12.09.08
Posted in Technology at 4:03 pm by wfrantz
First, an example… Microsoft is a company in Seattle, WA. Apple is a company in Cupertino, CA. LAME is an open source project on SourceForge. Among other things, all of them offer a MP3 audio encoder.
Likewise, DivX Inc. is a company in San Diego, CA. Xvid Solutions is a company in Hof, Germany. XviD is an open source project on SourceForge. Among other things, all of them offer an MPEG4 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP) video encoder. The Xvid Solutions encoder is the XviD open-source encoder
and often appears in free software. The DivX encoder is propriety and only appears in DivX Certified software such as the free DivX Converter.
What’s missing in this comparison with MP3 is a colloquial name for a video file. Some people call them MPEG4 files but that’s not descriptive enough. MPEG4 ASP is a broad standard that includes many esoteric features that are not in common use. Even devices which claim to play “MPEG4 ASP” files
probably do not actually support all MPEG4 ASP features.
Some people talk of “DivX” files or “Xvid” files. Usually they mean “MPEG4 ASP files created by the DivX (or Xvid) encoder”. However, there are many software programs that use neither the DivX encoder or the Xvid encoder yet still claim to create “DivX” files and/or “Xvid” files.
DivX Inc. and Xvid Solutions offer a certification program for consumer electronics to guarantee compatibility among devices by precisely defining a DivX file and an Xvid file. However, there are many devices which claim “DivX” and/or “Xvid” playback even though the device is not certified by
either company.
It’s no surprise then that consumers are often confused. Terms appear thrown together and comparisons are made in non-sensible ways.
In fact, since DivX and Xvid are two different encoders that both produce MPEG4 ASP video in an AVI file container, you can’t tell the difference between a DivX encoded video and an Xvid encoded video if you were just looking at the video data in the file. However, the encoders leave tell-tale
indicators embedded in the file that usually clearly indicate which encoder was used.
It might seem then, that it doesn’t matter which encoder is used. That is true, however, DivX Inc. and Xvid.org have defined slightly different “profiles” for encoding. For example, the DivX Home Theater profile does not allow multiple warp point Global Motion Compensation or Quarter Pixel Estimation even though these features are allowed under the MPEG4 ASP standard and part of the Xvid “home” profile. The DivX encoder can make use GMC and QPel but by default, it does not.
For most people, the best advice is to only buy DivX Home Theater certified products and only use DivX Home Theater certified software. That way, video compatibility is guaranteed. Furthermore, DivX Home Theater files may contain features such as sub-titles or multiple audio tracks. These features
are only supported by DivX Certified players. Non-certified devices that claim “DivX” compatibility will not do anything other than basic video playback. Non-certified encoders that claim to create “DivX” files cannot create DivX sub-titles or multiple audio tracks. For example, if you are careful with how you configure the Xvid encoder, you can create videos that play on most DivX devices but you’d be limited to making basic video files without advanced features.
Over 100 Million DivX Certified devices have been sold. Xvid Solutions offers a similar certification program but there are very few Xvid certified devices despite numerous claims of “Xvid” compatibility.
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10.08.07
Posted in Life, Technology at 11:03 am by wfrantz
The RIAA won a $222,000 lawsuit against an individual woman in Minnesota who was using a peer-to-peer network. As absurd as that sounds, it didn’t alarm me much until I read more of the details. Apparently, the woman wasn’t found guilty of downloading copyright music. She was guilt of making copyright music available for download.
Apparently, copyright law also grants distribution rights to the copyright holder. For example, in this particular case, Virgin Records filed the following statement with the court…
A person also violates a copyright holder’s distribution right by making copyrighted works available to others without authorization from the copyright holder. Section 106(3) of the Copyright Act gives the owner of copyright “the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: . . . (3) To distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending . . . . 17 U.S.C. 106(3).” This language makes it clear that it is an actionable infringement for one to violate a copyright owner’s exclusive right to authorize the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a copyrighted work.
I can only hope that Virgin Records somehow took 17 U.S.C. 106(3) completely out of context. If I interpret it as written above, it seems that I am legally required to keep every CD, DVD, LP and VHS tape that I’ve ever purchased. I can’t sell my old DVDs. I cannot give you a CD, even as a gift. Can I even toss a VHS tape in the trash? Why aren’t there massive raids going on at all the second hand book stores around the country? Are all libraries required to explicitly obtain distribution rights for every work in their collection?
Any of these acts are undeniably prohibited under the aforementioned copyright distribution clause. Technically, I must get permission from the copyright holder of my Air Supply record before I transfer ownership to the city landfill.
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01.12.07
Posted in Life, Technology at 3:18 pm by wfrantz
If you were excited by the iPhone announcement, you may have missed photos of the LG wide-screen smartphone,LG KE850
The Sony w880 also looks promising.
The OpenMoko FIC Neo1973 Smartphone was announced several months ago and will be available in February, 2007.
As I’ve pointed out in previous postings, I’m not a big fan of all-in-one devices. Yes, the iPhone includes a camera, a music player, and PDA functionality. However, the 2 Megapixel camera isn’t likely to replace my 10 Megapixel Pentax, the 8 Gig music player won’t replace my 30 Gig iPod, and iPhone lacks the applications available on the iPaq. I expect my PDA to include Word, Excel, handwriting recognition, DivX Mobile Player, removable memory cards, IRDA, and maybe most importantly, the ability to install 3rd party applications.
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10.03.06
Posted in Technology at 7:24 am by wfrantz
Here’s an interesting post from a Microsoft employee called “Zune Sharing explained”
http://www.zunester.com/2006/09/zune-sharing-explained.html
I still have a few questions.
