Flash going high definition
August 21, 2007
More Adobe news. They’ve announced that they are going to bring in support for H.264, the video compression portion of the MPEG 4 standard.
A beta version of the Flash player codenamed Moviestar apparently, is available at the Adobe Labs here.
Great stuff! Being able to create HD for integration in websites is going to be huge, can’t wait to see YouTube vids of people falling over in high def!
YouTube copyright filtering insights
July 31, 2007
Some insights into the upcoming YouTube saving copyright filtering technology have been posted on the NY Times technology blog here. The text is a transcript from a session of the Viacom court case and is of one of Google’s lawyers trying to explain how the video signature fingerprinting technology will work.
It’s all as expected but makes for interesting reading.
Google comes clean on video copyright protection
June 15, 2007
Steve Chen (one of the founders of YouTube) has posted on the Google Blog to clear up the details of the video id (read copyright protection) software they are trialling.
He again confirms the use of Audible Magic for helping identify the audio content of music partners like Warner Music, Sony BMG, and Universal. And goes on to describe the video system as one that extracts key visual aspects of uploaded videos and compares that information against reference material provided by copyright holders.
His post is in response to the press and blog stories about the video technology.
YouTube to test copyright tech soon
June 12, 2007
Finally an announcement from YouTube that they will be testing video fingerprinting technology soon. This comes hot on the heels of their tests with Audible Magics audio identification software so it sounds like they may implement them both.
Apparently tests are going to begin with Time Warner and Walt Disney, so if they can get it right for these two media behemoths then hopefully that should satisfy the other media companies.
The technology should be available in approx a month for testing. I would imagine it’ll be rushed out as soon as they can to stop the incoming waves of lawsuits.
Advertisers being courted by YouTube with video ads
April 23, 2007
Google has created a new advert format for its YouTube video sharing website.
Google revealed on Friday that broadcasters and other content producers are working with Google on 30-second “pre-roll” ads to appear before content is viewed on YouTube.
The ads will start appearing next year, and revenue will be shared between YouTube and the broadcaster.
A Google spokesman said that 2008 will see “real money coming in” from video advertising.
Google getting into video conferencing? And profits soar…
April 20, 2007
Google has announced yet another purchase (when will they stop!), this time a they’ve bought the video conferencing software of a company called Marratech.
It’s not at all clear what their intention is with this tool, all they say is that it will allow Googlers (does that mean Google employees or users) to use from-the-desktop video conferencing whenever there’s an internet connection.
The smart money however is on this eventually becoming part of the online office suite. It could add a lot of value as a standalone browser based conferencing tool, but even more if integrated into the collaboration aspects of the new presentation tool and docs & spreadsheets!
On the same day, Google have announced another massive leap in profit and growth. In the past year they’ve had a 69% increase in profits, mostly down to their immense advertising revenue!!
YouTube copyright protection system coming soon
April 17, 2007
Apparently Google is very near to launching a filtering service that would prevent copyright content from being uploaded to YouTube, CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday.
The new system, which he called Claim Your Content, will automatically identify copyright material so that it can be removed. Judging from that it would seem copyright owners will have to go to YouTube to register and stake their claim to the content before it is removed, if I’m correct in that assertion that may not be enough for copyright owners.
Schmidt said that they are ‘very close’ to turning the functionality on…
Autonomy help big media take aim at YouTube…
April 5, 2007
Autonomy, the firm who make excellent search and data mining products have announced a new extension to their video search and management tool Virage. Virage Automatic Copyright Infringement Detection, or ACID for short, enables copyright owners such as broadcasters, production houses and publishers to maintain control of their Intellectual Property by automating the detection of illegal distribution of copyrighted material on the Internet.
Autonomy say: Using Autonomy’s unique Meaning-Based Computing, which includes patented image and audio analysis technology, and powered by the Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL), ACID offers a fast, accurate and scalable method of detecting breaches of copyright, wherever they are located and whatever format they are in. By automatically detecting any rich media that infringes an organization’s copyright, Virage ACID eliminates the need for content owners to spend hours trawling through video sharing websites, or manually scanning p2p file contents.
This is perfect for media owners, this will actually watch the video footage for you and report back on whether it breaches your copyright or not. I’d imagine it’s going to act as a software agent that you can send off to scour the web for video that may be in breach. Takes me back to the days of Autonomys’ search agents symbolised by the dog (long time ago).
A very timely release if you ask me, and it’s bound to get some take up with the current hype around video copyright. Autonomys’ technology is already in use by the video search engine Blinkx. Perhaps YouTube should get Autonomy onboard to help negate their own failure to provide copyright protection?
Googles response to Viacom
March 29, 2007
Google have replied to Viacoms lawsuit and their lawyers letter to the press with their own letter to the editor in the Washington Post. Glad to see they don’t labour the point and make valid comments regarding DMCA safe harbour.
Still doesn’t see them out of the woods I reckon, there will be many more lawsuits in the lifetime of YouTube and these things can have a habit of dragging on and dirtying reputations.
