Archive for August, 2007

DivX To The Left Of Me, Windows To The Right, Here I Am Stuck In The Mpeg With You

Aug 28

Posted by Davis in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, DivX, DRM, Media, Microsoft, Movies, Netflix, Technology, TV, VOD | 11 Comments

One could argue that there has never been a better time to be a digital media enthusiast. As the digital revolution continues to unfold, consumers are finding an increasing number of choices in how they want to consume their media. Getting VOD to the television set has taken a lot longer than I expected, but over the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of progress towards digitization. While we still don’t have the holy grail of entertainment (everything on demand), we are getting closer to an on demand environment.

With these choices also comes restrictions. If I buy a song on iTunes, I can’t play it on my Windows “Smart” phone. If I want streaming movies on Netflix, I have to use Microsoft’s browser. While a lot of these obstacles are easy to overcome, this lack of connectivity does frustrate consumers and slows mainstream adoption.

In thinking about my own digital entertainment setup, I’ve set two primary goals for my media library. I want to my video files in DivX or XviD, so that I can use DivX certified devices and I want my media to be in .wmv, so that I can also stream my content to my Xbox or play it on my cellphone.

Currently, I’ve got three or four different digital file types on my computer, but most of the content is in the Mpeg format. I’ve used digital conversion tools in the past, but I’ve never tried to convert all of my media at once, so I wanted to try some of the different conversion software packages, in order to see which ones might be ~~the best~~ at least halfway decent.

When I first went to look for solutions, the sheer number of choices was pretty intimidating. In total, I tried out 7 different pieces of software, but two of them wouldn’t even install. At the end of the day, I was hoping to be able to recommend a solution to my readers, but none of them offered me exactly what I was looking for.

DivX Converter 6.5

Since the immediate goal of my exercise was to get my Mpeg files transferred over to DivX, I figured I would start with the company’s own software before trying anything else. In order to get the converter software, I had to download and install the program from DivX’s website. The install ran pretty clean and other than an optional Google toolbar plugin, there isn’t much in the way of ads. DivX gives you full access to the software for 15 days and after that you have to pony up $19.99, if you want to keep using it.

Of all the conversion software that I tested, DivX was definitely the easiest. Once I installed the program, all I had to do was drag and drop my files and then hit convert. The software was very intuitive. Running on just a half a gig of ram, a 200MB conversion took about 25 minutes to complete. Not as fast as I would have liked, but DivX does offer you a way to queue up your files, so that your computer can do the heavy lifting when you’re not using it.

Had DivX’s software been a little bit more robust, I would have spent the money to go pro, but unfortunately the software has one major weakness. While DivX is more than happy to help their customers convert just about any format into the DivX format, they aren’t as eager to help you get it into .wmv or other third party codecs. I can’t really blame DivX for creating a one way conversion tool, but since it still didn’t help me get my movies to my Xbox, I kept looking.

Windows Media Encoder 9

Because DivX’s converter wouldn’t allow me to convert my files into .wmv, my next stop was to check out Microsoft’s solution for converting into Window’s format. One of the nice things about their encoder software was that it was the only one that was actually free* (Windows software and additional plugins may be required)

The download for the software didn’t contain any ads, but Softie does make you download some bullshit “authentication” plugin before you can actually use the product. The software is designed to help cut down on piracy, but the real end result is that customers are inconvenienced unnecessarily. After trying to verify my own copy of Windows, I continued to get error messages, but was finally able to get my secret code by running their plugin as a standalone app.

One of the things that I really liked about the Windows encoder was that it gave you the option to customize the end product based upon how you intended to use the media. I could encode directly to .wmv, but they also gave me the option of making a smaller file for my cellphone or a larger HDTV file for the living room. Since my goal is to get the videos to my living room using WiFi, I selected the SD version and started the conversion.

One of the things that I noticed when I started to use the program is that once you start the encoding process, it’s a resource hog. This could just be because my PC is already a dinosaur, but from the minute I hit convert, my computer was pretty much worthless. This isn’t a big deal if you are converting files overnight, but if you’re trying to multi-task, it can be frustrating to deal with lagging speeds, while you are waiting for your file to complete.

