Experience with digital rights management
I think the only experience I've had with digital rights management is using iTunes. Really, this is just a form of "pay once" management of rights, so it's probably not as drastic as other stories people might have. I have mixed feelings about DRM, as noted in my previous blog entry, but haven't had any major issues with it yet. I've heard friends talk about having trouble copying CDs, but that's about the worst of it. I think the problems and innovations are really still at the forefront and may not yet be seen by the general users such as myself, but rather moreso by those more heavily involved in all things digital.
Is digital rights management failing? I think it's certainly struggling, and I don't see how current trends have a chance of resolving the issues. The emphasis seems off the mark. Business are spending so much effort trying to recoup potential losses that they are no longer focussing on business strategy for moving forward. I don't think it's DRM that's failing, but rather the companies that are struggling to capture every dollar.
Reading 7
I can see how the onset of digital encoding would throw license issues into chaos. This seems to be an everchanging topic wherein the need for regulation can't quite keep up with the changes in technology. Not only is this an issue from the standpoint of content usage, but also more of a concern due to technology that allows users to change the content itself. From an audio perspective, the licensing issues seem tremendous as, so "they" say, pirating can hamper CD sales. On the other side of it, those who actually purchase the album should have some rights to use content as well. It seems to create an impossible entanglement.
On the video side, I never really thought of video piracy as much of an issue as audio. Primarily because videos that I've seen on the internet usually seem to serve a specific purpose of entertainment, such as advertising or promoting something specific. Even clips of news shows or other televised content didn't seem like a bad thing for the creator to let loose on society. What I didn't consider is the implications of piracy impacting advertising sales revenue in contrast to viewing on television. I suppose this is a much larger issue now that streaming video is so wide-spread.
The thing about it is that people will always look for ways to cheat the existing system. It's pretty much a "way of the world" issue, and those who stand to gain from the production of content will always be looking for ways to ensure their profits. This contrast just seems to escalate through new technology. I remember in highschool when "a friend" and his friends would sneak into the A/V room to make copies of VHS movies with the schools tape duplicator. The technology existed for the purpose of education, but some enterprising yougsters found this a decent method for not having to pay.
It's the same nowadays, but digital. Napster was a great way for people not to pay for music, and yet the music industry found a way to stop this. Digital technology also allows for greater tightening of use, such as code that rejects attempts to copy a DVD. The interesting thing is how frustrated the public gets when they lose an ability to "cheat the system" because they feel as though the industry is already making too much money off of them. Now it becomes a refined issue of rights. Do I have the right to make a copy of something I purchase? Do I have the right to enjoy it on a friend's player, or am I locked to only using the in my living room because it is registered to be associated with that particular medium.
The book raises a good point of "how do you protect the interest of the purchaser without removing copyright control?" I honestly don't think there is a solution because it's a simple case of one person making money and one person spending money... one of the two will always feel cheated. The best you can ask for is that the one buying feels they are getting enough out of the purchase for it to be worthwhile. But how can this be if the ones making the money are intensly focused on the few who might be stealing, and therefore altering what they're selling to detur this. They're suddenly no longer selling with their consumer in mind, but rather focusing on their own interests and desire to make more money. I am now paying extra for my widget because the company is having to spend more so that my neighbor can't get a free widget. It's a capitalistic nightmare! I should just give my neighbor the money to buy the darn thing and call it equitable for everyone.
Conditional access, subscription models, authentication, watermarking... it's becoming obsurd how much R&D is going into ensuring the producer doesn't feel cheated, and the result will simply be some enterprising youngsters finding a way to cheat the system anyway, but I'll have already paid twice as much for a movie I can only watch three times on my primary registered television before: A) I have to log onto a Web site and provide my most personal information plus a processing fee. Or B) It explodes in my DVD player.
Real-world use of streaming media
Yea! I actually used what we've learned for the first time at work today. I had a handful of video files that were each 200-400 MB. While the originals are going to our Sales staff on DVDs, I wanted to get samples up on the Web so that our staff could see them and be excited about what we're doing. Beginning with the directions on Windows Media encoding, I played around to find a size and resolution that would work for this audience. Probably nothing ground-breaking, but it was exciting to put knowledge to work for my company. You can see my handywork at
www.tyler-clt.com/clt/video/videosamples.html.
Reading 6
Putting video on the Web - Ahh... there’s something somewhat fulfilling about reaching this point in our streaming media training. It’s all beginning to come together with practical application. This was the first section of reading that truly made sense to me because of my experience with HTML. Having dealt only with visual elements of Web programming (graphics) this is a new type of coding for me. It's interesting though how much more simple it is to add the streaming media code compared to what I imagined was some complicated approach for which you had to learn a secret handshake.
