Tuesday, April 28, 2009

HD EXPO

HD EXPO is comming
http://www.hdexpo.net/june/

June 11, 2009 | Navy Pier | Chicago, IL
Hours: 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Online registration is FREE and includes all panels, keynotes, exhibit hall, roadshow product demos and Intensive Workshops.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Dilithium Promises Better Video Transmission

http://www.wirelessweek.com/article.aspx?id=168660

Dilithium Promises Better Video Transmission
By Monica Alleven
WirelessWeek - April 14, 2009

Dilithium is introducing the Dilithium Video Optimizer (DVO), which, the company says, reduces bandwidth for mobile video transmission by 50 percent without impeding video quality.

The DVO enables network planners to shape video traffic to accommodate more users and save on radio and core network expansions, Dilithium says. For Dilithium BlackBerryservice providers, they can use it to offer value-added services and charge customers for higher video bandwidth or make content display faster with less buffering.

Companies that offer mobile TV services, whether it be someone like MobiTV or MediaFLO, might be interested in the product, as well as wireless service providers, says Dilithium CEO Paul Zuber.

Dilithium is now focusing more on the Americas than it had previously. About 90 percent of its business comes from outside the United States, even though it’s now based in Petaluma, Calif. That’s because the company, founded in 2001, decided early on to follow 3G, and the U.S. market then wasn’t as far along as other parts of the world, he explains.

Today, the majority of Dilithium’s solutions are IP based, so they can run on any network, and with the iPhone educating users about services other than voice, demand is increasing for video and multimedia.

The company is not dependent on one product or geography, so that has helped in areas of the world that aren’t seeing high demand. In its last quarter, the company saw quarter bookings go up more than 450 percent.

While Dilithium is profitable and growing, it’s not necessarily prettying itself for sale anytime soon. “We always run the company as if we’re independent,” Zuber says. At some point down the line, the company could go public or combine with another, but for now, “we will continue to run it that way.”

In multimedia gateways, Dilithium has about 60 percent market share, with its main single competitor being Ericsson.

Free TV for cell phones and mobile devices

FROM : http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10223478-94.html

Free TV service could soon be coming to a cell phone near you.
Broadcasters announced Today Monday April 20th, at the NAB conference that a new pilot program is launching in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area that will allow people to watch free mobile digital television on cell phones and other mobile devices.
Local affiliate stations for CBS, NBC, PBS, Ion, and Fox will broadcast their programs beginning in late summer for mobile devices, which includes cell phones, laptops and car entertainment systems.
Broadcasters throughout the country are switching to all-digital transmission in June as part of a government mandate. And as part of the switch, some broadcasters will also broadcast their over-the-air TV signals on a digital sub-channel for mobile devices. The standard that will be used to transmit the signal is called ATSC Mobile DTV. And the hope is that consumer electronics makers, like cell phone manufacturers, will include the technology in their products so that they can receive the signals.
The trial in the Baltimore-Washington area is expected to kick off later this summer. But it's only the first step toward offering free mobile DTV. Broadcasters in 28 markets, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Atlanta, said they will be broadcasting their signals in mobile DTV.
The biggest hurdle for the new mobile TV service is building a viable ecosystem of products and services around the technology. For example, right now there are no devices that even support mobile DTV. But some companies have built prototypes. LG and Samsung have already been showing off mobile DTV handsets. Dell is showing off an Inspiron Mini10 Netbook PC with a built-in Mobile TV tuner at the NAB show. And other consumer electronics products have also been shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show and CTIA, both of which took place earlier this year.
But devices won't likely get into the hands of consumers, unless U.S. carriers subsidize and sell them. And that might be harder to achieve than actually building the devices. In the U.S., wireless operators control the cell phone market. They subsidize handsets and determine which features are available on which devices.
Today, three of the four major wireless operators already offer their own mobile TV services. AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon Wireless each sell TV packages for around $10 to $15 per month. These services include a mix of live TV as well as on-demand programming and specialized mobile-only content.
MobiTV, which supplies the back-end for many of these mobile TV services, says a hybrid approach is needed to get operators on board.
"The biggest problem with Mobile DTV is getting the ecosystem in place," said Kay Johansson, CTO of MobiTV. "Right now the service bypasses the carrier. And if there is nothing in it for them, there isn't an incentive for them to offer it."
On Monday, MobiTV announced that it's partnering with Sinclair and PBS to create a hybrid mobile TV service it is calling, MixTV. The MixTV business model combines free mobile DTV with a subscription based seven-day window of on-demand programming. MobiTV is demonstrating how this service would look at the NAB conference this week. The company is also showing off how a hybrid approach could allow broadcasters, mobile operators, and content providers more interactive and personal ways to advertise to consumers.
While MobiTV has grown its mobile TV viewership by at least 100 percent in the last year, the number of people subscribing to such services is still relatively small. At the end of 2008, MobiTV had about 6 million subscribers. But analysts predict that mobile TV market could grow to 50 million users in the next few years. Johansson believes that a hybrid service that offers free local TV shows with premium cable programming, on-demand programming, and made for mobile content will grow the market the fastest.
"I don't think you could reach the 50 million subscriber mark with free-to-air mobile TV alone," he said. "I think you could with a subscription service. But the MixTV model combined with personalized and interactive advertising could accelerate adoption."

