecs at that time. Pankaj Topiwala: 14:21 ISO MPEG was working on MPEG-4 and ITU VCEG was working on H.263, and 263 plus and 263 plus plus. And then finally they started a project called 263 L for longterm. And eventually it became clear to these two organizations that look, it's silly to work on, on separate codecs. They had worked once before in MPEG-2 develop a joint standard and they decided to, to form a joint team at that time called the joint video team, JVT to develop the H.264 AVC video codec, which was finally done in 2003. We participate participated you know fully in that making many contributions of course in the transform but also in motion estimation and other aspects. So, for example, it might not be known that we also contributed the fast motion estimation that's now widely used in probably nearly all implementations of 264, but in 265 HEVC as well. Pankaj Topiwala: 15:38 And we participated in VVC. But one of the important things that we can discuss is these technologies, although they all have the same overall structure, they have become much more complicated in terms of the processing that they do. And we can discuss that to some extent if you want? Dror Gill: 15:59 The compression factors, just keep increasing from generation to generation and you know, we're wondering what's the limit of that? Pankaj Topiwala: 16:07 That's of course a very good question and let me try to answer some of that. And in fact that discussion I don't think came up in the discussion you had with Gary Sullivan, which certainly could have but I don't recall it in that conversation. So let me try to give for your listeners who did not catch that or are not familiar with it. A little bit of the story. Pankaj Topiwala: 16:28 The first international standard was the ITU. H.261 standard dating roughly to 1988 and it was designed to do only about 15 to one to 20 to one compression. And it was used mainly for video conferencing. And at that time you'd be surprised from our point of view today, the size of the video being used was actually incredibly tiny about QCIP or 176 by 144 pixels. Video of that quality that was the best we could conceive. And we thought we were doing great. And doing 20 to one compression, wow! Recall by the way, that if you try to do a lossless compression of any natural signal, whether it's speech or audio or images or video you can't do better than about two to one or at most about two and a half to one. Pankaj Topiwala: 17:25 You cannot do, typically you cannot even do three to one and you definitely cannot do 10 to one. So a video codec that could do 20 to one compression was 10 times better than what you could do lossless, I'm sorry. So this is definitely lossy, but lossy with still a good quality so that you can use it. And so we thought we were really good. When MPEG-1 came along in, in roughly 1992 we were aiming for 25 to one compression and the application was the video compact disc, the VCD. With H.262 or MPEG-2 roughly 1994, we were looking to do about 35 to one compression, 30 to 35. And the main application was then DVD or also broadcast television. At that point, broadcast television was ready to use at least in some, some segments. Pankaj Topiwala: 18:21 Try digital broadcasting. In the United States, that took a while. But in any case it could be used for broadcast television. And then from that point H.264 AVC In 2003, we jumped right away to more than 100 to one compression. This technology at least on large format video can be used to shrink the original size of a video by more than two orders of magnitude, which was absolutely stunning. You know no other natural signal, not speech, not broadband, audio, not images could be compressed that much and still give you high quality subjective quality. But video can because it's it is so redundant. And because we don't understand fully yet how to appreciate video. Subjectively. We've been trying things you know, ad hoc. And so the entire development of video coding has been really by ad hoc methods to see what quality we can get. Pankaj Topiwala: 19:27 And by quality we been using two two metrics. One is simply a mean square error based metric called peak signal to noise ratio or PSNR. And that has been the industry standard for the last 35 years. But the other method is simply to have people look at the video, what we call subjective rating of the video. Now it's hard to get a subjective rating. That's reliable. You have to do a lot of standardization get a lot of different people and take mean opinion scores and things like that. That's expensive. Whereas PSNR is something you can calculate on a computer. And so people have mostly in the development of video coding for 35 years relied on one objective quality metric called PSNR. And it is good but not great. And it's been known right from the beginning that it was not perfect, not perfectly correlated to video quality, and yet we didn't have anything better anyway. Pankaj Topiwala: 20:32 To finish the story of the video codecs with H.265 HEVC in 2013, we were now able to do up to 300 to one to up to 500 to one compression on let's say a 4K. And with VVC we have truly entered a new realm where we can do up to 1000 to one compression, which is three full orders of magnitude reduction of the original size. If the original size is say, 10 gigabits, we can bring that down to 10 megabits. And that's