[opendtv] Re: Streaming Media.com: What is Streaming?
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2015 08:59:35 -0500
On Nov 24, 2015, at 8:51 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
So here are some historical facts, Craig.
Quoting from the subject article:
Bunch of stuff deleted.
So, broadcast and entertainment sites were evidently already streaming, and
switched over to Flash in 2005. It proved "irresistible," says Streaming
Media.com. So we are talking at least 10 years ago, and probably longer.
Yup. Now read the first part of the article Bert. It tells you what kind of
services were being offered and how the Internet was making it possible to
offer niche services that could never gain a large enough audience on the
traditional TV delivery networks (Including MVPDs). NOWHERE in the article does
it tell us that the content oligopoly was streaming popular program length
shows in 2005.
It is fair to say that with the use of VP6 Flash became a viable platform to
stream TV content by the end of 2005, and that this meshed well with the Flash
multimedia framework that was being used to create rich media websites. It was
actually this combination that proved to be the catalyst for the growth of OTT
streaming.
But the content that really launched this shift in distribution was PORN, as it
had been with VHS and DVD before...
http://www.enterprisefeatures.com/ten-indispensable-technologies-built-by-the-pornography-industry/
Ten indispensable technologies built by the pornography industry
Sorry to disappoint, but watching the pornography industry is not the same as
watching pornography. And let’s be clear: It’s the action in the industry that
matters to your organization – not that other kind of action.
Matter it does. Smart media and tech entrepreneurs keep track of what’s
happening in the world of “adult content” because when it comes to technology,
porn leads and mainstream follows.
As I keep telling you, but you keep ignoring, the content oligopoly was still
fighting the DRM wars and waited until platforms were secure before they would
stream complete programs.
"The VP6 codec was introduced in May 2003."
I think you will agree that this predates H.264 by many years?
Not at all. The h.264 standard was released in May of 2003. In your next quote
you tell us that VP6 was not incorporated into FLASH until 2005. Apple started
the iTunes video service in the fall of 2005 with h.264.
There was a big difference however, between the FLASH streaming sites and
iTunes video. The streaming sites were constrained in quality by the limited
bandwidth available from ISPs in 2005. The quality of iTunes video was superb,
thanks to the efforts of compressionists, who like their brethren in the DVD
industry, carefully fine tuned the encoding of difficult scenes to to eliminate
compression artifacts from spikes that exceeded channel capacity. But iTunes
required downloading, or very long buffer preloads to watch a program as a
stream.
"In April 2005, On2 Technologies licensed On2 Video Codec (including VP6 and
VP7) for Macromedia Flash. In August 2005, Macromedia announced they had
selected VP6 as the flagship new codec for video playback in the new Flash
Player 8."
I believe I told you about this yesterday...
This site explains that Flash Player 8, which was the one used by the
broadcasters back then, incorporates both the VP6 and the H.263 codecs.
http://www.video-to-flash.com/h263_to_flash8/
So it appears you have found some documentation that h.263 was used for video
streaming. Thanks!
As you stated when you first told us this, h.263 was inadequate for use on a
TV, as the images were very soft when enlarged to fill the screen. That was the
era of small video windows, driven by the lack of ISP bandwidth to support
higher quality.
H.264 came later, Craig. Internet TV streaming was well on its way by then.
Flash incorporated H.264 sometime during its version 9.
No Bert, h.264 DID NOT come later. Apple started using it in 2005. Netflix
launched their streaming service with it in 2007.
What was going on between 2005 and 2007 was COMPETITION, as one of your
articles pointed out. Adobe was pushing VP6 via Flash, Microsoft tried and
failed with Silverlight, and Apple rolled support for h.264 into QuickTime.
The big change took place in 2007 with the introduction of a phone with a new
operating system. In June of 2007 Apple introduced the iPhone and iOS, and
Steve Jobs wrote the famous letter to the industry explaining why this mobile
platform would not support FLASH.
On December 7th 2007 Adobe announced Flash Player 9 update 3, which added
support for h.264.
The rest is history...
Regards
Craig
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