Business News Holding

Tag: high-def

  • Netflix Beats Blu-ray Target – Hopes High For 2009


    Netflix has reached its target of 500,000 Blu-ray subscribers ahead of schedule.

    The retailer’s chief financial officer Barry McCarthy said subscribers had added the option of paying an extra USD $1 to receive Blu-ray Disc titles at a quicker rate than Netflix forecast in October.

    While prices of Blu-ray players have dropped sharply recently, the same has not been true of disc prices. This may have benefitted Netflix’s HD rental service as new Blu-ray player owners look to rent moviest rather than buy them.

    Netflix expects the Blu-ray service to help boost total subscribers to about 9 million by the end of the year.

    To continue its high-def push, Netflix will promote Blu-ray inside its mailing envelopes next year.

    As well as providing the Blu-ray option, the company has boosted subscribers by offering its listing of over 12,000 video-streaming titles available for TV viewing through TiVo digital video recorders.

    Last week, Netflix also began offering an HD download service on two Samsung Blu-ray players.

  • Japan Grasps Blu-ray – US Starts To Get Taste


    Blu-ray players bucked generally weak Black Friday sales in the US – helped considerably by average prices dropping to USD $200, according to DisplaySearch.

    Stripping out sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3, the researchers report that US Blu-ray Disc player revenue "more than tripled from a year earlier" during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday .

    Over USD $30 million was generated on sales of 147,000 Blu-ray decks.

    With Sony and Samsung leading the charge by dropping the price of their entry-level machines to below USD $200, overall costs averaged half the $400 price tag of a year ago.

    Coupled with the strong BD player sales, retailers have been reporting sales of HDTVs have been similarly buoyant despite the economic difficulties.

    If the US – finally – appears to be on the cusp of grasping Blu-ray, take a look at the Japanese market.

    BD recorders now account for half of all DVD recorders in the country – up from just 10 per cent last October.

    Even if this phenomenal rise is down to price drops it must still make for cheery year-end reading for the Blu-ray Disc Association.

    Now maybe it can turn its attention to the price of Blu-ray Disc prices.

    While the release of The Dark Knight is expected to boost the high-def format’s disc sales, the general perception is that the movie studios need to cut prices to ensure Blu-ray really does take off.

  • YouTube Offers Widescreen HD Videos


    YouTube has finally moved to a default widescreen player with an HD-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio.

    Perhaps not coincidentally, the announcement follows the video sharing giant’s recent decision to start hosting full-length Hollywood movies.

    Not that anyone will be complaining.

    YouTube has long lagged behind competitors such as Vimeo and Blip.tv.

    They have offered HD and widescreen players for some time now – but they don’t have the audience figures of YouTube.

    So this certainly opens up the options for video fans that steadfastly refused to compromise on quality by submitting to YouTube.

    A YouTube spokesman said that by expanding the page width to 960 pixels the new, wider player would provide viewers with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience.

    The change does mean that since the majority of videos on the site were uploaded as 4:3, they will now appear with black bars on the sides.

    Quite why YouTube hasn’t either given users the option to select a player depending on aspect ratio or, better still, to auto-detect it, is anyone’s guess.

  • The Future Of HD VoIP Is Video


    HD VoIP is rapidly gaining followers but the possibilities for excellent sound quality aren’t its only benefits.

    Jeffery Rodman, Polycom co-founder and CTO of the Voice Division, believes that video will quickly become a "must-have" feature of HD voice technology.

    In an interview on HD VoIP with smithonvoip he said the proliferation of HD calling was being driven by people’s need to communicate effectively.

    But as it became more mainstream the benefits of adding video to the mix would become glaringly apparent.

    "Because it’s an IP network, video is coming sooner than anyone thinks," he said.

    "It’s interesting how that works; seems like video might just be a frill, but when you actually see and use it, there’s a part of you that leaps forward and thinks ‘that’s what I’ve been missing’.”

    Rodman said virtually everything listened to today, from FM radio and CD’s, to television and even oven timers, is already wideband audio.

    The phone – a critical tool in business – had become the last holdout of poor audio.

    He said once people heard about HD Voice, they discover that it’s a simple, robust, and economical enhancement of the system they already have.

    "More and more VoIP telephones are including HD Voice in their basic function sets because it adds value and helps efficiency without significantly affecting cost," he said.

  • Blu-Ray Takes On Pirates And Old HD Rival In China


    Blu-Ray discs will go on sale in China for the first time today – officially that is.

