space101

Hi all,

My question is (even though I'm asking it in a somewhat biased forum ) which would be more valuable in say 7-10 years, the .com or .tv?

H.264 is the video compression format that Youtube, Apple and others are rushing to get their content encoded in, because it delivers such a high quality video at much lower data rates. (it's technical but here's a description - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264)

If you can remember Apple was trying to get Youtube to convert most if not all of their video into the H.264 format so that it could be playable on the iPhone. http://www.apple.com/quicktime/techn.../h264/faq.html

Sorry to cut and paste so many resources I'm just trying to give everyone an idea of what it is if they don't already.

Update: I just found out that H.264 is also the standard for Blu-Ray DVD.

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michaeldotcom

My reply would be neither of them.

In 10 years surely there will be other better video compression formats than H264.

Talking about online video, it's obvious that Youtube's video quality is fairly low, and video sharing sites like blip.tv or brightcove.tv are already so much better from a video quality point of view.

I think that the online video market will be booming in the years to come, technology will keep evolving fast.

Ten years is a very long period of time when it comes to technology. I would expect much better video quality and much better compression formats in 10 years.

H264 should be irrelevant by then.

Jimbojimbo

If you are talking about the extensions alone with H264 being used as a 'level playing field' to denote something of an audio-visual nature, then my answer would be .TV

I feel that in a decade from now there will be a firm distinction between the written media and the visual and .TV will represent one and .com the other.

However, had the example been something like "Macys" then the .com would be the most popular as it is more suited to the content.

All that said, I also think that if it were a news source in Boston or New York then Boston.news or NewYork.news would be the most common.

If it were channels for radio in Boston, then Boston.FM, etc etc.

But what do I know? I thought Tandy was a great store until this week!

space101

Those are all great points and definitely viable. We will definetly see another format arise but how long has the MP3 format been around? Everyone here is on the cutting edge and I think in 10 years H264 will be the standard.

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michaeldotcom

If I'm not mistaken, the MP3 has been around since 1991, that is 17 years ago. And, even though there are much better formats available nowadays (especially lossless formats like FLAC or APE), MP3 is still widely considered as the standard.

So I see and understand your point of view.

However, as convergence between TV and the Internet should happen and as available broadband speeds will be much greater, I would expect the level of expectations when it comes to video quality to increase a lot in the years to come.

I mean that many people have enjoyed Youtube over the past few years, because online video was such a new thing for most and because it enabled people to watch copyrighted stuff for free.
But as people will get more used to online video and as access to copyrighted videos will probably no longer be free, my guess is that people's expectations would be higher when it comes to video quality.

So I would tend to agree with you that H264 (and other video compression formats like DivX, etc.) will probably still be around in 10 years. Will it be the standard then ? I have no idea. There really isn't one standard right now.

I would tend to think that more research will be done and that we will see serious contenders in the lossless video compression arena (better ones that MSU, Lagarith, Huffyuv or SheerVideo).

Should be quite interesting to follow technological advances there in the years to come...

TheBulldog

I agree with Michael.

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space101

Michael I agree with you, but much of what your mentioning is already happening.

An excerpt from Apple: "H.264 is an extremely scalable codec. From 3G to HD and beyond(possibly meaning it can support a wide variety of devices), H.264 provides excellent quality to the broadest range of bandwidths and user scenarios. Best of all, H.264 is a standard — so companies across the telecommunications, consumer electronics and broadcast industries can create products that will interoperate with one another." (If I'm not mistaken this means universal.) Just like the MP3 which we agreed on, but even the MP3 has had competitors and what technology hasn't. But it has proved victorious.

Now Take for example the HD player wars between Blu-Ray and HDDVD, Blu-Ray has beaten out HDDVD and is now the undisputable defacto of HD movies. So this basically means that every High Definition movie will be Blu-Ray technology, and not to mention the fact that H.264 is the official standard for Blu-Ray.


Q: What is the relationship between H.264 and the new standards for High Definition DVDs?

A: H.264 has been ratified as mandatory in both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray specifications for High Definition DVD. (another excerpt from the Apple link I posted above)

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michaeldotcom

When they say that H264 has been ratified as mandatory in Blu-Ray specifications, it doesn't exactly mean that it's the standard video compression format for Blu-Ray. It's a little bit more complicated than that.

Actually there are 3 mandatory codecs in Blu-Ray specifications : MPEG-2, H264 and VC-1. This means that Blu-Ray discs must store video using one of these 3 codecs, but they're free to choose whichever one they want and they're even allowed to use multiple codecs on a single disc.

Anyway, my guess is that MPEG-2 won't be used on Blu-Ray discs (MPEG-2 being the standard codec for DVDs). So it'll be either H264 or VC-1, which are basically two different kinds of MPEG-4 codecs, the latter one being developed by Microsoft while the former one is prefered by Apple.

But I agree that H264 could well become the standard when it comes to lossy video compression formats for many years to come. Why ? Because it's quite a good compromise between video quality and much lower bitrates than older codecs like MPEG-2 (from DVDs) or H263. Moreover the codec's design isn't too complex from a technological point of view, which means that it's fairly easy and inexpensive to implement.

So it could really become the "MP3" of HD video compression for a mainstream audience, as it shares many of its strengths.

However, while you mention that "H264 provides excellent quality to the broadest range of bandwidths and user scenarios", it still remains a lossy codec, much like MP3.

There are quite a few problems when it comes to lossy compression formats (in video, audio, photo, etc.).
First, its quality is obviously lower than the uncompressed equivalent (unlike lossless codecs).
Secondly, each time you edit a video or audio file in a lossy codec, it actually causes it to progressively lose quality.

Don't get me wrong, lossy formats like MP3, H264 or JPG are very useful but only as ways of providing the data to a mainstream user as an end product (a picture on a website, a movie on a Blu-Ray disc, etc.).
But a professional wouldn't use them while editing these files (for example, a digital photographer would work on his RAW files and only compress them to JPG at the very end when all the editing is done, same with audio or video files).

Finally, even if most users are very pleased with MP3, JPG or H264, there will always be people who are looking for a better sound, image or video quality and who will be looking for lossless formats. However, music or video producers usually wouldn't want these lossless files to be available to the general public, because of obvious risks of easier editing, copying or illegal distribution, which would cause copyright problems. That's probably what still holds back research on lossless video compression formats.

pdmshift

I had registered H264.tv a few years ago

but I dropped last year

is H264.tv GOOD ????

oh MY GOD

MicroGuy

I picked the .com because .com will always be the most valuable TLD. IMO.

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mckennaronnie

heroes

Excellent post Michael - rep added

The VC-1 being developed by Microsoft (branded as Silverlight) has some amazing attributes. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering media experiences and RIAs.

About a month ago Silverlight was getting about 1.4 million downloads a day.