unbelievable. And so video compression truly is a remarkable technology. And you know, it's a, it's a marvel to look at. Of course it does not, it's not magic. It comes with an awful lot of processing and an awful lot of smarts have gone into it. That's right. Mark Donnigan: 21:24 You know Pankaj, that, is an amazing overview and to hear that that VVC is going to be a thousand to one. You know, compression benefit. Wow. That's incredible! Pankaj Topiwala: 21:37 I think we should of course we should of course temper that with you know, what people will use in applications. Correct. They may not use the full power of a VVC and may not crank it to that level. Sure, sure. I can certainly tell you that that we and many other companies have created bitstreams with 1000 to one or more compression and seeing video quality that we thought was usable. Mark Donnigan: 22:07 One of the topics that has come to light recently and been talked about quite a bit. And it was initially raised by Dave Ronca who used to lead encoding at Netflix for like 10 years. In fact you know, I think he really built that department, the encoding team there and is now at Facebook. And he wrote a LinkedIn article post that was really fascinating. And what he was pointing out in this post was, was that with compression efficiency and as each generation of codec is getting more efficient as you just explained and gave us an overview. There's a, there's a problem that's coming with that in that each generation of codec is also getting even more complex and you know, in some settings and, and I suppose you know, Netflix is maybe an example where you know, it's probably not accurate to say they have unlimited compute, but their application is obviously very different in terms of how they can operate their, their encoding function compared to someone who's doing live, live streaming for example, or live broadcast. Maybe you can share with us as well. You know, through the generation generational growth of these codecs, how has the, how has the compute requirements also grown and has it grown in sort of a linear way along with the compression efficiency? Or are you seeing, you know, some issues with you know, yes, we can get a thousand to one, but our compute efficiency is getting to the, where we could be hitting a wall. Pankaj Topiwala: 23:46 You asked a good question. Has the complexity only scaled linearly with the compression ratio? And the answer is no. Not at all. Complexity has outpaced the compression ratio. Even though the compression ratio is, is a tremendous, the complexity is much, much higher. And has always been at every step. First of all there's a big difference in doing the research, the research phase in development of the, of a technology like VVC where we were using a standardized reference model that the committee develops along the way, which is not at all optimized. But that's what we all use because we share a common code base. And make any new proposals based on modifying that code base. Now that code base is always along the entire development chain has always been very, very slow. Pankaj Topiwala: 24:42 And true implementations are anywhere from 100 to 500 times more efficient in complexity than the reference software. So right away you can have the reference software for say VVC and somebody developing a, an implementation that's a real product. It can be at least 100 times more efficient than what the reference software, maybe even more. So there's a big difference. You know, when we're developing a technology, it is very hard to predict what implementers will actually come up with later. Of course, the only way they can do that is that companies actually invest the time and energy right away as they're developing the standard to build prototype both software and hardware and have a good idea that when they finish this, you know, what is it going to really cost? So just to give you a, an idea, between, H.264 and Pankaj Topiwala: 25:38 H.265, H.264, only had two transforms of size, four by four and eight by eight. And these were integer transforms, which are only bit shifts and adds, took no multiplies and no divides. The division in fact got incorporated into the quantizer and as a result, it was very, very fast. Moreover, if you had to do, make decisions such as inter versus intra mode, the intra modes there were only about eight or 10 intra modes in H.264. By contrast in H.265. We have not two transforms eight, four by four and eight by, but in fact sizes of four, eight, 16 and 32. So we have much larger sized transforms and instead of a eight or 10 intra modes, we jumped up to 35 intra modes. Pankaj Topiwala: 26:36 And then with a VVC we jumped up to 67 intro modes and we just, it just became so much more complex. The compression ratio between HEVC and VVC is not quite two to one, but let's say, you know, 40% better. But the the complexity is not 40% more. On the ground and nobody has yet, to my knowledge, built a a, a, a fully compliant and powerful either software or hardware video codec for VVC yet because it's not even finished yet. It's going to be finished in July 2020. When it, when, the dust finally settles maybe four or five years from now, it will be, it will prove to be at least three or four times more complex than HEVC encoder the decoder, not that much. The decoder, luckily we're able to build decoders that are