Long Story Short

Last time we looked at making your HTML5 video degrade to a flash player.  This post will look at how to default to the flash player and fall back to links to the HTML5 video for the smaller segment that do not have flash enabled on their browser or are viewing on their iPhone or iPad.  All I did was convert my source video to flash (FLV), H.264 (MP4), and Ogg (OGV).  I set up my flash player to run as usual, but instead of giving those without flash a link to get flash, I give them two links.  One will let the Safari and Chrome crowd, including those with hand-held devices, watch the MP4 file in the HTML5 player (or to download it).  The other link lets the Firefox, Opera, and Chrome crowd watch the OGV file in situ (or to download it).
Continue reading FLASH FIRST?

Distributing a video product can be very simple. I just shoot a video with my iPhone. Touch the share button. Touch the ‘Send to YouTube’ button and I’m done.

But if one wishes to produce a regular video program or include video elements in one’s web page or blog then distribute it to the general public things start to get a little more tricky. My wife has a Droid Eris which runs on Android. You may have an old version of Internet Explorer. (Please tell me you don’t.) Some of you have Macs which choke on about 75% of the web’s videos because they are in Flash. On top of everything else, like the iPhone, the new iPad won’t be able to handle Flash at all. We could choose to curse the darkness (you fill in who you would blame), but it is dark so we need to light a candle if our web media is going to continue to be relevant into the future.

In addition to the variety of operating systems or hardware one might have, there are many different browsers one might use. Oh, and there is a change in the HTML standard with regard to video coming down the pike as well. In anticipation, HTML5 has already been implemented in some form or another in most contemporary browsers.

Continue reading Is Your Blog iPad Ready?

At the XBMC site they have posted:

“Next up is the merge from the addons branch, the underpinning of the new addons manager (go figure) as well as the basis for the PVR frontend branch. Once finished, though still a ways out, this will add the capability of extending XBMC from the couch. No need to ssh/ftp into your box to add skins, scrapers, plugins, PVR Backends, etc.”

If they can do for the PVR frontend what they have done for my downloaded TV shows and movies I will be so psyched.  Way to go team.

via Impending Merge: Addons | XBMC.

Read this humming “Islands in the Stream” sung by Kenny and Dolly, cause that’s how I’m writing it.  Over at Lifehacker, they’re putting on another one of their “Hive Five” posts where their readers pick the best five of something and this time it is all about streaming music.  The main theme of streaming music is based on the “sounds like” principal.  The three top services all feature the ability to play music that sounds like a song or artist the user provides to seed that channel.

Pandora is where I started  my streaming music experience and I still use it frequently both on the computer and on the iPhone.  The computer interface is very straightforward and provides a lot of information about the artist, album, and song and easy links to purchase the music that is playing.  In fact, while setting up to get a screen shot I heard an album I liked and bought it.  The iPhone app is also somewhat spartan with a small ribbon of an advertisement displaying below the album cover.

Matt told me about last.fm a couple of years ago(?) and I added that to streaming services but set it up to play different types of music than Pandora.  A feature that I like is that I can “scrobble” what I’m playing in my own collection and that makes those songs available to me through last.fm.  It also adds a social element which doesn’t add a lot of value for someone like myself but is important to a lot of folks.  For example, it offers the option to listen to what other people who like the same artists I do are listening to.  When playing music there are no ads on the iPhone app but a simple ribbon in the corner notifying you that the artist is in concert.

Slacker radio seems comparable to Pandora and has the best looking now playing screen on the iPhone app.  There are no ads.

Grooveshark and lala are worth a look if you want precise control over your streaming playlist or you want portability of a precise playlist.  That is important to some folks.

I’ve lived a lot of places in the U.S. and have favorite radio stations from all of them.  That is why I’m also adding RadioTime and its WunderRadio iPhone app to this list.  I can listen to radio from Raleigh to Pittsburgh to So Cal to Hawaii.  Just close my eyes and I’ve traveled to some place that I love.  (Not advised while streaming music and driving, however.)  There’s my two cents.  Can’t wait to see what the Lifehacker community comes up with.

screenshots after the break
Continue reading Music in the Stream

Maybe my wife hates me.  Maybe she hated hearing me boast about how my iPhone has this app or that one.  Maybe she got tired of hearing me say, “Oh, let me tell you the answer to your question” as I Googled the topics at parties.  (Oh, yeah, I’m definitely the geekiest guy there.)   So she took her perfectly good LG enV3 and washed it in the washing machine.  Then she went out and bought the phone I would have bought if I didn’t have this AT&T contract around my neck.  She bought the Droid Eris.

Now,  she is the one spouting off about how the house we just passed is selling for X-dollars (HotPads) or she just got an email from one of our kids while I’m driving us to church.  And, unlike my iPhone, she can watch internet TV streaming from TV.com or from NBC.com.  Even Apple’s computers choke on flash video according to Steve Jobs, who says it is one of the main reasons that his company’s computers crash.  But, that is only about 75% of internet video so it’s no big deal.