    While it’s been possible to buy dubious pirated version of the high-def format for some time, today marks the start of what is expected to be a major push by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment into the vast Chinese market.

    Discs will be priced in the region of RMB200 (USD $30) and will be available online and in-store.

    The initial movie offering isn’t extensive – just 30 titles will be available – including Hancock, the recent Spiderman movies and classics including Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

    To coincide with the introduction of the discs, Sony is also launching its BDP-S350 Blu-ray player into the Chinese market.

    It’s an environment where rampant piracy of high-definition discs, among other things, is already an issue.

    Authorities in China recently seized over 800 illegally pirated Blu-ray titles. The discs contained movies ripped from Blu-ray to DVD using AVCHD compression.

    The fakes, seized in Shenzhen, were packaged in realistic-looking Blu-ray boxes, complete with authenticating holograms.

    The bust has highlighted flaws in the robust copy-protection that Blu-ray is supposed to have, although the Motion Picture Association International said this was the first ever seizure of this type of disc.

    Sony Pictures is the first Hollywood studios to release films on the high definition format in China but both Warner Brothers and Disney are in talks with local replicators and distributors in order to release their Blu-ray titles in the country as well.

    But pirates aren’t the only opposition Blu-ray is likely to face.

    Production of China’s self-developed high-definition optical disc format – China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) – is expected to begin production before the end of the year.

    Shanghai United Optical Disc has completed its first production line for the modified version of the Toshiba-supported HD DVD format that lost out to Blu-ray.

    But with no Hollywood studios on board, it faces an uphill battle with (at least) three studios now preparing Blu-ray releases in China.

  • Flip Launches HD Version Of Mino Camcorder


    The incredibly popular Flip camcorder is going high def with the launch of the MinoHD.

    Flip makers Pure Digital says its new baby is the the world’s smallest HD camcorder – and at a mere 3oz it’s hard to disagree.

    Intended to make capturing and sharing HD video easy and affordable the MinoHD records up to 60 minutes of HD video and features Flip Video’s new FlipShare software, also announced today.

    This on-board software platform allows consumers to plug the camcorder’s signature flip-out USB arm into any computer for easy drag-and-drop video organizing, editing and sharing on YouTube, MySpace, AOL Video or via email.

    Priced at USD $230, the Mino HD is USD $50 more than the standard-def version. It will initially only be available in the US.

    Pure Digital has sold some 1.5 million of its simple-to-use digital camcorders since last year, helping revenues to grow by 44,667 per cent over the past five years.

    Unsurprisingly, this has made it the number one best-selling camcorder in the US, according to the latest rankings from leading market research firm the NPD Group.

    One difficulty is that sharing video in HD is difficult because sites like YouTube and MySpace still don’t play HD clips.

    That must surely change soon – or there will be great opportunities for Vimeo’s hi-def video sharing service to grab a large market share.

    Flip MinoHD Features:

    • Weight: 3.3 oz.
    • Resolution: HD 720p
    • 4 GB of internal memory to record up to 60 minutes of HD video
    • 1.5 inch anti-glare LCD display
    • Internal, lithium ion battery recharges when USB arm is connected to computer
    • One-touch recording with 2x digital zoom
    • Touch-sensitive buttons for recording, playback, fast forward, rewind, pause and delete
    • FlipShare software:

    -On-board application installs directly when connected to any PC or Mac
    -Drag-and-drop interface for easy browsing, playback, organizing and video archiving
    -Integrated online video publishing to YouTube, MySpace, and AOL Video
    -Free, unlimited private emailing of videos and video greeting cards
    -Custom movie editing, with the option to use your own music and add titles/credits
    -Capture still photos from any standard or high definition video
    -Order DVDs online and have them shipped anywhere in the world
    -TV connection for instant viewing (cable included)
    -Tripod Mount

  • Boinx Launches Mac-based Live Recording Studio


    Boinx Software has launched a new tool for video podcasters that turns a Mac into a live video recording studio.

    Called BoinxTV, it’s an audiovisual mixing application that allows one person to edit high quality recordings live.

    Aimed at video podcasters or for providing coverage of events, it works with up to three cameras and allows for on-the-fly camera switching, transitions, lower thirds, graphics, logos, crawlers, graphs, title, and so on.

    Created jointly with The Coding Monkeys, the beauty of BoinxTV for video podcasters is that once filming is finished they have a QuickTime movie that requires no post production.

    Oliver Breidenbach, CEO and co-founder of Boinx Software, said the application was going to give more people access to high quality production software that allowed them to create video content.

