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MillimeterFields & Frames
Aug 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Dan Ochiva
The codec wars among QuickTime, Real Media, and Windows Media had quieted down over the past couple of years. But no longer. ▸ “You're going to see a really big battle between Flash video and Windows Media,” says Doug McIntyre, CEO of New York-based On2. “Video adoption is becoming important again, and it's going to be won by whoever gets the most content under his hat the fastest.” ▸ McIntyre speaks from experience, because his 15-year old company ranks among the very first companies supplying video compression technology. His analysis of the market, however, includes his company's future. On2's VP6 codec runs the video in Macromedia's Flash 8, a radically enhanced version that launches in August. ▸ The new codec wars are developing around the rapidly expanding delivery markets for video over broadband, phone lines, cell phones, and other devices. McIntyre claims the first casualties include Real Media and QuickTime, which he says are rapidly losing mind share as delivery media to Windows Media and Flash. ▸ Certainly the video quality of Flash 8, seen in a pre-release version, is striking. Even more, new capabilities such as realtime compositing and realtime video and graphic rendering should open up huge new markets; Macromedia claims that Flash runs on an estimated 600 million computers. ▸ But what about H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10)? Wasn't that MPEG flavor supposed to become the new standard? Although McIntyre agrees that H.264 and MPEG-2 will have a place in post, he contends that the costs of licensing and other royalties will be too high for wide adoption in home electronics, PCs, cell phones, the Web, and elsewhere. Stay tuned. ▪ BrightSide Technologies launched the “world's first extreme dynamic range” display at Siggraph 2005. The Vancouver-based company replaces the usual florescent backlight of LCD displays with a matrix of LEDs, delivering higher brightness and contrast for an improved color gamut. Readers of Millimeter will recall, however, that we awarded an NAB 2005 Pick Hit to NEC Display Solutions for its LCD2180WG-LED monitor, which also uses super-bright LEDs to backlight the screen. ▪ Breaking a fingernail might soon require more care than heading over to the nearest nail salon. According to an article on Optics.org, a group of researchers at Japan's Tokushima University are using a femtosecond laser system to write data to human fingernails. The stored data lasts for six months — that is, as long as you refrain from biting your nails. ▪ While cries of “I want my NerdTV” might not be heard on the streets, you'll still want to reach for your pocket protector when you watch PBS's NerdTV, which debuts Sept. 6. This web-only, downloadable series of 13 one-hour shows will be hosted by longtime technology columnist and industry insider Robert X. Cringely. Interviews will include nerdy notables such as Andy Hertzfeld, the Mac's original programmer, and Bill Joy, father of Berkeley UNIX. The show will use a Creative Commons license so viewers can edit it and redistribute it.