The software was relatively easy to use, but when it came to it’s UI design, you could just tell that it was created by Microsoft. The whole thing is built to be useful not look good. For my needs, the UI isn’t all that important, but if Microsoft really wants to make this easy for consumers, they should rethink the layout of their software.

Another drawback to the WMEncoder was that just like DivX’s software, Microsoft is a one way street when it comes to the conversions. If all you care about is Windows, this works, but ideally I was hoping to find something that supported multiple file types. I was also a little annoyed to discover that while Microsoft will let you convert almost any codec into .wmv for free, if you actually want to transcode Mpeg files, they make you buy a $15 plugin.

Cinema Forge

Since DivX and Window’s own solutions were less than robust in letting me work with different codecs, I decided to check out a couple of other third party solutions. The first on my list was Cinema Forge. Their software has received good reviews on Download.com and since they allow you to encode up to 10 minutes of video before having to pay the $24.95 to upgrade, it is easy to test the software out.

Cinema Forge supports a number of different files structures and allows you to convert to MP4 (iPod), Flash, .Wmv, Mpeg, .AVI, Real Video and Quicktime. I didn’t have any problems converting into the .Wmv format, but I did find that when I tried to convert my Mpegs into their .AVI wrapper, that it was stripping out the audio and jarbling it on me. I’m not sure, if there was a setting that I had wrong, but after my third corrupted file, I gave up on the software and moved onto other solutions. I also noticed that my .wmv files wouldn’t allow me to fast forward or rewind the content. I’m not sure if this was because I was using the trial version, but I know that I’m not looking for a conversion solution, that locks down my content.

Jet Audio

When I started this project I wasn’t really looking for a media player, but when I saw that the Jet Audio media player also supported file conversions, I remembered the old adage that there may be more than one way to skin a cat. Of all the software conversion tools that I tried, Jet Audio was by far the best. I don’t know that I’d actually spend money on the software, but if I had to pick one, they seemed to offer the most choices and functionality.

One downside for the Apple fans is that their software doesn’t support Quicktime conversions, but since it lets me convert to .wmv, XviD and DivX, I was willing to check it out. In addition, they also throw CD ripping and burning functionality into the software. The trial version only lets you convert 30 seconds worth of a clip, but it was enough for me to at least test out the quality and I didn’t run into any problems.

Two things that I didn’t particularly like about the software were that they included ads for their own PMP devices inside the program and that the software felt really cluttered. While it was an undeniably powerful piece of code, its UI design is more than a little chaotic. In addition to the conversion and burning tools, they also throw in an entire media player. It’s hard to ding them for offering too much, but there is something to be said for simplicity.

Movavi -

Movavi actually had two different software tools that I tested. They have an online version and a downloadable solution. The online version is really good, if you only need to convert small files. There were no programs to download, no accounts to sign up for and no aggressive ads popping up on my browser.

All I really needed to do was go to their website, upload the file I wanted converted, (or give them the web address of where the file is located) and then sit back and wait for an email telling me that it’s ready to be downloaded. It was quick, easy and painless and would have been my final stop, had there not been the 100 MB restrictions on the online version.

Even without the restrictions though, I’m not surer that you’d want to upload files much bigger than 100 MB. I uploaded a 64MB over a fiber connection and it still took 7 minutes to upload, 5 minutes to process, and about 10 seconds to download. This really isn’t a deal breaker for me, but it’s less than ideal, if you are looking to convert full movies. The online version also does not let you convert into .wmv.

Once I downloaded the software version of Movavi, it did add a bit to the functionality. The issue of uploading and downloading your files goes away, as does the 100 MB restriction. The full software also adds support for .wmv conversions including WMV HD. The pro version costs $29.99, but since the free version allows you to convert 30% to a file, I was hoping to test out the quality anyway. Unfortunately, I tried to convert several different file formats over, but no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get Movavi’s software to recognize my media.

Ideally, I was hoping to find an open source free solution, but couldn’t find anything that looked safe enough to download. If someone knows of a good conversion solution, feel free to leave me a comment and I’ll check it out.