Height, width, source... the only thing that was really different is noting a type and plugin (which consequently makes more sense after the first six weeks of this class). The interesting thing is that you can't simply hyperlink the video (well, you can but...). The need for a plugin makes much more sense in this reading as opposed to simply using a normal hyperlink tag. MIME-type values are a new one for me and seem to offer a lot of control over the viewing experience.
The second reading about mobel phones and handhelds was a little more complicated. It's an area I haven't read much about except in this class. I didn't realize there were so many types of mobile devises and related issues. DMB, WiMAX, DVB... these were all completely new to me. But overall, the concepts seem to be the same as video on the Web, just more mbps' to remember.
Another streaming media example
I was looking up one of my favorite local bands to see if they were playing this weekend and found that they are now using streaming media on their Web site. This was a pretty small-time group that I've seen on and off for the past six years. What I found on their fairly simple Home page is that someone produced a video for them and they have it in it's entirety on the site.
You can view the example at
http://www.clumsylovers.com/. It's a group that I never imagined doing anythign but playing local bars because they use different instraments like a fiddle and banjo that just never sounded as good on CD. Seeing them live was always the best. However, the video on the site is well done and had a good representation of their real sound. It's somewhat annoying that it starts the moment you open the page, and that it's further down so you don't exactly know how to stop the music right away.
They also link to a page where you can sample various songs and purchase a new album, and have a MySpace page with blogs and tour information... it's a lot of progress for a band from Vancouver that used to play for beer at the pub down the street.
Brightcove
The first site I looked at was
http://www.interscope.com/video/player/index.asp. I admit it... I actually know what groups are signed under Interscope Records, and while I may occasionally be in an Interscope kind of mood (usually after a frustrating day at work) I didn't think the site did a very good job. But what I don't know is how to get this one loaded more quickly. It's interesting to note how living just slightly too far away from Seattle can drastically impact my ability to participate in digital media. My satellite connection simply isn't a good one for this. The site is very heavy, and the video player took so long to open that I didn't have the patience to wait.
While in the music mentality, I brought up
http://www.davelocity.com/glowtv/. Same problem with satellite. Took forever and I couldn't get it open. Unfortunately, I only have IE since it's a work computer, so that may be the root of all problems.
Over all, I think Brightcove is a great concept. I can see this catching on in the months ahead. It has just the right mix of content and function that makes it interesting to look at, and easy to share. Seeing what it has, and the variety in descriptions and types of content, it makes me want to produce my own.
Reading 5
I like Windows Media. I'm not just saying that because it's tied to Windows or because our teacher works for Microsoft, but rather because of all the players I've used (keep in mind that's very few) it's the one with which I've run into the least amount of trouble. Working in a PC business world, I run more commonly accross streaming media that runs easily on Windows Media than on Real or Quicktime. Also, it's one of the least complicated and least flashy players I've seen. Call me crazy, but I just don't need so many options of skins and cool buttons with links to things I've never even heard of. I just want to watch the video rather than have an all-encompassing "user experience" ... I guest the nice thing though is that if someday I loose my marbles and suddently crave a metalic borg-looking interface, I can go get one of the MS site and fulfill my need to overcomplicate a simple task.
As for the production of streaming media, I would probably focus on Windows Media because, again, in the business world that is the most common. Codecs bring some complication though. I've seen 8 & 9 options on video output software, but wasn't sure about the difference until reading this. It's interesting to read about the SMPTE standards, though that's a bit beyond my knowledge, but I can see how an open standard would enhance the ability to improve version performance. For now, I'll stick with WM9 as my codec of choice and ignore the hype until it moves somewhere.
Reading 4
My first voyage into the world of QuickTime began with a simple class project. For a group presentation, I put together a PowerPoint that included our group's many points, and another group member put together a brief video that I was to embed in the PowerPoint. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. The day of the presentation, we met before class to combine the efforts. The first problem... the person who created the video was a Mac user and I am not. As a result, the video was in QuickTime, but Microsoft PowerPoint wouldn't accept this type of file. So, we decided in the heat of the moment to just put a hyperlinks in the presentation that would open the QuickTime file and player. During the in-class presentation is when we discovered the second major problem. While my computer was in projector mode, and the PowerPoint was running fine, we got to the slide with the link and clicked it to start the video. Whammo... the projector screen went blank and QuickTime appeared only on my laptop. We quickly reset the screen to project and the movie began. However, when the movie was over, we tried to close QuickTime and go back to the PowerPoint when, Whammo... the screen when blank again. I shut off QuickTime, reset the projector mode and opened the PowerPoint. It was a shameful excuse for a quality presentation.