much more linear than the encoder. Pankaj Topiwala: 27:37 So I guess I should qualify as discussion saying the complexity growth is all mostly been in the encoder. The decoder has been a much more reasonable. Remember, we are always relying on this principle of ever-increasing compute capability. You know, a factor of two every 18 months. We've long heard about all of this, you know, and it is true, Moore's law. If we did not have that, none of this could have happened. None of this high complexity codecs, whatever had been developed because nobody would ever be able to implement them. But because of Moore's law we can confidently say that even if we put out this very highly complex VVC standard, someday and in the not too distant future, people will be able to implement this in hardware. Now you also asked a very good question earlier, is there a limit to how much we can compress? Pankaj Topiwala: 28:34 And also one can ask relatively in this issue, is there a limit to a Moore's law? And we've heard a lot about that. That may be finally after decades of the success of Moore's law and actually being realized, maybe we are now finally coming to quantum mechanical limits to you know how much we can miniaturize in electronics before we actually have to go to quantum computing, which is a totally different you know approach to doing computing because trying to go smaller die size. Well, we'll make it a unstable quantum mechanically. Now the, it appears that we may be hitting a wall eventually we haven't hit it yet, but we may be close to a, a physical limit in die size. And in the observations that I've been making at least it seems possible to me that we are also reaching a limit to how much we can compress video even without a complexity limit, how much we can compress video and still obtain reasonable or rather high quality. Pankaj Topiwala: 29:46 But we don't know the answer to that. And in fact there are many many aspects of this that we simply don't know. For example, the only real arbiter of video quality is subjective testing. Nobody has come up with an objective video quality metric that we can rely on. PSNR is not it. When, when push comes to shove, nobody in this industry actually relies on PSNR. They actually do subjective testing well. So in that scenario, we don't know what the limits of visual quality because we don't understand human vision, you know, we try, but human vision is so complicated. Nobody can understand the impact of that on video quality to any very significant extent. Now in fact, the first baby steps to try to understand, not explicitly but implicitly capture subjective human video quality assessment into a neural model. Those steps are just now being taken in the last couple of years. In fact, we've been involved, my company has been involved in, in getting into that because I think that's a very exciting area. Dror Gill: 30:57 I tend to agree that modeling human perception with a neural network seems more natural than, you know, just regular formulas and algorithms which are which are linear. Now I, I wanted to ask you about this process of, of creating the codecs. It's, it's very important to have standards. So you encode a video once and then you can play it anywhere and anytime and on any device. And for this, the encoder and decoder need to agree on exactly the format of the video. And traditionally you know, as you pointed out with all the history of, of development. Video codecs have been developed by standardization bodies, MPEG and ITU first separately. And then they joined forces to develop the newest video standards. But recently we're seeing another approach to develop codecs, which is by open sourcing them. Dror Gill: 31:58 Google started with an open source code, they called VP9 which they first developed internally. Then they open sourced it and and they use it widely across their services, especially in, YouTube. And then they joined forces with the, I think the largest companies in the world, not just in video but in general. You know those large internet giants such as Amazon and Facebook and and Netflix and even Microsoft, Apple, Intel have joined together with the Alliance of Open Media to jointly create another open codec called AV1. And this is a completely parallel process to the MPEG codec development process. And the question is, do you think that this was kind of a one time effort to, to to try and find a, or develop a royalty free codec, or is this something that will continue? And how do you think the adoption of the open source codecs versus the committee defined codecs, how would that adoption play out in the market? Pankaj Topiwala: 33:17 That's of course a large topic on its own. And I should mention that there have been a number of discussions about that topic. In particular at the SPIE conference last summer in San Diego, we had a panel discussion of experts in video compression to discuss exactly that. And one of the things we should provide to your listeners is a link to that captured video of the panel discussion where that topic is discussed to some significant extent. And it's on YouTube so we can provide a link to that. My answer. And of course none of us knows the future. Right. But we're going to take our best guesses. I believe that this trend will continue and is a new factor in the landscape of video compression development. Pankaj Topiwala: 34:10 