Cutest Litter Of Kittens Ever, But Only If You Have TiVo

Aug 27

Posted by Davis in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, TiVo | Comments off

Davis Freeberg’s Site Of The Week

Aug 27

Posted by Davis in Site Of The Week | Comments off

I may have a tendency to give Apple a hard time, but I can’t deny that I was a little bit envious when I heard about their engraving services. When you purchase an iPod from the Apple store, they offer a service where you can have a personal message engraved onto it. Why aren’t more companies offering this type of customization to their customers? Apple has always been known for their marketing prowess, but I think that this one of the subtle, yet brilliant things that they do for their brand. Their customers already love their products and by making it easy for them to add a personal touch, they’ve been able to create a unique experience for them, despite the fact that they are selling to a mass market. It’s these sorts of little things that makes Apple such a marketing powerhouse.

Apparently though, this program does have it’s limits. Apple has always associated their brand with radical thinkers, but if you’re a little too radical, they’ll refuse to tatoo your message to the iPod.

This week’s winner of the site of the week tracks the various engravings that have been denied. For most of the ones that were blocked, it’s pretty easy to understand why Apple wouldn’t engrave them. There were a few that were borderline OK, but I can understand why they wouldn’t want their brand associated with some of the f bombs. I was actually more surprised by some of the ones that they let slip by.

Of the engravings that they actually banned, my two favorites were “When my battery dies, so will you” and “10,000 Stolen Tunes Inside”. Of the ones that slipped by Apple’s filters, I liked the “Your mamma uses a walkman.” (what a great insult) and the “this iPod makes up for my small hard disk.” Congratulations to MethodShop on winning this week’s site of the week award. It may not be the most useful site, but I found it entertaining.

If you’d like to nominate a site for site of the week, feel free to contact me. The nominees for next week’s site’s are listed below, you can vote in the sidebar.

Seeqpod (h/t to Dale Dietrich)

Wall St. Pop

Inkling Markets

Zooomr Zips Where Others Zag: Adds RSS To Ziiipline

Aug 24

Posted by Davis in Photos, Technology, Web 2.0 | Comments off

Hot Donkey! I logged into my Zooomr account this morning and saw that they’ve released an RSS feed for my zipline. They’ve also paginated zipline for Zooomr pro accounts. This allows me to see more than just the last 20 or so entries from my contacts.

If you haven’t tried out zipline yet, you really should check it out. It’s like Twitter, only for photos. When Twitter first started to take off on the web, I couldn’t figure out why people would want to post mundane details of their life, but after playing around with Zooomr’s zipline over the last month or two, I’ve started to really appreciate the benefits to being restricted to just 250 characters.

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you’ll know that I have a tendency to be a little long winded with some of my posts. I try to write shorter blog entries, but once my mind gets preoccupied on a topic, it’s hard for me to keep things short and sweet.

For the most part, I think that people prefer unique analysis over a couple of sentences and a quick link, but the downside to this is that because of the amount of time it takes to write my posts, there tend to be a lot of topics I want to write about, but never get around to (or at least I don’t get around to it until it’s too late.)

Right now readers can use my Profilatic mashup if they are really interested in what I’m bookmarking and digging, but there is no way for me to explain why something might be of interest or my thoughts on a web page that I’m clipping.

When I first started using Zipline, it was really hard for me to get used to the 250 character limitation, but the more I use the service, the more I appreciate that it forces me to be concise.

Because the RSS feeds are so new, I suspect that it will take a few weeks before Zooomr gets the bugs worked out, but the major benefit of having access to my Zipline feed is that it allows me to integrate Zipline content into other areas of the web.

As an experiment, I’ve installed the BDP RSS Aggregator on DFDC. This allows me to mashup my zipline directly into my website. Right now, Zooomr hasn’t released an RSS feed for all of my friend’s ziplines, but by combining my own feed with the BDP RSS aggregator, it at least allows me to broadcast my zipline on the net and on other sites that I use.

I’m still having some problems with how the feed is formating, so I’ll still be experimenting with other widgets, but keep an eye on this feature because I plan on using it more regularly in order to showcase the many great blog articles that I come across each day.

As more users begin to experiment with the feed, I’m sure that we’ll see the community figure out even better ways to mashup the content, but for now this small feature allows you to do some pretty creative things with the technology that is already out there. If you’d like to subscribe to my zipline feed directly, you can find it here.