Since that fateful day, I've had numourous run-ins with creative staff and vendors who swear by Macs. The problem is that the rest of our business runs on PCs. I had a video produced for our company touting the benefits of purchasing our software, and the final product arrived as a QuickTime file, which gave me a raging headache trying to use it in various ways on the PC. I called the vendor and said I needed a different file, but they didn't understand. They don't speak PC because they're "creative" and "Mac's are better" (though they couldn't tell me how). So, since they can't (or refuse to) export to anything but QuickTime, I had to request their master files and will use it as an opportunity to learn conversion on my own in the lab.
I know there are many (or at least two) Mac users reading this, so in fairness I will say that the reading discusses that QuickTime has been around for a while, and that it is even popular on the Windows platform. It says that QuickTime has been on CD products, digital camera models and others. However, the book also states that it "works at its best and smoothest on the Macintosh."
The reading discusses a few features of QuickTime that seem pretty useful, on the other hand. Features such as Trick Play, various skin options, and effects that don't eat away large amounts of bit rate. One of the most interesting points to me was that QuickTime was the first to promote "pluggable" codecs, meaning that components are downloaded when needed. In the spirit of the Mac, I suppose QuickTime makes an effort to make things more simple for the user. However, it would be much more "simple" if it worked with PowerPoint.
Example site integrating media
A category of sites that seem to thrive on integrated media lately are nightclubs. The site
http://www.venomseattle.com/ is a prime example of this because it incorporates Flash, streaming audio and streaming video. Personally, these sites drive me crazy because they are over-the-top flashy and make it hard to find the information you're looking for.
This one at least asks the user on the home page if they'd like an HTML or Flash version of the site before entering... many other don't. Another nice thing is the that thumping audio shuts off after a minute or so, whereas other I've seen keep playing obnoxious techno music the entire time you're at the site, and I always end up turning off my speakers just before my head explodes.
I think these sites are typically targeting a crowd between 21 - 26 who more than likely have a high-speed connection and a flair for the flashy, high-intensity media. For me however, no longer being in the target age braket AND having a satellite connection that takes forever to load heavy flash, I get pretty annoyed with the site pretty quickly. You have to have a flash player to view the site, but also a reasonably powerful machine to handle the heavy media at the pace it's expected for.
Reading 3
This section was particularly intersting to me. I think because it's beggining to get into the real nuts and bolts of straming. One thing that caught my attention was the concept of buffering. This was a small piece, but helped me realize that there are so many aspects of streaming that, as users, we take for granted. I've always seen the tiny "buffering" term and watched the scroll bar move, but never had any idea, nor inclination to uncover, what it was actually doing and why. We just get used to these things and learn to ignore them. Getting more involved in the details of streaming is an eye-opener as to how many details are involved on the back end to provide a simple click-and-go service on the front end.
Another thing that I was thinking about during this reading is the concept of the player. We are fortunate in this class to be learning about a variety of players and their differences. Before, I figured they were all pretty much the same, and just used whatever the default was at the time. I can see a difficulty in streaming is selecting what you want to use and what you think your audience will use. It was interesting to read about Real Networks because I've always just used Windows Media since it's already installed, however, there seem to be opportunities for Real to advance in the future. The current disadvantages, on the other hand, seem many. I remember it being the cool thing to download quite a few years ago, but today it doesn't seem to have the same status, and simply having to download a player when there is already one installed on your machine seems to be a drawback.
Novel use of streaming media
A novel use of streaming media... there are a couple that come to mind. First, I think streaming media is a vastly under-explored means of employee communication. Internal communication is a huge problem in every company that I've worked for. Sure, people talk to each other at the water cooler (or latte stand in the more avant-guard companies), but people talking is far different from the company talking. I think streaming media on an employee Web site would be a valuable method for creating consistent messages, boosting employee morale, disseminating internal information, training and generally creating a community environment.
Perhaps a monthly video of the company president at his desk talking in a "fireside chat" sort of way to the employees would help increase retention. Or a series of monthly training videos on various product information for general consumption. Or interviews with various staff as a "get to know your coworkers" type of function. There are a wide variety of possible applications for this, all with a single goal of bringing employees together.