    He told hdtv-biz-news BoinxTV was a "game changer" because it made it easy to create professional ‘TV style’ recordings – at an affordable price.

    "It’s going to be much more fun and much more appealing to do videos on a regular basis," he said. "But the price is also making this technology available to a much broader audience than before.

    "We are not going to replace the million dollar equipment used in the broadcasting industry but BoinxTV gives people the ability to make professional-looking shows."

    Breidenbach said they had already received very positive feedback from professionals in the US that provided local content to affiliate TV stations.

    He said Boinx’s software meant, for example, a football game could be coverered using three cameras and edited live from the stadium using a MacBook Pro rather than undergoing a lengthy post-match production process.

    Breidenbach said HD content was an important aspect of BoinxTV and there was no limit to the resolution that could be used in projects.

    However, he said there were still streaming and bandwidth issues to be resolved.

    "My feeling is that many people are looking at HD but no-one really knows where it is going," he said.

    "At the moment they are perfectly content with lower resolution, that is 720p, which is still thought of as advanced.

    "HD is very important for us as a future direction but we made a decision that we did not want to delay shipping BoinxTV.

    "In the meantime, we will keep working on whatever we can do to optimise the code."

    Another HD issue was hardware limitations but that required action from Apple.

    "I would expect improvements to the operating system will help in that direction as well," said Breidenbach.

    "In about 6-9 months we will be able to do full HD and ultimately there will be even higher resolution."

    Another future upgrade to BoinxTV will be live streaming, a feature that Breidenbach said was already possible but not in the most convenient form.

    Currently, it is possible to stream content live using an encoding box or using software.

    "In the future we will provide live streaming from the application," he said. "For now we provide a live streaming solution that’s workable but not very convenient."

    BoinxTV can be downloaded at boinx.com/download for USD $499.

    The BoinxTV Sponsored Edition costs USD $199 (single license) and requires a credit for BoinxTV in every video created with BoinxTV.

  • AudioCodes Announces HD VoIP Strategy


    AudioCodes has launched new high definition VoIP technology – VoIPerfectHD – that it believes delivers higher voice clarity, better intelligibility and richer sound.

    The company says that it also significantly improves a user’s experience by doubling the audible voice spectrum.

    It expects the introduction of HD VoIP to extend its reach to both enterprises and service providers, allowing entry into new market segments which will benefit from enhanced clarity and better speech intelligibility.

    Among key segments expected to benefit from this new introduction are banks, government, military, health, telemedicine and education.

    AudioCodes’ HD VoIP is designed to enable enterprises to improve worker collaboration resulting in higher productivity and enhanced customer service quality.

    Service providers are expected to benefit from differentiating their VoIP offering and services by increasing call length and having a higher Average Revenue per User.

    In addition, application providers and ISVs are capable of effortlessly enhancing their solutions in order to meet stringent voice quality standards.

    AudioCodes plans to embed HD VoIP across its product portfolio throughout 2009.

    AudioCodes says its new product is aimed at what it believes is VoIP’s general failed to deliver ‘better-than-PSTN’ quality mainly due to its 3.4 kHz bandwidth limitation connected with the use of legacy narrowband speech codecs in VoIP networks.

    A statement from the company said that, with the advent and growing spread of IP broadband networks, wideband speech codecs which encode 7.1 kHz of the voice spectrum can now be effectively deployed to double the bandwidth and improve everyday voice communication quality to a level similar to that of conference room quality and/or FM radio.

    "AudioCodes has been working over the past few years and increasingly in 2008 to implement a group of standards-based wideband speech codecs including G.722, AMR-WB, Microsoft RTAudio and others for use in wireline, wireless, cable, enterprise and internet applications with the goal of leading the transition towards increased use of HD VoIP in evolving voice communication networks," the statement said.

    AudioCodes VoIPerfectHD implementation of HD VoIP relies primarily on AudioCodes leadership in DSP, voice coding and voice processing technologies, and their application to VoIP communications and conferencing.

    It implementation as a unified infrastructure for all AudioCodes’ products allows the offering of HD VoIP capabilities and benefits across all of its products ranging from Multi-Service Business Gateways, Media Servers, Media Gateways and DSP chips to IP Phones.

  • HD Option A Big Hit For MyToons

    MyToons only launched its high definition channel a few months ago but already it’s attracting attention from several major TV and film studios.
    Paul Ford, president of the animation website, spoke to HDTV.biz-news.com about the burgeoning HD animation community and the challenges of offering high def cartoons on the internet.