Update – I’m having trouble getting the feed to display right. The photos look good, but my posts are showing up twice. I know that there is a way for me to use html and tell wordpress to strip out the titles, but I’m still trying to find the code for it. If any one has any suggestions on a plugin that will let me publish just the content of the posts and not the headlines, feel free to make suggestions. In the meantime, I’m going to take the zipline down while I figure out a way to improve the cosmetics.

DivX Goes Shopping: Buys Fine Art And Search Technology

Aug 21

Posted by Davis in DivX, Media, Search, Technology, VOD, Web 2.0 | Comments off

This amazing video was created by Mogcaiz. You can see more of his work at DeviantART.

Last week DivX released their 10-Q and while I was able to find the time to tune into their conference call, I didn’t get a chance to read through the actual document until this past weekend.

In the filing I didn’t find any bombshells or new lawsuits, but there were a few details on some of DivX’s recent acquisitions that did reward my curiosity. According to the filing, DivX made two purchases over the last quarter.

“In May 2007, the Company made an equity investment in a private corporation that aggregates and distributes art via its web community and facilitates an open forum where artists can exhibit their artwork and build community around that art in an effort to drive commerce. The Companyâ€™s investment consisted of $3.5 million cash for which it received certain shares of the private corporationâ€™s Series A Preferred Stock and entered into an advertising and marketing agreement. The Company has preliminarily allocated approximately $650,000 of the investment to the advertising and marketing agreement, based on its estimated fair value, and the remaining $2.9 million will be carried as an investment.”

DivX doesn’t name the actual artwork site in their filing, but since I already knew that they had purchased a piece of DeviantArt, this one wasn’t hard to figure out. Originally, I had thought that they were only partially behind the $3.5 million investment, but according to the filing, it looks like they put in all of the cash. DivX doesn’t disclose how much of a stake they got for their money, but they do disclose that it is less than 20%.

Without knowing the details behind the acquisition, it’s hard to determine whether DivX received good value for their money, but from a strategy standpoint, I really liked the acquisition. There are a lot of websites that can build a lot of traffic, but the question is at what cost. Newspaper websites get a ton of hits, but take away their print business and the business model can’t support the cost of writers, editors, staff, etc.

The great part about user generated content is that because it’s built around community, the customers are the ones that provide the content. In the case of DeviantArt, they’ve built a very positive environment around people who love art and by connecting artists together in this way they’ve been able to develop a community where creativity thrives.

If DivX wanted to sell art they could have spent $3.5 million on Google Adwords and bought the traffic, but they weren’t interested in selling art, they wanted access to the artists themselves. Through their investment, they will not only get access to DeviantArt’s traffic, but they’ll get the right kind of traffic visiting Stage6, content creators who are looking for venues to showcase their digital creativity. The acquisition won’t do anything to bolster their bottom line, but it does further connect them to the larger web community.

The second acquisition in the 10-Q was a little bit harder to figure out. It’s related to improving the search functionality of Stage6, but DivX didn’t release a lot of details on whose technology they actually purchased.

“In July 2007, the Company acquired all of the assets of a limited liability corporation engaged in real-time digital video processing for the purposes of producing enhanced video search and discovery services. The total purchase price for the acquisition is up to $4.25 million comprised of an initial upfront cash payment of $2.0 million, which the Company made in July 2007, and subsequent cash payments up to $2.25 million upon the achievement of certain technology related milestones. The Company will account for the acquisition as an asset purchase and periodically review for impairment.”

Without knowing whose technology they bought, it’s hard to get a feel for how powerful their new search will be, but I’m glad that they are taking steps to improve their search functionality. Search on Stage6 is one of the many areas that is still in “beta” mode. Sometimes you’ll find what you want, but it’s usually more by luck than query. I’d describe the issues in greater detail, but Neillithan has made a video that addresses the deficiencies better than I ever could.

As Stage6′s media collection continues to grow, relevant video search will be crucial in helping to make sense of it all. Searching by tags and keywords works for now, but it’s far from perfect. I don’t think anyone has perfected video search, but EveryZing is the furthest along and even they still have high failure rates on their speech to text functionality.

