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Thursday, December 28, 2000
It shouldn't be too much longer before I finish my WM 8
review. I apologize for the wait, but let me put things into
perspective. To encode a 10 minute long video on my computer, it takes
about 50 minutes in WM 8, 25 minutes in RM 8, and 12 minutes in DivX. So
far, I've encoded 200-300 files of various lengths, bitrates, and formats.
(Hey, I like to be thorough.) Fortunately, I'm just about done with the
encoding, so I mostly need to take some example screenshots and write the
review.
Saturday, December 23, 2000
Due to the holiday, I probably won't be updating for a few
more days. I hope that everyone has a merry Christmas and happy
holidays!
Thursday, December 21, 2000
Just so you all know, I am still working with Windows Media 8
and making comparisons. Right now, I've got well over 100 encoded videos
on my hard drive from all the testing. I'll post my little review as
soon as I finishing encoding a few more videos. What fun!
Monday, December 18, 2000
I'm still engaged with testing Windows Media 8. I've
been doing comparisons to RealMedia 8 and DivX, and I must say that the
results have been a bit surprising. Windows Media 8 is definitely going
to be useful for many types of video. I'm pretty busy right now though,
so it's going to be a few more days before I can make a comparison page.
Sunday, December 17, 2000
The new Windows
Media 8 Encoding Utility Beta was released late Friday night with support
for Windows Media Audio/Video 8. My preliminary testing has shown that
despite my hopes, Windows Media 8 is not as good as Real Media 8 in terms of
audio or video. I'll try to post a comparison page sometime over the
next few days to demonstrate the differences.
Also, I've made an update to my RealMedia
8 Encoding page. I've discovered that RealVideo's Inverse-Telecine
filter works on 320x240 video. By enabling this feature, you can often
increase the quality of your video. Be sure to check it out.
Friday, December 8, 2000
A few days ago, RealNetworks updated RealProducer to version
8.5. For the Basic (free) version, they have increased the audio bitrate
but decreased the video bitrate. Because of this, the audio sounds
better with RealProducer 8.5 but the video looks worse. Since I feel
that the video quality would make better use of the extra bits, I recommend
that you stay with RealProducer 8.0 Basic. If you don't have a copy of
RealProducer 8.0 Basic, you can find instructions for downloading it on my Software
page.
(Note: if you have a registered copy of RealProducer Plus, you can
ignore what I wrote above since the Plus version allows you to manually choose
audio/video bitrates.)
I've also made minor revisions to several pages based on
visitor feedback. Don't be afraid to Contact Me!
Tuesday, December 5, 2000
If you head over to my Video
Samples page, you'll notice that I've uploaded copies of my Can't Buy Me
Love music video in the DivX format. I used the same bitrates as I did
for the RealMedia versions, so you can make a direct comparison of the two
formats.
Sunday, December 3, 2000
You can now get all three versions of my Can't
Buy Me Love music video from my Video Samples page.
However, you can only get the high-quality version from my driveway.com
account. I've been having a bit of trouble uploading to the
FreeDiskSpace server, but hopefully I'll get that resolved soon.
Update: All of the files are now
available on both servers.
Saturday, December 2, 2000
I've started uploading newly encoded versions
of my Can't Buy Me Love music video. These new videos demonstrate what
RealMedia 8 and my encoding trick are capable of. For example, I have a
low quality, 167 kbps version of my video in 320 x 236 @ 30 fps with stereo
sound. You can watch the videos by going to my Video
Samples page and clicking on Can't Buy Me Love. I only have the some
of the new files available on the driveway.com account right now, but I should
have all versions of the video up on both accounts later today.
Friday, December 1, 2000
The votes are in, and the will of the people
has been answered! In a decisive win for democracy, I've finally added
my new RealProducer trick! Read all about it at my new RealProducer
VBR Latency Trick page, where I attempt to divulge my secrets in the most
accurate and complete manner possible. (Note: feel free to punch me in
the face at any time.) I have also updated my RealMedia
8 Encoding page to reflect this new encoding feature. Enjoy, and God
bless!
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