YouTube Testing Higher Resolution Video
Posted by James | Filed under Play, Tube, Web
Following the announcement in November, YouTube has started to test higher quality videos. If you append &fmt=6 to the URL of a YouTube video, you should get better quality videos. Note that this works only for a small number of videos so far.
Here’s an example of a video that’s available in both the regular (320×240) version, and in a higher quality encoding (448×336). The audio is now encoded at a sample rate of 44100 Hz, up from 22050 Hz. As you can see from the screenshot, the right image is clearer and more detailed.
While this increase of resolution might seem minor, for the example above YouTube’s re-encoded FLV file is more than twice bigger than the old one (from 9 MB to 22 MB), so it will load much slower.
If you append &fmt=18, YouTube downloads the video as a MP4 (H264 with AAC audio), encoded at 480×360. Here’s the same video encoded as MP4.
To make things easier, there’s a Greasemonkey script that automatically adds the magic parameter for you.
Tags: encoding, higher quality, online video, video, youtube
Trent Ponders Music’s Downward Spiral
Posted by James | Filed under Geek, Music, Play
To be perfectly honest, if you asked me where to find a thoughtful commentary on DMCA and musician’s digital intellectual property rights, the last place that would spring to mind would be Trent Reznor’s blog at nin.com.
However, that’s exactly what you’ll find, right now, if you head over there. Trent describes an ongoing project he’s had with re-mixing communities on the Internet, where he released the master recording files on the band’s website in an experiment to see what could come of it.
The results have been very pleasing to Trent, and he found what independent artists have known for years now: if you’re hard up for a sequel album, release your recording masters to talented amateur DJ’s, and bam, you’ve got a follow up album with a unique but familiar sound.
He liked it so much that he wanted create an officially sanctioned community around the remixing of NIN music, but ran into a fair amount of opposition from his record label. You may have heard of these guys: Universal.
They’re currently involved in lawsuits against Google and News Corp alleging that they’ve built businesses around exploiting the safe harbor provision of the DMCA, and that by setting up a user-generated content community for NIN, they’d be culpable for that same type of action.
That doesn’t man they don’t think it’s a great idea, though. They encouraged Reznor to move ahead with the project, but under the NIN brand, and ensured that should any DMCA allegations be brought against Universal, they would disavow all knowledge of the topic, and say that the band itself is culpable for the community violations.
Understandably, Reznor is a bit hesitant to launch it under his own name, and while he doesn’t specifically ask for legal advice, reading between the lines of his post, it seems that he might be open to a clever scheme that would prevent the pants from being sued off him.
Tags: copyright, dmca, legal, Music, nin, Privacy, trent reznor
Saul Williams shows Big Music how to release an album
Posted by James | Filed under Future, Geek, Play
Journalists and music fans the world over fawned over Radiohead for their bold release strategy for In Rainbows. After breaking with the majors, Trent Reznor and his parter-in-crime Saul Williams are taking that strategy and stepping it up to the next level of awesome. Saul’s new Trent-produced album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust is now available two ways: Free or $5.
For zilch, you get the whole album in DRM-free 192kbps MP3 encoded with LAME 3.97 “and love,” plus the digital booklet (take that, Radiohead). For $5, you get the digital booklet and a choice between 320kbps MP3 or FLAC lossless, meaning even audiophiles can feel good about purchasing a digital copy.
While he kind of dodged the question in the famed interview he revealed he was a former OiNK member, this feels like a pointer toward where the release of the next NIN album is heading. I’d still prefer a physical CD, personally, but this kind of digital release I can get behind—the price and the format are right. The rest of the industry would do well to pay close attention to how this turns out—or not, and simply follow suit.
Download here: NiggyTardust
Tags: downloads, drm, fair use, free, Music, nin, nine inch nails, saul williams, trent reznor
Welcome to Jimmahdigital.com, personal blog of James Simm, Wigan/Manchester-based .Net developer.