I think the digital format of this would serve a number of benefits. For one, all of these would be archived (and, of course, compressed properly) as a type of digital history of the company. They could also be located on an employee Web page to provide a single point of access for all employees. This would increase use because everyone would know where to find them and where to look for new videos. "But what does this have to do with streaming?" Well, rather than having these on an internal server, they could be streamed onto a Web page specifically for employees. "You mean an Intranet?" No. I mean an Web page that can be accessed by any employee from anywhere (perhaps with a secure login).
Companies I've worked with have a growing number of people on the road. Some are in Sales, traveling to trade shows or prospect meetings; some are implementers, on-site at client locations for months at a time; and some like me are remote workers, telecommuting from home. Rather than deal with FTPs and VPNs and other "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" issues, streaming on an employee Web page would be easier and faster to access. Suddenly "everybody" in the company is on the same page rather than just those in the office.
Another "novel use" I think would be interesting is more personal in nature. I'm a writer in my ever-decreasing free time. To meet other writers (and on occasion share my work) I've been to poetry readings or author workshops or readings by a new novelist (thus the pun at the beginning of this paragraph). I think it would be useful to use streaming media to increase participation in readings and associations by recording them and offering these via the Internet.
It would be interesting to juxtapose a traditional occasion like a literary reading with digital technology. This would certainly break the boundries of literary events that take place mostly in larger cities and create a more broad community. No matter where people live they could participate and share in the experience. For me, I wouldn't have to drive two hours to Seattle or Bellevue now that I live up in the stix. I did a little research and only came up with one such streaming at
http://www.cortlandreview.com/events.php. It is a literary magazine that sponsors readings and has posted some such events online. There are archived versions in RealVideo, but I believe they stream the live events as well.
A Story of Luma and Chroma...
"Good morning Luma, how was your weekend?" asked Mr. Pixel with a mix of curiosity and concern. Luma didn't respond, staring blankly and dishearten at the vibrant world outside her office window. "Luma?" Mr. Pixel stated a bit louder. He could see that she wasn't her usual bright and cheery self, and turned to walk away.
"I.. I'm sorry. It's just that Chroma and I had our first big fight on Saturday." Luma said sadly. Mr. Pixel was a jovial fellow. He was the kind of boss who inspired employees to work hard while providing a feeling of enjoyment in doing so. He was a small man in stature, with a square physique and colorful nature about him. He was the kind of man who repeated the same stories time and again, but whose sense of story telling was so enjoyable that it peaked rejuvenate interest every time. But even his zest was dimmed by Luma's discontent.
"How did it happen?" he asked. "What was the fight about?"
"Well, it's kinda silly, but I have this dress that's red, green and blue. I only wear it for very special occasions and Saturday was supposed to be one of them." she turned slowly away from the window to see if Mr. Pixel was actually interested or just being polite. He looked genuinely concerned, so she continued.
"It was our anniversary and we were going to go out for a nice dinner at the 422 lounge and then see our favorite band Width. To make a long story short, I asked Chroma to iron my dress and he completely forgot!" she said, her voice raised slightly. "He's just not a detail person and I couldn't deal with it anymore... I started getting mad about all the little things he's done wrong, the fact that all he does is sit around watching his two channels, and he complained that he didn't have time to iron my clothes. The night was disaster!"
"Sounds like you two weren't quite on the same frequency that night" Mr. Pixel said consolingly. "Sometimes guys like Chroma are less sensitive without realizing it. What he probably doesn't realize is that you remember all the details... everything he's done right and wrong. It's important to remember to take one line at a time instead of bringing all of it up at once. It was an honest mistake."
Luma reflected for a moment on what Mr. Pixel had said. Lightening up a bit, she asked, "So you think I should give him another chance?" Mr. Pixel smiled his approving smile, nodded slightly and turned to walk away.
A little later Luma called Chroma and asked if they could try the night over again, which he agreed would be nice.
Mr. Pixel also called Chroma. "Just take a moment to iron the green part of the dress." he said in a kind, fatherly tone. "If the red and blue are the only parts wrinkled, she won't be able to tell the difference."
Reading 2
As my story demonstrates - more for fun than education - there are many, many factors involved in the difference between video and film. This was an interesting reading in understanding the complexities of the digital video world. The reading was actually a bit easier than I thought due to the examples Drew gave in class. The concepts such as every other line and aspect ratio are a bit more difficult for me to grasp at first, but are beginning to make sense. What I found most interesting though is the relation of some of these details to my work with still graphics and photography. While often named differently, the concepts are much the same from lighting to color to shape to aliasing and vectors.