Continue reading Droid Eris, Quit Smirking at Me

It has been a year since I started this blog.  In January of 2009 I had 80 visitors.  In January of 2010 I had over 4,000 visitors.  My videos have been watched over 24,000 times.  Peanuts compared to sponsored sites like Lifehacker or Engadget, but very gratifying indeed.  I hope that you the readers-viewers have been helped and look forward to what year two might bring.  Maybe it is silly to be excited by these numbers, but I am.  And I wanted to thank you for visiting and hope you will take the time to subscribe and actively comment on the topics of interest to you.

Coming soon | XBMC.  Way down at the bottom of this news release is something that could be a game changer.   Two criticisms I have had of XBMC are 1) lack of A Boxee-style internet TV interface and, 2) it doesn’t play nicely with TV tuners.  It sounds like at least one of those needs may be addressed.

They state:  “PVR Frontend: Probably the most requested feature for XBMC. This will provide a unified experience to your choice of PVR backends such as: VDR, MythTV, Tvheadend, and MediaPortal TVserver.”

This would potentially bring live (and recorded) TV to the most beautiful media center out there.

With the right addons, the new Addons Manager might address my other criticism, but we’ll just have to wait and see.   Please let there be a Clicker plug-in that out Hulu-desktops Hulu Desktop, okay?

I’m excited to see the XBMC team moving forward because when it comes to handling local video files as well as scraping and editing metadata (the source of all those beautifully presented extras like fanart and synopses), nobody does it better.

I think I hear my Windows Media Center’s knees knocking together, but I can’t wait for the shoot-out.

Boxee Blog » Boxee responds to NBC’s Jeff Zucker.  In case you haven’t heard, the reason Hulu-NBC has been messing around with Boxee’s access is because their CEO, Jeff Zucker,  is a schmuck surrounded by lawyers and kiss ups who are also schmucks.  Since when is watching Hulu through a specific browser illegal?  As mentioned in my previous post, I routinely watch Fox shows on Hulu via Boxee.  I see all the Hulu ads when I do it, also.  Hulu provides a great service, but they’re really leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

The irony is that if I watch Hulu on my browser – the ads are blocked by my add-on, Adblock Plus.  So, if you’re paying for an advertisement on Hulu and Hulu is blocking the best media center interface (your chance for your ad to appear on the big screen) you are losing lots of eyes on your product.  Seems to me that if anyone should be paying anyone it should be Zucker paying Avner for giving Hulu ads greater visibility.

Where do corporations find these guys?  Anyone on my block would have more sense than this.  (Okay, there might be one or two people on my block that wouldn’t.)  Avner, out of curiousity, have you thought about asking Conan to invest in Boxee?

Of the twenty-five series currently scheduled to record on my DVR, only two of them are NBC.  None of my stocks are NBC.

Streaming television is a wonderful thing. When the DVR’s electronic program guide (EPG) is thrown off by a football game, you haven’t missed the show. Can’t afford the internet and cable TV? You haven’t missed the show (unless it’s The Mentalist). You can watch it online. I use them all: Hulu, Hulu Desktop, Clicker, TV Guide DVR, TV.com, FindInternetTV, and so on. I like Clicker the best. What I don’t like is leaving the media center-style 10 foot interface. I tried the alpha Boxee and found its merits outweighed by its shortcomings. But a new release deserves another chance, right? Good news. Boxee Beta is much easier to navigate. And the one area where every other media center comes up short, streaming TV shows, is where Boxee really shines. Watch the video after the break, to see what I mean.

Continue reading Boxee – TV Streamed the Right Way

If you are anything like me, when you hit Google reader this morning, most of the posts were about Jobs’ new iPad Kindle Killer.    Yes, I love my iPhone (sorry AT&T none of that bleeds over to you).  But I am not an Apple worshipper or hater.  I guess you could say I am an Apple agnostic who avoids the endless forum Apple versus PC debates .  As a gadget freak I have been watching the pre-release hype quite closely and was anxious to see this magical and revolutionary product.  Well, I haven’t seen one so I’m only addressing specs not experience.  (Hence “speaking from ignorance.”)

My first impression is pretty much in line with my previous posts about iTunes.  The iPad is great for those who wish to shop only at the company store.   Publishers are excited about being able to charge more than the $9.99 they get from Amazon according to the interview I heard on NPR this morning.  Are you excited about paying more?  You’ll pay twice as much for the iPad versus the Kindle to get color ebooks, a larger screen, and more interactivity.  Of course, that interactivity will be crippled by the lack of flash support.

Can a device be magical and revolutionary but not even support USB or SD cards?  For crying out loud, even Sony finally gave up and started moving to SD cards because they are the people’s choice.  Continue reading Speaking from Ignorance – Kindle Killer?