International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR)

http://www.ismar09.org/

http://www.ismar-conf.org/


Sponsored by the IEEE and ACM.

(ISMAR) International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality.


Orlando Florida from October 19-23, 2009 for ISMAR 2009. Contribute, volunteer or become a sponsor to help mount the most comprehensive program for Mixed and Augmented Reality ever created.

Join the ISMAR 2009 LinkedIn Group http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=1809289 to join in on the discussions about the conference

Linksys IP cam hacking

from Hack a day:

Linksys IP cam hacking

posted Apr 20th 2009 12:34pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: digital cameras hacks, wireless hacks

admin_password_extraction_2-300x216

GNUCITIZEN has posted information on linksys wireless IP camera hacking. It turns out that some models send the administrator user name and password to the computer when the setup wizard requests a connection. In theory, someone could send the request and harvest your passwords wirelessly. This seems like a pretty careless oversight. We would think that linksys will probably remedy this before too long.

Flash TV

TV is dead, long live TV.

Youtube is the new Television. It's been long overdue, it makes no sense to use a PVR since it's mostly record content being broadcast it's just a colossal waste of bandwidth at this point.
There is no reason why we can't see all programs any time we want, without pre-planning ahead to record and making sure we are home when it's being broadcast.

I have been pitching this for years with a variety of STB solutions to investors and no one get's it!
Well it seems Adobe will have completely re-invented themselves from a postscript printing company to the next media power house.
Flash video slipped in stealthily under Microsoft and Real video's radar and has completely dominated the streaming video market since there announcement several years ago.

Now it seems that they aren't going to wait for Set top Boxes to make the next step but just IP enabled TV's with Flash that can allow a TV viewer to surf youtube and other flash video networks!

Best of all they are avoiding the whole content and copyright issues.
With Hulu, Youtube, Google Video, yahoo video and every one else jumping on the content side all using Adobe's flash technology soon broadcast TV (and all the fuss of the DTV switchover) and CATV will all become irrelivant as streaming flash video will take it all over.

The rest of the players will just be data carriers or content providers.

Press Release: Adobe Extends Flash Platform to Digital Home


From Slashdot
"In a move that should make cable companies nervous, Adobe announces they are going to push a Flash that runs directly on TVs. 'Adobe Systems, which owns the technology and sells the tools to create and distribute it, wants to extend Flash's reach even further. On Monday, Adobe's chief executive, Shantanu Narayen, will announce at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas that Adobe is extending Flash to the television screen. He expects TVs and set-top boxes that support the Flash format to start selling later this year.' With the ability to run Hulu, YouTube and others, the question of dropping your cable becomes a little bit more reasonable."

High speed book scanner from trash

High speed book scanner from trash

book_scanner
[Daniel] sent us his entry to the Epilog laser cutter challenge on instructables. He made a book scanner, mainly out of found parts. The bulk of the project was salvaged from dumpsters, though if you’re not comfortable with that, the free section of craigslist might be able to do the job. The cameras are loaded with CHDK, using StereoData maker, and custom software to compile the images into PDFs. They did a fantastic job of documenting every step of the construction, including helpful tips for some of the more complicated parts. There are several videos in the instructable, so be sure to check them out. We’re particularly amused by the extra step of making the photo captions visually interesting. At 79 steps, it’s a long read, but well worth it.

NAB is this week

I plan to be there Wednesday, if anyone want's to meet up with me give me a call 916-704-7676.

Panasonic To Develop Professional 3D Full HD Production System

http://www.weva.com/cgi-bin/newsreader.pl?op=render&type=i&storyid=4079




Panasonic To Develop Professional 3D Full HD Production System
April 19, 2009 Las Vegas, NV - Panasonic Corporation today announced it will start developing a professional 3D Full HD production system. The system, expected to be the first of its kind in the industry, consists of a twin-lens P2 professional camera recorder and a 3D-compatible High Definition Plasma display. Panasonic will display concept models of the 3D system starting tomorrow at NAB 2009.

With Hollywood studios moving towards creation of more 3D entertainment content, Panasonic debuted the world's first 3D Full HD Plasma Home Theater System based on Plasma display and Blu-ray Disc technologies at the CEATEC trade show in Japan in September 2008. More recently, Panasonic established the Advanced Authoring Center within Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory in February 2009 to support Hollywood studios in developing 3D Full HD Blu-ray Disc titles.

Production of 3D movies requires a great deal of time and effort, However, with the new 3D production system, which can enable an easier and more efficient 3D production process and environment, Panasonic will contribute to accelerating the realization of easier high-quality 3D content production.

At present, 3D content producers have to hand-build their own 3D production systems by physically connecting multiple 2D production devices. Panasonic is now starting to work on developing a twin-lens, 3D camera system. Also, Panasonic’s Plasma displays have been used in many post-production facilities in Hollywood, thanks to their high-quality imaging performance, which has been endorsed by leading Hollywood professionals.

