nofilmschool » encoding

Opening Up 4K: Sony Expands Consumer 4K Market Compatibility with XAVC S

Dave Kendricken — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:24:36 +0000

Sony’s tight cluster of NAB 2013 4K-centric announcements featured some of the most affordably priced UHD TVs yet seen all the way over to the external recorder-enabled 4K shooting capabilities of its FS700. The latter announcement also made it clear that Sony is looking to put a wide variety of encoding and format options into the hands of shooters — and beyond, potentially. Aside from external and third-party recording expansion, Sony is opening up its efficient 4K XAVC codec — native to the F5 family — to the consumer as well as the prosumer. Read on for some details regarding these new ‘lite’ encoding/wrapper options, dubbed XAVC S. (more…)

H.265 is Now Officially Approved, is 4K Streaming and Broadcast Just Around the Corner?

Dave Kendricken — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 02:25:25 +0000

Technology’s progression sometimes moves with consistent momentum, and sometime comes in spurts. For instance, processors of mobile devices regularly decrease in size and price with relation to power — while, at the same time, the speed of your internet connection may not change much at all for several years, and make a great leap whenever it does. Both of these tendencies of advancement seem to inform High Efficiency Video Coding, A.K.A. H.265 — the successor to that other codec with which we’re all quite familiar (H.264). Improving efficiency by around double, H.265 aims to set the standard for the next decade in video streaming and encoding — and it’s going to ease mobile data congestion and likely make 4K a reality much sooner than many would have anticipated. (more…)

Vimeo Respects the Specs: Better Audio Quality Encoding, Frame Rate Guidelines Update

Dave Kendricken — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 03:40:02 +0000

There’s no doubt that things can get a bit confusing regarding non-integer frame rates — a decimal-specific frames-per-second count isn’t exactly an intuitive aspect of video. Of course, beginners can’t learn such distinctions if they’re going unspecified — a fact Vimeo has recently (and finally) addressed in updating their compression guidelines. Even more importantly, Vimeo is slowly but surely raising the quality ceiling in its encoding of your media — albeit in audio-only, in this case. (more…)

The Future of Encoding is Almost Here: HEVC (H.265) is Coming to 1 Billion Devices

Dave Kendricken — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 20:35:31 +0000

The advancements in lossy video encoding have been both consistent and amazing. H.264 (or AVC), that much maligned DSLR de-facto codec, sought to yield improved quality over its predecessors such as MPEG-2, all the while using half the bitrate, or lower, than such earlier codecs. Now, High Efficiency Video Coding or HEVC — likely to earn the alternate title H.265 — seeks to do the same compared to H.264, once more halving the bit rates necessary for equivalent, or even higher, quality. As it turns out, the tech world is already saturated with devices set to support HEVC playback. (more…)

Think Your Encoding Job is Tough? Every Netflix 'Watch Instantly' Video is Encoded over 100 Times

Dave Kendricken — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 02:47:59 +0000

Netflix is undeniably a bargain for consumers. The variety of content it features is immense, even though instant viewing choices fluctuate somewhat frustratingly — but don’t expect the average consumer to be understanding about the rather ugly licensing problems that cause this. It’s hard to argue with the price, despite Netflix’s problems. The removal of its native social component, splitting DVD/streaming subscriptions, its sensory overload/option paralysis layout, and its lame payouts to creators are all issues to take with the service. That said, anyone who appreciates the engineering behind modern content delivery can respect Netflix’s ease of viewing — possible via multi-device integration, and, more vitally, the number of encodings each video must undergo for that famous ‘instant view’ ability. (more…)