But we should also point out that the domain of preponderance use preponderant use of these codecs is going to be different than in our traditional codecs. Our traditional codecs such as H.264 265, were initially developed for primarily for the broadcast market or for DVD and Blu-ray. Whereas these new codecs from AOM are primarily being developed for the streaming media industry. So the likes of Netflix and Amazon and for YouTube where they put up billions of user generated videos. So, for the streaming application, the decoder is almost always a software decoder. That means they can update that decoder anytime they do a software update. So they're not limited by a hardware development cycle. Of course, hardware companies are also building AV1. Pankaj Topiwala: 35:13 And the point of that would be to try to put it into handheld devices like laptops, tablets, and especially smartphones. But to try to get AV1 not only as a decoder but also as an encoder in a smartphone is going to be quite complicated. And the first few codecs that come out in hardware will be of much lower quality, for example, comparable to AVC and not even the quality of HEVC when they first start out. So that's... the hardware implementations of AV1 that work in real time are not going to be, it's going to take a while for them to catch up to the quality that AV1 can offer. But for streaming we, we can decode these streams reasonably well in software or in firmware. And the net result is that, or in GPU for example, and the net result is that these companies can already start streaming. Pankaj Topiwala: 36:14 So in fact Google is already streaming some test streams maybe one now. And it's cloud-based YouTube application and companies like Cisco are testing it already, even for for their WebEx video communication platform. Although the quality will not be then anything like the full capability of AV1, it'll be at a much reduced level, but it'll be this open source and notionally, you know, royalty free video codec. Dror Gill: 36:50 Notionally. Yeah. Because they always tried to do this, this dance and every algorithm that they try to put into the standard is being scrutinized and, and, and they check if there are any patents around it so they can try and keep this notion of of royalty-free around the codec because definitely the codec is open source and royalty free. Dror Gill: 37:14 I think that is, is, is a big question. So much IP has gone into the development of the different MPEG standards and we know it has caused issues. Went pretty smoothly with AVC, with MPEG-LA that had kind of a single point of contact for licensing all the essential patents and with HEVC, that hasn't gone very well in the beginning. But still there is a lot of IP there. So the question is, is it even possible to have a truly royalty free codec that can be competitive in, in compression efficiency and performance with the codec developed by the standards committee? Pankaj Topiwala: 37:50 I'll give you a two part answer. One because of the landscape of patents in the field of video compression which I would describe as being, you know very, very spaghetti like and patents date back to other patents. Pankaj Topiwala: 38:09 And they cover most of the, the topics and the most of the, the tools used in video compression. And by the way we've looked at the AV1 and AV1 is not that different from all the other standards that we have. H.265 or VVC. There are some things that are different. By and large, it resembles the existing standards. So can it be that this animal is totally patent free? No, it cannot be that it is patent free. But patent free is not the same as royalty free. There's no question that AV1 has many, many patents, probably hundreds of patents that reach into it. The question is whether the people developing and practicing AV1 own all of those patents. That is of course, a much larger question. Pankaj Topiwala: 39:07 And in fact, there has been a recent challenge to that, a group has even stood up to proclaim that they have a central IP in AV1. The net reaction from the AOM has been to develop a legal defense fund so that they're not going to budge in terms of their royalty free model. If they do. It would kill the whole project because their main thesis is that this is a world do free thing, use it and go ahead. Now, the legal defense fund then protects the members of that Alliance, jointly. Now, it's not as if the Alliance is going to indemnify you against any possible attack on IP. They can't do that because nobody can predict, you know, where somebody's IP is. The world is so large, so many patents in that we're talking not, not even hundreds and thousands, but tens of thousands of patents at least. Pankaj Topiwala: 40:08 So nobody in the world has ever reviewed all of those patent. It's not possible. And the net result is that nobody can know for sure what technology might have been patented by third parties. But the point is that because such a large number of powerful companies that are also the main users of this technology, you know, people, companies like Google and Apple and Microsoft and, and Netflix and Amazon and Facebook and whatnot. These companies are so powerful. And Samsung by the way, has joined the Alliance. These companies are so powerful that you know, it would be hard to challenge them. And so in practice, the point is they can project a