One of the frustrating parts about finding details is that they rarely answer more questions than they raise. While I was pleased to find out more about DivX’s search solution, without knowing who they actually acquired, it’s hard to determine how important this could be.

I have a theory about who DivX may have picked up, but I have to qualify it as even more speculative than my normal unreliable gut feelings. It’s really nothing more than a wild guess based upon the criteria that they lay out. Still, I’ve never been one to be shy about speculating even when I’m probably wrong, so here is my wild guess on who DivX may have acquired.

Of all of the companies that fit this criteria, Veatros seems the most likely candidate to me. Their site went offline in July, but before it went down, I know that they were looking for strategic partnerships for their search technology. One of their former employees, has his resume up on LinkedIn and I thought it was interesting to see him leave around the same time that a DivX acquisition would be taking place. According to his LinkedIn profile, he describes Veatros as having the fastest video search ever developed.

“Startup technology company spinning out of the University of Kansas with the fastest video search technology ever developed. Veatros technology can identify a video clip of as little as 2-3 seconds in length from a database of tens of thousands of hours in real-time.”

Susan Gauch is the owner of Veatros and she would certainly have the expertise to implement video search on Stage6. Veatros is really a side project for her, during her day job,she is an accomplished professor at the University of Kansas. Her entire career has been dedicated to researching and improving search. Her research has already been referenced in several video search related patents.

There’s no way for me to be sure if my guess is right, but if it’s not Veatros, then I would suspect that it would a company with similar characteristics. Irregardless of who the mysterious LLC turns out to be, improving their search is something that I’m glad to see DivX focusing on. Better content filters, mean a better experience for anyone visiting their site. If they can personalize video search, then the content on Stage6 will keep getting better.

Neither one of these acquisitions is a major move on DivX’s part, but it does give us some insight into part of DivX’s growth strategy. The video search investment makes sense from a tactical standpoint, but the DeviantArt purchase is far more interesting.

The passive nature of the investment raises the possibility that DivX is developing a venture capital arm to their business. They’ve already incubated Stage6 and with steady cash flow coming in each quarter, Divx is in a great position to make private investments where they see opportunities. It’s too early to know how aggressively DivX will pursue this aspect of their business, but if they continue to invest in emerging technology, things could certainly start to get interesting.

Update – It looks like my wild guess turned out to be right, but I may have been wrong about how they plan on implementing it. DivX released a press release this afternoon confirming that Veatros was in fact the company that they had acquired. In the press release, DivX says that their plan is to integrate the technology into their connected platform. Interestingly enough, they don’t mention Stage6 once in the release . . .

Davis Freeberg’s Site Of The Week

Aug 21

Posted by Davis in Site Of The Week, Web 2.0 | Comments off

Normally, I’ve got a pretty anti-pet policy in life, but even I had to vote for this week’s winner of the site of the week contest. KittenWars is a website where pet owners upload photos of their kittens and where web surfers can then vote on which ones are the cutest.

I usually try to run and hide when people want me to look at photos of their fuzzy little furballs, but this is a cat fight I don’t mind taking part in. It’s like PickTheHottie, except for kittens.

I’m not sure why I’m so fascinated with games, but I’ve always been a big fan of any site that offers fun contests or challenges. KittenWars is no exception, there is something about the interactivity that really appeals to me. I keep telling myself that I’m going to click just one more time, yet I can’t stop voting on contest after contest. On the site, you can also find lists of the cutest (and not so cute) kittens on the site, but it was the voting that I found the most entertaining.

Congratulations to KittenWars for winning this week’s site of the week contest. The nominations for next week’s site are listed below, please vote in the sidebar. Feel free to contact me, if you’d like to nominate a site worth visiting.

WordPress Theme Generator

iBlocked

Rejected iPod Engravings

TiVoholics Anonymous

Aug 17

Posted by Davis in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Technology, TiVo, TV, VOD | Comments off

Lycos Loses ‘Home Court’ Advantage: Patent Trial To Be Held In Their Own State

Aug 15

Posted by Davis in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Netflix, Search, Technology, TiVo, Web 2.0 | Comments off

It looks like TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster will be packing their bags for Massachusetts, after they won the first of many legal scrimmages in their patent defense against Lycos. Lycos has asserted that all three companies have violated patents they own, on “information filtering technology.” The two patents that are at the heart of the case are related to the recommendation services that the companies provide.