    It’s one thing to stick a home-movie onto YouTube, quite another to create animation in high definition.

    Yet just a few months after launching its HD channel the cutting-edge animation site MyToons has become the leading showcase for high def cartoons.

    Paul Ford, MyToons’ president, said the number of HD uploads was growing rapidly and he expected that to continue as increasing numbers of animators presented their work.

    He described the quality and detail of the HD creations as mind-blowing.

    "People are taking to HD like mad," he said. "It’s been very well-received by both the animators and the fans. In fact, we’ve had calls from several major TV and film studios looking to licence the technology."

    Making animations in HD presents its own challenges

    Ford said there was a big difference between making online user-created video and animated content.

    He said creating YouTube-style content – with a handy cam or camcorder – was not really that difficult to do.

    "You think up a story or a bit, run around and shoot some stuff, maybe edit it in a consumer editor like Movie Maker or iMovie, and you’re done," he said.

    But Ford believed creating animated content, on any level, was much more difficult.

    "To create animation – and I mean any kind of animation, generally – there is far more thought, and far more preparation and planning involved," he said.

    "Usually the story comes first, and that takes time to develop. Next are the dialogue and music tracks, story boards and possibly animatics (animated storyboards).
    "Finally, after a lot more work creating the final piece, you are done."

    Ford said in between was many hours of tedious work drawing in 2D, modelling in 3D, creating backgrounds and props and crafting each frame of each scene.

    "This art does take a good amount of time to create. Much longer than user-created video, for sure," he said. "Creating animation in HD really takes things up yet another notch.

    "Not only does the animator need to think about and do all of the stuff I’ve already discussed, they need computers with the horse power to do it at HD resolution. This means long render times and huge files."

    Technology Delivers Online Cartoons

    Ford described the MyToons HD player technology as "second to none", adding that it wasn’t necessary to download a proprietary player as was the case with some of the non-animation HD video sites.

    But to get to the stage of being able to stream HD via the internet MyToons first had to do some "very, very tricky things".

    "Our HD is not progressive. In other words, a person is not downloading the file first, or a portion of it, and then able to view the file," he said.

    "MyToons HD is more like real television. You hit play, and it starts right up. Our player is able to read the HD data in realtime, giving the viewer that ‘instant-on’ experience they are used to."

    Based in San Antonio, Texas, MyToons was established in 2006 as an online resource and entertainment destination for professional animators, students, artists and animation fans.

    The attraction for animators or creators of having their work on MyToons is that it offers them a robust and reliable distribution platform at the quality level they expect, according to Ford.

    "Animators are finicky when it comes to quality," he said. "That’s why many, many animators I talk to regularly simply won’t put their stuff up on places like YouTube.

    "That work is usually so personal and so carefully crafted-to-perfection – it’s really seen by the creator as a direct reflection, of sorts, of themselves – and usually a labor of love.

    "Giving animators everywhere the ability to have their work experienced as they intended and envisioned is very powerful stuff."

    HD Audience Growing

    In August, MyToons announced a global partnership to bring its animated content to Vuze’s 30 million member worldwide audience.

    Setting up such partner channels was a means of giving independent animators even greater reach and more exposure.

    "We will continue with these partnerships because they are good for our members, and we always put the animator first – what’s good for them, is good for MyToons," said Ford.

    "We think that these channels add to MyToons, and don’t take away from it. We find many people coming directly from those channels to MyToons-proper to get more of the good stuff."

  • Picture Quality Not Price Driving Purchase of HDTVs


    Fifty per cent of US HDTV owners bought their HDTV sets because of the superior quality of picture and video on high def programming.

    This improvement over standard definition – and not significant price drops – was the most influential factor in their purchase decision, according to a survey by PriceGrabber.com.

    The consumer survey notes that the popularity of HDTVs has grown significantly over the past two years.

    So much so that fifty-seven per cent of US consumers own an HDTV, compared with only 30 per cent in August 2006.

    Today, LCD TV is the preferred HDTV, with 57 per cent owning one.

    And despite economic uncertainties, 73 per cent of online shoppers who do not currently own an HDTV indicate they plan to purchase a set within the next 12 months.

    While price may not be given as the determining factor in a purchase decision, HDTV sales tags have been falling.

    Over the last two years, the average price for LCD and plasma HDTVs has dropped 13 per cent, while the average price for projection (DLP, LCoS) HDTVs has fallen 27 per cent.