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09.18.06
Posted in Software, Technology at 11:10 pm by wfrantz
This started as a simple task. I wanted to convert some cassette tapes into MP3 files. I have a shiny new iMac that I thought would be perfect for the task. Then I ran into lots of problems.
I used GarageBand to record the audio. I thought I could simply save it as an MP3 file but that would be too simple, wouldn’t it? GarageBand only creates AAC encoded audio in M4A files. Unbelievable! Eventually I got a solution.
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08.04.06
Posted in Technology at 12:25 pm by wfrantz
binocular222 at experts-exchange.com asked
How do I know the rank of my site?
It seems that there’re some tips to make one webpage get high rank in google search where can I have reference?
I use the Google toolbar to find the PageRank of my site. When installed, the toolbar indicates the PageRank of each URL you visit. BTW, “PageRank” is not the same as your search result number. Let’s look at an example…
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05.18.06
Posted in Software, Technology at 8:59 am by wfrantz
Tools, Tools (Ad Nausium) [sic.]
“There are problems with the many-tools-hacked-together approach that adds an odd balance to it.”
Bruce Alderson and I have a common vision. I wish that there was a stable platform for PHP applications that provided all the common stuff like database abstraction, user login and account management. I just want to seamlessly combine the best of MediaWiki, WordPress, Gallery and PHPbb. I don’t want to have 4 different logins and spend weeks trying to make templates for each so that they all look alike. Somehow these Open Source packages need to cleanly separate the functional engine from the application presentation layer. Then I could mix and match them.
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05.17.06
Posted in Technology at 1:34 pm by wfrantz
Ashlee Vance wrote an anti-subscription rant for The Register
Customers do not, as Napster suggests, pay $10,000 to fill their iPods with 10,000 songs just because the capacity is there. They take their existing music, CDs and MP3s, and put that onto the device first, then later add iTunes songs as they go along.
This is a narrow point of view. OK, Ashlee might have a pile of CDs and the patience to collect over years, but my 14 year old little brother has about a dozen CD’s and the attention span of Rain Man. Now, he could go buy another disk for $14, or he could buy 2 months of Yahoo Music for the same price. What is the better value for his dollar? 10 songs or 1 million songs?
If you ask me, a $60 subscription to Yahoo Music is a much better graduation gift than 4 new CDs. Here little brother, for $240 I will buy you an entire high-school lifetime of music. You can worry about starting a CD collection after you graduate.
Why does everyone think that consumers care about the long-term value of their purchasing dollar? Has anyone seen the national credit card debt statistics? People buy on impulse and worry about the consequences later.
As I said before, looking at my collection of about 300 disks, I could have bought 60 years of Yahoo Music for less! Am I still listening to Cindy Lauper when I’m 75? What was the point of owning all this plastic?
What’s the advantage in paying for all of the tethered music on the planet? That’s pointless gluttony and nothing more.
Well, it’s cheaper than buying 300 disks I like.
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12.02.05
Posted in Technology at 4:02 pm by wfrantz
I had a disagreement with Russ Beattie and Jim Hughes a while back about camera-phones. It went something like this:
William: Camera phones are a solution looking for a problem. Camera phones are like sofa beds. They aren’t very good beds or sofas. They just take up less space. I’d rather have a seperate camera, PDA, and phone; each optimized for their primary task. The other problem is security. Many companies are banning camera phones yet it’s becoming impossible to buy a high-end phone without a camera! The carriers are going back to the OEMs and asking them to remove the cameras from some business oriented phones! My wife has a Treo 600 PDA/camera/phone. The phone has lousy reception, the camera takes lo-res pictures, and the PDA is slow with a tiny display. My T608 gets great reception. My iPAQ 1945 is fast with a beautiful display. My Canon SD110 is 3.2 Megapixel. I can take photos on my Cannon, drop the card in my iPAQ, and e-mail them through my bluetooth T608. All the devices are pocket sized and far better than any converged device I’ve seen.
Jim:… sure your phone, pda and camera are all pocket sized. But, that’s three devices, three pockets. A smartphone with camera does all this (and more) whilst filling just one pocket.
The three step process to shuffle your pictures from device to device might be technically possible, but that’s a pretty tedious process for a bunch of quick snaps.
William: A smartphone cannot do more than I can do with my separate camera, PDA, and phone. I believe it does significantly less. In particular it’s not a very capable camera, PDA, or phone! Maybe it’s “good enough” at those functions to satisfy most people. Maybe I’m just a “power user” that expects more. A bagel only takes up one pocket but I wouldn’t use it to take pictures either.
It’s not all that difficult to shuffle pictures from device to device. If my camera had Bluetooth then I would barely even realize the shuffling was taking place. The most tedious step right now is moving the memory card from the camera to the PDA. After that everything is pretty similar to sending photos from my Treo. In less than 20 seconds, I pick a recipient, add a note, attach the photo and hit “Send”. With Bluetooth I don’t even have to take my phone out of my pocket. Some custom PocketPC software could make it even quicker.
I believe connectivity (ala. Bluetooth) is far more valuable than convergence.
I decided to come back now and revisit the issue.
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09.21.05
Posted in Technology at 10:13 am by wfrantz
Bill Humpries at A List Apart wrote a short article on using mod_rewrite to create nice URLs. This is some highly useful information. You can see how I use the technique at this site to change ugly URLs like http://www.williamfrantz.com/bin/wp/index.php?article=50 into pretty URLs like http://williamfrantz.com/wp/61.
Of course my .htaccess file is pretty ugly and I don’t understand half the regular expressions and RewriteRules in there, but it works nicely.
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