royalty-free technology because it would be hard for anybody to challenge it. And so that's the reality on the ground. Pankaj Topiwala: 41:03 So at the moment it is succeeding as a royalty free project. I should also point out that if you want to use this, not join the Alliance, but just want to be a user. Even just to use it, you already have to offer any IP you have in this technology it to the Alliance. So all users around the world, so if tens of thousands and eventually millions of you know, users around the world, including tens of thousands of companies around the world start to use this technology, they will all have automatically yielded any IP they have in AV1, to the Alliance. Dror Gill: 41:44 Wow. That's really fascinating. I mean, first the distinction you made between royalty free and patent free. So the AOM can keep this technology royalty free, even if it's not patent free because they don't charge royalties and they can help with the legal defense fund against patent claim and still keep it royalty free. And, and second is the fact that when you use this technology, you are giving up any IP claims against the creators of the technology, which means that if any, any party who wants to have any IP claims against the AV1 encoder cannot use it in any form or shape. Pankaj Topiwala: 42:25 That's at least my understanding. And I've tried to look at of course I'm not a lawyer. And you have to take that as just the opinion of a video coding expert rather than a lawyer dissecting the legalities of this. But be that as it may, my understanding is that any user would have to yield any IP they have in the standard to the Alliance. And the net result will be if this technology truly does get widely used more IP than just from the Alliance members will have been folded into into it so that eventually it would be hard for anybody to challenge this. Mark Donnigan: 43:09 Pankaj, what does this mean for the development of so much of the technology has been in has been enabled by the financial incentive of small groups of people, you know, or medium sized groups of people forming together. You know, building a company, usually. Hiring other experts and being able to derive some economic benefit from the research and the work and the, you know, the effort that's put in. If all of this sort of consolidates to a handful or a couple of handfuls of, you know, very, very large companies, you know, does that, I guess I'm, I'm asking from your view, will, will video and coding technology development and advancements proliferate? Will it sort of stay static? Because basically all these companies will hire or acquire, you know, all the experts and you know, it's just now everybody works for Google and Facebook and Netflix and you know... Or, or do you think it will ultimately decline? Because that's something that that comes to mind here is, you know, if the economic incentives sort of go away, well, you know, people aren't going to work for free! Pankaj Topiwala: 44:29 So that's of course a, another question and a one relevant. In fact to many of us working in video compression right now, including my company. And I faced this directly back in the days of MPEG-2. There was a two and a half dollar ($2.50) per unit license fee for using MPEG-2. That created billions of dollars in licensing in fact, the patent pool, MPEG-LA itself made billions of dollars, even though they took only 10% of the proceeds, they already made billions of dollars, you know, huge amounts of money. With the advent of H.264 AVC, the patent license went not to from two and a half dollars to 25 cents a unit. And now with HEVC, it's a little bit less than that per unit. Of course the number of units has grown exponentially, but then the big companies don't continue to pay per unit anymore. Pankaj Topiwala: 45:29 They just pay a yearly cap. For example, 5 million or 10 million, which to these big companies is is peanuts. So there's a yearly cap for the big companies that have, you know, hundreds of millions of units. You know imagine the number of Microsoft windows that are out there or the number of you know, Google Chrome browsers. And if you have a, a codec embedded in the browser there are hundreds of millions of them, if not billions of them. And so they just pay a cap and they're done with it. But even then, there was up till now an incentive for smart engineers to develop exciting new ideas in a future video coding. But, and that has been up the story up till now. But when, if it happens that this AOM model with AV1 and then AV2, really becomes a dominant codec and takes over the market, then there will be no incentive for researchers to devote any time and energy. Pankaj Topiwala: 46:32 Certainly my company for example, can't afford to you know, just twiddle thumbs, create technologies for which there is absolutely no possibility of a royalty stream. So we, we cannot be in the business of developing video coding when video coding doesn't pay. So the only thing that makes money, is Applications, for example, a streaming application or some other such thing. And so Netflix and, and Google and Amazon will be streaming video and they'll charge you per stream but not on the codec. So that that's an interesting thing and it certainly affects the future development of video. It's clear to me it's a negative impact on the research that we got going in. I can't