I have been thinking a lot recently about methods of delivering large media files, e.g. video, mp3 etc, and playing them online. Think YouTube. You can either stream the file or use HTTP (progressive) download. My question is this: why would you want to stream a file? It seems to me that, with a few exceptional cases, streaming files is unnecessary. I am trying to come up with a list of pros and cons for streaming (large) media files.
Pros
Can be used to broadcast time-sensitive events, e.g. a live concert.
Useful for devices with limited storage capacity, e.g. mobile phones
As the content is not stored locally, makes “recording” content difficult, e.g. DRM - I have seen this one cited in several places
Cons
Requires “special” server-side software to implement the streaming protocol, e.g. RTMP. Can be expensive.
Some streaming protocols, such as Flash video, are proprietary (related to the above point)
More (server) hardware required to support connections etc ??
Even though I have only come up with a few negatives I am not convinced that streaming files is necessary in the majority of cases. Podcasts are a good example where just downloading the file is sufficient. Thoughts? Feel free to add any comments.
Update: seems there are stream recorders out there that do allow you to save content that is streamed.
Due to popular demand - well, one person asked for it - I have added (reverse) geocoding to my map application. In plain English, this means that you can enter your address and the application will zoom to that location on the map; hopefully, this will be less painful than having to get to your starting point by dragging/zooming around. Currently this only works for U.S. addresses as - as far as I am aware - the Google Maps API only supports U.S. addresses.
I decided to clean out my Hotmail account as I had accumulated 469 unread emails in it - mostly junk mail; I don’t actually use Hotmail that much now either. It was becoming irritating because every time I logged in to Hotmail using my mobile phone - it has an Internet connection - I had to subtract 469 from the total number of unread messages to figure out if I had any new email. Still, should be easy enough to do, or so I thought. Just ask Hotmail to show me all the unread messages then delete them right? Wrong! Seems you can’t do that and even if there is a way, I don’t want to know about it because I have just spent the last 40 minutes or so going through about 2000 emails looking for ones that were marked as unread; the interface only shows 50 emails at a time so you can imagine what a pain it is plus it kept breaking in Firefox so I had to switch to using IE. Something so simple is so broken that it’s no wonder Microsoft is getting it’s ass kicked by the likes of Google. I’m sure if I complained they would probably just tell me to use Outlook if I want “advanced” features! Ho hum.
“Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.
Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats.”
As yesterday was my birthday, last night myself and some friends descended on Guanabara, a Brazilian bar located in the West End, for a couple of drinks (only a couple, honest) and some live music.
I was told by one of staff working the floor a couple of days previously that the live music started around 8pm. She must have meant 8pm in Rio de Janiero because it didn’t actually start until around 10.30pm. Still, when they got going they weren’t too bad. Not too great either but enjoyable enough. Then again, after far too many cocktails, a beer, tequila and some dodgy Brazilian spirit that resembled surgical spirit, anything would sound good! The schizophrenic lead singer was particularly entertaining: one minute he thought he was Jamiroquai; the next, James Brown. He also seemed to have a problem keeping his shirt on.
Then there was the guy in the crowd playing the air saxophone. I’ve seen plenty of people playing air guitars before but never a sax. Novel if nothing else, although rather than resembling a saxophone player he looked more as though he was sucking his thumb while scratching his balls.
Overall it was a really good night and a good way to celebrate a birthday. Highly recommended.
Just a quick update on what’s been happening so far in 2007. So far my aim of writing more on this blog has fallen by the wayside, and January isn’t even over with yet! An auspicious start if ever there was one.
In less than a week I am going to hit 30. A time for reflection I think, at least on the career front. I am beginning to feel the effects of getting older too. I went to a friends 30th birthday on Saturday evening, pulled my usual trick of drinking far too much, and it has basically taken me until this morning (Monday) to fully recover! That never used to happen. Bugger.
On the work front, I’ve been using Alfresco, a document management system, to build a records management system for one of my clients. It’s an interesting system both from a technical point of view - I never thought I would say that about something written in Java - and in terms of the market the company is going after; think an open source version of Documentum.
Anyway, I’m in Starbucks at the moment using up the last few days of the (monthly) Wifi pass that I paid for. I’ve ran out of coffee so time to sign off.
I am about to update the DNS settings for this domain. As a result this site and my email may be screwed up for a day or two. I normally reply pretty quickly to email so if you send me an email and don’t get a reply within a reasonable amount of time please try sending it again.
I am a little bit concerned that Supergirl appears at number 3 in the list. I definitely answered no to the “Do you wear thongs” and “Have you ever worn a push-up bra” questions!
Anyway, this is probably going to my last post of 2006 so Happy New Year to everybody!
For a while now my phone (Sony Ericsson K800i) hasn’t been registering calls that I have missed, dialled etc. It was annoying because if I had missed a call I would have no idea who had called!
Anyway, after searching around I finally came across the solution: Menu -> Settings -> New Events -> Pop-up.
Do that and you will be able to see the calls you have made/received/missed in the call list. I have no idea what exactly this feature does but it seems to work so I’m happy again.
Met up with some friends from uni the other night. I hadn’t seen Rikard (far left) for about 7 years and I’ve only seen Max a few times since graduation way back in 2000! It was fun catching up. Just like the good old days. Plenty of nachos and beer too! The picture was taken at Bunker bar in Covent Garden.
