On2 announced on Monday some interesting improvements/enhancements to their VP6 codec:

http://www.on2.com/index.php?id=439&news_id=623

My editor at Peachpit sent me the URL to a

The FITC organizers sent me the attendee feedback for my sessions at FITC Hollywood this past October. Here’s the breakdown:

New Features of Flash – Full Day Workshop

Attendee ratings:

• Was the speaker knowledgeable on the topic presented? = 10.00
• Did the session meet your expectations? = 9.80
• Did the speaker present the material in a clear and well-organized way? = 9.80
• Please rate the overall effectiveness of the speaker. = 9.80
• This session will affect the way I work: = 9.20
• Over all average = 9.72

Attendee comments:

• Great presentation!
• Very enthusiastic and very informative

Deploying Video – FLVPlayback Component

I contributed a new post to the Influxis.com blog today:

http://labs.influxis.com/?p=30

Check out my 16x table displaying optimal sizes for Flash Video dimensions. Enjoy!

I was asked by Sorenson to provide my quick tips for Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 for their November newsletter, and I just found the newsletter in my inbox! You can view the newsletter online to forward to a friend. Two out of five tips were included in this month’s newsletter, with the remaining three to be posted in the December newsletter:

1. DO determine a proper bitrate (or data rate) for your Flash Video content. Squeeze includes several presets for Flash Video to get your started. If you need a wide range of data rates for your deployment, encode several FLV files by applying multiple presets to the same source file.
2. DON’T be tempted to change the image quality setting in your compression preset(s), especially if you will be deploying your Flash Video with a streaming service provider such as Akamai, Limelight, or a Flash Media Server hosting company like Influxis.com. The image quality setting will override the bitrate value you’ve specified for the preset, or alter the frame rate if you elect to drop frames to maintain image quality. Neither of these outcomes is desirable.

If you purchased my new Flash Video book online as a PDF (or if you’ve lost or damaged your original DVD-ROM), you can download the > 7 GB of files from my Amazon.com S3 account. Because I have to pay for this hosting based on a per-GB fee, please e-mail me directly to get the URLs to the content. I will likely send you a “word challenge” where you have to tell me the [insert random number here] word on page [insert random book page here] to verify your ownership.

In the near future, I’ll have an online request form setup that randomly generates the word challenge and submits the data to me via email. (Check back!)

If you’re looking for some source video files to practice video encoding, you can check out the links to various clips from archive.org that I included in my new Flash Video book. I love browsing archive.org for documentaries created in the 1940s through 60s.

As I’m developing the Flash Video (FLV) Bitrate Calculator, I’m adding more reference material which is linked from the tool. My first reference page is titled, “Optimal Frame Dimensions for Flash Video”. This document specifies a range of frame widths and heights that you should use with Flash Video content using the On2 VP6 or Sorenson Spark codec. Here’s a direct link to the page:

http://www.flashsupport.com/books/fvst/files/tools/video_sizes.html

The Adobe MAX North American conference was held this past week in Chicago, and I had a great time hanging out with my co-workers from Schematic and other friends that I routinely see at various web conferences. The multitude of new information was a lot to take in

http://www.on2.com/company/news-room/press-releases/?id=421

Boils down to this:

There’s a new profile for the On2 VP6 codec, called VP6-S, that will be available in the Flash Player 9 update 3 (“MovieStar”) release, currently in beta.

VP6-S is a new profile designed to utilize LESS processor cycles for bitrates above 500Kbps (read between the lines: high-res SD, or near HD resolutions or higher).

So, moving forward, we’ll have four options for standard Flash Video delivery:

• Sorenson Spark for Flash Player 6/7 or higher compatibility (and/or slow device processor speeds)
• On2 VP6-E for Flash Player 8 or higher compatibility
• On2 VP6-S for Flash Player 9 update 3 or higher compatibility (and > 500Kbps bitrates)
• AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) and AAC audio for Flash Player 9 update 3 or higher compatibility

If you’re making the decision in the next few months to push the envelope with Flash Video and Flash Player 9 update 3 technology, how do you know whether to use On2 VP6-S (or -E) or AVC/H.264?

• If the client needs to repurpose video assets in other non-Flash platform environments, H.264 is probably the best bet. Be sure to communicate commercial licensing concerns for H.264 delivery to the client.
• If you want to avoid licensing concerns and have high-resolution (high SD or near-HD resolutions), use On2 VP6-S.
• If you need to perform custom effects with Flash Video (embedded cue points, alpha channel transparency), use On2 VP6-E/S.

Those are my thoughts for now. I’m sure I’ll have more to report after next week’s Adobe MAX conference.