Technologies and expertise obtained from their use in post-production has enabled Panasonic to further develop high-quality 3D viewing performance in its Plasma technologies. As a result of this process, Panasonic’s 3D Plasma display system will help 3D content producers to quickly and easily evaluate the image quality of 3D content.

Each component of Panasonic’s innovative 3D Full HD production system has unique features. The twin-lens P2 camera recorder enables the capturing of natural and high-quality live 3D images. Thanks to the non-mechanical solid-state construction of the P2 system, the camera recorder will be compact enough to allow more flexible 3D shooting, thereby maximizing the creativity of the filmmakers by eliminating the stress factor from the use of the equipment.

3D Full HD recording using Panasonic’s proprietary P2 system also enables recording of two channels of Full HD images on the P2 card. P2’s non-mechanical construction and compactness will also be incorporated into the company’s 3D image recording and editing equipment to make production in the field highly flexible and efficient.

Panasonic’s 3D Drive System enables the display of Full HD moving pictures for the left and the right eyes, so large screen 3D viewing will become possible. The excellent moving picture performance and accurate color reproduction characteristics achieved by Plasma’s self-illuminating technology enables the realization of high-quality 3D image evaluation capabilities required in the professional content production field.

“Panasonic is continuing its efforts to enable consumers to enjoy 3D movies in the comfort of their own living rooms with its 3D Full HD Plasma Home Theater System, which incorporates a Plasma HDTV and a Blu-ray Disc player,” said Dr. Paul Liao, Chief Technology Officer of Panasonic Corporation of North America. “The professional 3D Full HD image production system we are going to develop will improve the 3D production environment and accelerate creation of 3D titles.” For more information visit www.panasonic.com

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Flash streaming

Joshua: Hey John!
Sent at 3:47 PM on Tuesday
me: hi
Sent at 3:54 PM on Tuesday
Joshua: you going to go revolutionize the video streaming business and get rich? :)
Sent at 4:01 PM on Tuesday
me: It's a nice thought, but since flash and youtube are now doing almost everything that I had in 1996 there is probably little chance of that.
I am working on a Head Mounted display
Something like http://www.lumusvision.com/
Joshua: nice!
me: Not sure how far it will get, still in research phase
I also had an incredible idea for super caps as in the end of battery technology as we know it
Joshua: dang!
Sent at 4:05 PM on Tuesday
Joshua: That would be amazing too. I still think you can improve on the CDN side of video streaming though.
Sent at 4:06 PM on Tuesday
me: I am sure I can by using P2P or cooperation from the prodiders I had a live p2p streaming system at one point up for demo's a long long time ago.
Sent at 4:09 PM on Tuesday
Joshua: could a site like youtube use something like that?
Sent at 4:12 PM on Tuesday
me: They are limited to what Adobe's macromedia flash platform can operate with
I was thinking of selling a flash server since adobe want's $4000 for one that only works on windows server but for recorded video a web server is fine
Joshua: what can a flash server do that a normal one can't?
me: So this would be for live flash video streaming encode and stream at the same time it's like web server, but the file never ends. so a normal web server can't do it the livecam server can already do this.
Sent at 4:17 PM on Tuesday
Joshua: whats the difference between your server and the livecam one?
me: Mine is the livecam one
I wrote it
Joshua: lol. thats really cool.
me: Sorry I thought you knew this.
Joshua: nope. it's really impressive though.
me: we made a web server version of it called afterburner, it's on sourceforge
Joshua: would it be able to save a company like google money?
Sent at 4:21 PM on Tuesday
me: Well they are already using litehttp similar to afterburner from what I can tell, haven't read the source code yet.
and no one is doing live flash streaming but 2 small web sites
Joshua: you said that most content is recorded though.
me: ustream.tv and justin.tv but any web server will work for recorded because it just serving up large files some throttling would help them not waste bandwidth by not serving more of the file then the viewer is going to need right now someone on a fast connection will download the who video as fast as they can even if they will just flip to another video and not watch , so there is a lot of data sent that it just tossed out later and never used. Increasing bandwidth costs.
Sent at 4:26 PM on Tuesday
Joshua: Great point. Hey John, I gotta jet. It's always good talking to you and I'll catch up with you later. Have a great one!
Sent at 4:29 PM on Tuesday
me: ok l8r
Sent at 4:31 PM on Tuesday

NAB Coming and pirate HDTV Station.

NAB 2009 is coming up next week.
NABShow
April 17–23, 2009 • Las Vegas, Nev.
www.nabshow.com



Lumantek
of South Korea 2009 NAB Show, Booth: C2243
Makes the VENTUS a new DTV/Mobile TV modulator based on small USB 2.0 platform have ability to stream an MPEG stream from hard disk and output an industry-standard 50-870MHz (VHF + UHF) RF signal and S/L band.
The on-board synthesizer can generate a stable and accurate symbol clock and tuning frequency. The Transport Stream can be supplied via an external USB2.0 interface, and full customer-selectable modulation.

Basically it's a pirate HDTV Station. You can broadcast your own HDVT ATSC signals, and with amplifiers have a fully functioning TV station!