Wait a second! Web videos... without Adobe Flash plug-in?
Firefox 3.5, which is now a very stable beta, is faster than earlier versions, and most importantly, it embraces open-source video standards and treats videos like web pages (you can’t do any of that with Flash). If this takes off, Flash video could become history.
Built into the Firefox 3.5 browser is a video player based on the open-source video formats Ogg Vorbis and Theora. The video player supports HTML5, which means that links and other interactive elements can easily be placed inside videos. Ogg Vorbis format makes video programmable.
Videos today are still for the most part siloed off from the rest of the Web in their Flash players as a separate experience. Same expert proclaim that “it is time to break down those walls.”
Already, DailyMotion offers videos in the Ogg Theora format. Its platform is located at openvideo.dailymotion.com.
These new encoding formats, supported by the Mozilla foundation, are Ogg, Theora + Vorbis. They’re not yet as good as other common codecs such as H264, ON2 VP6, but there are free to use, and the quality is improving.
The demo page can be found here (but the effects only work if you are looking at it in Firefox 3.5)
“Being able to treat the content inside videos like Web pages opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Web video, ” experts say.
The New iPhone 3GS Will Enable Video Capture and Upload To YouTube
June 19 will be on the sale the new iPhone 3GS (starting at $199). This device will finally enable video capture (something that had only been available by “jailbreaking”), using for that its 3-megapixel autofocus camera. Video-specific tools include touch editing, timeline view, and sharing directly from the phone to email, MMS on supporting carriers, YouTube and MobileMe.
Old 3G iPhones won’t get a software upgrade to enable video. Application developers will also have access to video capture.
Apple also announced in the same San Francisco developers conference an innovative HTTP adaptive bitrate streaming for both the desktop and iPhone. Streaming video will pick the right bitrate and go through firewalls because it’s over HTTP.
People now will be able to rent and purchase movies, TV shows and audiobooks from the iPhone.
Qik’s Live-Streaming Software Will Be Pre-Loaded on Nokia N97 Phone
Qik’s live, mobile video-streaming software will be pre-loaded onto all of Nokia’s Symbian S60 handsets, starting with the N97. See a sample here.
This live-streams will be shareable to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.
This Qik’s live-streaming software had already been featured on Nokia’s Ovi App Store.
Big mobile players are jumping avidly in the capturing and sharing video business.
Apple has unveiled its new video-enabled 3G iPhone, and Google Android has added this feature too.
A Logical Extension of the Web into the Cable VOD
Cable VOD (Video-on-demand) is becoming more Web like, adding Internet-like capabilities, such as search tools, playlists, and new storage systems to centrally keep the videos and then distributing them via fiber interconnections to edge devices.
Advanced server side search technology is being developed to navigate through ten of thousand of titles. The industry also wants to add a kind of “recommendation engines”, to boost sales in Amazon and Netfilx, among other vendors.
Playlists may be linked between smart phones and the set-top devices in the home. The goal is to provide a personalized experience for individual users, developing two-way network.
Cisco Says the Web of the Future Is All About Video
By 2013, 90 percent of web traffic will be video, from services like Hulu.com to video-on-demand via the local cable provider, predicts Cisco.
Cisco notes that video is slowly moving from being deliverd via broadcast and cable TV to being delivered as an IPTV service. People are also carrying around more video-capable devices, such as mobile phones that can also capture video –and once that video is captured, people are inclined to share it via the web.
Sorenson 360 Allows Web Video on the iPhone
Sorenson is now able to publish web video on the iPhone’s Web browser without any separate app. This technology, called Sorenson 360, uses H.264 codec.
“Sorenson 360 detects how your audience is trying to view your video and delivers an optimized playback experience for whatever device they have. One embed code is all you need,” this firm states.
There is a free 30-days trial. See the video here.