The recording formats was a short but useful section as I'm currently dealing with tape issues in my job. I'd contracted a company to produce a video for us, and after months of version problems and price-gouging, I decided to have them send me a tape with the master files. They asked, of course, what type of tape to send, VHS or BetaSP. I had no idea what the difference was and had to ask around. This section makes that much clearer though in the uselessness of VHS. Glad I requested the BetaSP! (thanks Drew & Nika...). I'm excited to play with this in the lab and get first-hand experience with some of the things we're learning in this class.
Example of streaming media site
A Web site I saw recently that uses a lot of streaming media is
www.skyy.com. This site is intreguing to me from a marketing perspective because of it's use of technology to target a specific audience. Specifically to this class, it uses streaming audio as a background to the site. I thought this was cool at first, but then couldn't figure out how to turn it off once it started to get on my nerves. Eventually found a tiny little pop-up sound controller on the bottom of the page.
The site also contains a ton of digital video. It's pretty flashy, but I think the use is a little overkill. There are video ads, short clips and more. On a good note, it allows you to select low, med, high quality depending on the speed of your internet connection. The video's are compressed well, load pretty quickly and are decent quality. Two things were a problem though... one, the "stop" button didn't do anything and I actually had to close the screen to get out of an annoying video. Second, they're pushing a very dark theme. This would be fine in some cases, but the dark videos on top of the dark Web page makes it very hard to see.
I do think they did a good job of setting up the video and audio on this. What I disliked is that they used it so much.
Reading 1
The compression concept is a huge ah-ha for me. I've put video on the Web before and certainly viewed video from other sites, but had no idea how important compression is. Rembering back, there were times when something wouldn't download fast enough, and I just closed it, or something was too small to view well but when enlarged was super blury. Never really new why until now.
This first reading is interesting in the way it review various types of video, from advertising to surveillance. As a general user, it's all too easy to think these all fall under the same bucket of quality, but this section is a true eye-opener. Honestly, I didn't even think there were this many applications for digital video.
Equally, the section on audio was a good introduction to the fact that all audio is not the same, just as video. This is really a new world for me. The concept of encoding was interesting, especially with all the choices. This really makes a difference in online video in accelerating the speed of the download while balencing the quality and size of the image. This is an area that will really help our video posting at work because people tend to just grab the video as-is and post it to the Web. This has created all sorts of problems that we typically ignore. The lab practice in encoding really proved the point. Taking a 335MB file and compressing it to 6MB is a huge ah-ha, especially learning to do so without killing the quality. I really had no idea, but the concepts are beginning to make sense in terms of shaving off infomration that isn't needed or is repetitive.
First day of class - just for fun
I had two ah-ha's for this initial summer assignment. The first is that the book selected is hard to find. Perhaps an unwavering dedication to the printed word, but I ventured out today in search of the book for our readings only to find that it is somewhat scarce. Why did I not purchase the online version? Primarily because I spend all day in front of the computer and have a difficult time reading long text on it in the evening. Besides, there's something more personal, more comfortable and more peaceful, about curling up on the couch in the dim evening hours with a book and one's imagination... almost poetic were it not for a title like "A Practical Guide to Video and Audio Compression." In any case, I finally located a physical copy at the general area of the University Bookstore and put it on hold to pick up Thursday before class.
Which leads me to my second ah-ha... that I'd better blog something. Whether due to travel, late work hours or the like, my blogging in Kathy's classes has a tradition of scarcity. My hope in this oh-so-brief summer quarter is to start anew. Beginning with this first week, and on through the last, I will commit myself to entries of some sort.
Since I don't have the book to read yet, I will take a moment to discuss my thoughts on the first class. Mr. Keller is an impressive educator. While enjoying his wit, sarcasm and knowledge as a peer in other classes, I found his teaching this week to be quite engaging. The concepts of this class are relatively new to me, and therefore I feel I'm starting at the basics. Keller's examples and explanations of the basics of codecs made perfect sense of something that is fairly complex in nature.
Streaming media is something that I see all the time on the Web. I've played around with posting a video clip a couple times, but there's so much more to it. This enlightenment occurred through the first class, but also after class when I purchased the four-ton Streaming Media Bible. It's enormous! Never would I have guessed that something that sounds so basic as saving a clip to a server would have such a wide verity of options and settings and little things that make a big difference. It's really a whole new world that I had no idea existed. My interest, peaked by the class concept initially, now focuses on the characteristics of this process as something that the average internet user cannot possibly fully understand. Therefore, I feel more than ever that this class will be one in which the skills learned will put us a step ahead of others in the job market. A truly valuable class in this program.