After Lycos filed their lawsuit against the trio, ChoiceStream (the company that created Blockbuster’s suggestion service) filed a separate lawsuit, to have the patents thrown out.

In their lawsuit against Lycos, they argue that the patents are invalid because of obviousness and prior art. Because Choicestream filed their own lawsuit in the Massachusetts’ court system, TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster sought to have their case transferred there as well. I’m not familiar enough with the legal subtleties to know why Lycos originally opposed the motion, but with Lycos’ headquarters in MA, the judge found the request reasonable enough and granted the motion.

While this development in the case, is only a minor footnote in the larger dispute, the legal filing did contain more background on the case, as well as a few interesting side details.

It turns out that Choicestream may actually end up playing a pretty important role in how this gets resolved. In the legal filing the judge writes,“ChoiceStream has employees in Massachusetts who possess information relevant to this action, and Lycos has indicated that it ‘may need to take some discovery from ChoiceStream.’”

I haven’t read ChoiceStreams lawsuit against Lycos yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did end up owning some prior art. A year ago, they filed an application for their own recommendation patent, so it will be interesting to see what ends up coming out at trial.

It also appears MIT’s Media Lab could be called to give testimony. Part of their research was used to reject some of the original claims on one of Lycos’ patents. Believe it or not, they’ve actually been publishing research on “information filtering” since the late 80′s.

While it appears that this case is heading for trial, there is always the possibility of a settlement. Even though Lycos filed their lawsuit on Jan. 3, they didn’t actually serve TiVo, Netflix or Blockbuster until April 30th because they were engaged in “settlement discussions” with the companies. Since they now appear to be squabbling over who gets home court advantage, those talks have likely cooled off, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see either side at the bargaining table, especially if things start to look bad for them.

Davis Freeberg’s Site Of The Week

Aug 13

Posted by Davis in Site Of The Week | 4 Comments

Over the weekend, I left Casa Del Davis and had to put all of my stuff into storage while I figure out where to call home. While I was packing my stuff into boxes, I came across my very first cell phone. It was an old Nokia 3395. I original got the phone for “free”, as part of a service package with Cingular, that to this day I still regret. Normally, I’m pretty good about getting rid of old junk, but for some reason I kept it and it’s been hiding in my closet, ever since I took it out of service.

Since I knew that I’d never use the phone again, I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to test out CellForCash, this week’s winner of the site of the week contest. CellForCash is a website that purchases used phones from people who would throw them away anyway. On the site, they give you the option to take the cold hard cash or you can donate your proceeds to 911CellPhoneBank.org, an organization that helps provide used cell phones to people who can’t afford them.

Seeing how my Nokia 3395 wasn’t exactly appreciating over time, I figured I would sell it for anything and be glad I wasn’t having to pay some kind of recycling charge. Unfortunately though, my model was a little too out dated, even for CellForCash and they wouldn’t take it, so instead, I put my Audiovox SMT5600 into their site, so that I could check out the resell value on the phone I’m using today. I couldn’t believe it when they offered me $4.

$4 would be worth it, if I wasn’t using the phone and just wanted to get rid of it, but the SMT5600 has been a pretty good mobile device. Sure, the Window’s interface is barely usable and the file transfer system is buggy as all get out, but it can play music and videos, without me having to spend a small fortune on an overpriced iPod.

Since I had a feeling that CellForCash might be lowballing me, I took a look at Ebay, in order to figure out what the free market really thinks my Audiovox is worth. It looks like with the right photos and a zingy description, that I could probably get closer to $30 there, but of course then I’d have to deal with the hassle of creating a listing and run the risk that I might end up not getting any bids.

In the end, you may not end up getting top dollar from CellForCash, but it is an easy and convenient way to recycle old cell phones. You may end up only getting beer money out of it, but that’s still a lot better than leaving it at the bottom of some box in your closet. Congratulations to CellForCash on winning this week’s site of the week award. If you know of a good site, feel free to send me a nomination. The nominees for next week’s award are listed below, please vote in the sidebar.

Poom!

Callpedia

Kitten War!