May 2015

Industry
• Internet Customers Surpass Cable Subscribers at Comcast: 'At the end of the first quarter, Comcast counted 22.375 million video customers and 22.369 million high-speed Internet customers.' However, video is still much more profitable: ' Video revenue was $5.3 billion for the quarter, compared with $3 billion for high-speed Internet.'
• Verizon Will Acquire AOL for $4.4B, Mobile Video a Central Reason: 'Advertising is central to the deal, as Verizon and AOL will combine to create a scaled, mobile-first platform for ads, Verizon reports. AOL brands include The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, Makers, and AOL.com.'akers, and AOL.com.'
• Ofcom (UK media regulator) report on audience attitudes to the broadcast media
  • Four in ten adult viewers feel there is ‘too much’ violence and ‘too much’ swearing on television, while three in ten feel there is ‘too much’ sex. 
  • Forty-four per cent of UK adults have used connected TV at home in the past 12 months … Broadcaster catch-up services are the most commonly viewed connected TV content. 
  • Almost a fifth of UK adults have used other broadband-connected devices to watch TV live as it is broadcast in the past 12 months, while 29% have used it to watch broadcaster catch-up services.
  • 54% of UK households have a tablet device, 11% of 3–4-year-olds have their own
• Cisco Visual Networking Index: IP video traffic will be 80 percent of all IP traffic (both business and consumer) by 2019
• Deloitte Digital Democracy Survey
U.S. consumers age 14-and-older spend only 45 percent of their TV viewing time watching live programming. For younger millennials (age 14 to 25) that number is 28 percent. That same group spends almost 60 percent of its viewing time watching content on computers, tablets, or smartphones.
• Spotify short-form video and podcasts for US, UK, Germany and Sweden – deals with Comedy Central, ESPN, Adult Swim, BBC and NBC.

Codecs, compression, containers
• 60fps Live Streaming on YouTube in HTML5: 720p60 and 1080p60, 30fps on devices where high frame rate viewing is not yet available.
• Bigasoft Total Video Converter: convert VP9 WebM to MP4, AVI, WMV, ASF, VOB, MOV, FLV, SWF, MKV, RM, WTV, MXF, MVI, F4V, Apple ProRes and other formats – and vice versa.
• Allegro DVT adds VP9 support to its multi-format hardware encoder IP
Marvell Introduces ARMADA 1500 Ultra SoC for 4K STB with Viviane GC7000XS GPU

Audio
• Synthesising Drum Sounds with the Web Audio API: detailed article by Chris Lowis, WG invited expert.
• Intent to implement: per-tab audio focus on Android.

EME
• Firefox 38 support for DRM with Adobe Primetime: Windows 32-bit Firefox only, Vista and above. This the fourth major browser to launch EME (with the fourth DRM system) and the second to launch an unprefixed implementation of the latest version of the spec. Commentary: The Register.

WebRTC
• Facebook Messenger likes WebRTC: Wireshark analysis shows use of webrtc.org libraries, audio codec depends on platform and peer (Opus, iSAC or iSAC LC); VP8 used on Web, iOS and Android.
• Streaming file transfer over WebTorrent
• getUserMedia() now in Microsoft Edge
• Viber for Chrome OS
• Periscope for Android: Periscope for Android: 'I was streaming for about 11 minutes on 4G and I used up in the blink of an eye 250MB'.
• WebRTC could make a better Periscope: it's the latency, maaan...

Web Audio 
• Practical Web Audio: ' you should be considering audio when designing your web application user interface'.
• Web Audio for Microsoft Edge

And finally... 
• Mayweather-Pacquiao fight: box office took $74m on 15,000 tickets, total earnings (just from the event) >$400m, but Periscope and Meerkat may have scuppered pay-per-view.
• Facebook Instant Articles: fast-loading autoplay video.
• Snapchat is 75% of Vodafone UK messaging app traffic
• ITU report on global ICT
  • 3.2 billion online (2 billion in developing world)
  • Broadband affordable (less than 5% GNI) in 111 countries
  • 69% 3G coverage
  • 7 billion mobile device subscriptions
• fallen.io/ww2: interactive WebGL infographics synchronised with media playback.

No comments :