expect that Google and Amazon and Microsoft are going to continue to devote the same energy to develop future compression technologies in their royalty free environment that companies have in the open standards development technology environment. Pankaj Topiwala: 47:34 It's hard for me to believe that they will devote that much energy. They'll devote energy, but it will not be the the same level. For example, in developing a video standards such as HEVC, it took up to 10 years of development by on the order of 500 to 600 experts, well, let's say four to 500 experts from around the world meeting four times a year for 10 years. Mark Donnigan: 48:03 That is so critical. I want you to repeat that again. Pankaj Topiwala: 48:07 Well, I mean so very clearly we've been putting out a video codec roughly on the schedule of once every 10 years. MPEG-2 was 1994. AVC was 2003 and also 2004. And then HEVC in 2013. Those were roughly 10 years apart. But VVC we've accelerated the schedule to put one out in seven years instead of 10 years. But even then you should realize that we had been working right since HEVC was done. Pankaj Topiwala: 48:39 We've been working all this time to develop VVC and so on the order of 500 experts from around the world have met four times a year at all international locations, spending on the order of $100 million per meeting. You know so billions of dollars have been spent by industry to create these standards, many billions and it can't happen, you know without that. It's hard for me to believe that companies like Microsoft, Google, and whatnot, are going to devote billions to develop their next incremental, you know, AV1and AV2 AV3's. But maybe they will it just, that there's no royalty stream coming from the codec itself, only the application. Then the incentive, suppose they start dominating to create even better technology will not be there. So there really is a, a financial issue in this and that's at play right now. Dror Gill: 49:36 Yeah, I, I find it really fascinating. And of course, Mark and I are not lawyers, but all this you know, royalty free versus committee developed open source versus a standard those large companies who some people fear, you know, their dominance and not only in video codec development, but in many other areas. You know, versus you know, dozens of companies and hundreds of engineers working for seven or 10 years in a codec. So you know, it's really different approaches different methods of development eventually to approach the exact same problem of video compression. And, and how this turns out. I mean we, we cannot forecast for sure, but it will be very interesting, especially next year in 2020 when VVC is ratified. And at around the same time, EVC is ratified another codec from the MPEG committee. Dror Gill: 50:43 And then AV1, and once you know, AV1 starts hitting the market. We'll hear all the discussions of AV2. So it's gonna be really interesting and fascinating to follow. And we, we promise to to bring you all the updates here on The Video Insiders. So Pankaj I really want to thank you. This has been a fascinating discussion with very interesting insights into the world of codec development and compression and, and wavelets and DCT and and all of those topics and, and the history and the future. So thank you very much for joining us today on the video insiders. Pankaj Topiwala: 51:25 It's been my pleasure, Mark and Dror. And I look forward to interacting in the future. Hope this is a useful for your audience. If I can give you a one parting thought, let me give this... Pankaj Topiwala: 51:40 H.264 AVC was developed in 2003 and also 2004. That is you know, some 17 years or 16 years ago, it is close to being now nearly royalty-free itself. And if you look at the market share of video codecs currently being used in the market, for example, even in streaming AVC dominates that market completely. Even though VP8 and VP9 and VP10 were introduced and now AV1, none of those have any sizeable market share. AVC currently dominates from 70 to 80% of that marketplace right now. And it fully dominates broadcast where those other codecs are not even in play. And so they're 17, 16, 17 years later, it is now still the dominant codec even much over HEVC, which by the way is also taking an uptick in the last several years. So the standardized codecs developed by ITU and MPEG are not dead. They may just take a little longer to emerge as dominant forces. Mark Donnigan: 52:51 That's a great parting thought. Thanks for sharing that. What an engaging episode Dror. Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting. I learned so much. I got a DCT primer. I mean, that in and of itself was a amazing, Dror Gill: 53:08 Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Mark Donnigan: 53:11 Yeah, amazing Pankaj. Okay, well good. Well thanks again for listening to the video insiders, and as always, if you would like to come on this show, we would love to have you just send us an email. The email address is thevideoinsiders@beamr.com, and Dror or myself will follow up with you and we'd love to hear what you're doing. We're always interested in talking to video experts who are involved in really every area of video distribution. So it's not only encoding and not only codecs, whatever you're doing, tell us about it. And until next time what do we say Dror? Happy encoding! Thanks everyone.