Introduction to Multicast ABR (M-ABR) – Where it works and where it totally fails

Media / Television Systems / Video encodingLeave a comment

Last year (2016), Cablelabs published a very interesting document entitled “IP Multicast Adaptive Bit Rate Architecture Technical Report“, describing how to bring together two fundamental and previously incompatible network concepts: Multicast and Adaptive Bitrate delivery, in what it call Multicast ABR (M-ABR). But, does it make sense? If it does, on which use cases it works? Let me spoil the surprise: It does make sense on one single use case. It spectacularly fails elsewhere. To start with, lets have a look at the generic M-ABR architecture: 8        

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Adobe flash won’t die on 2020, it’s been dead for years

Mobile / sysadminLeave a comment

Adobe just made the news by announcing that Flash plugin would loose support by 2020, effectively setting a deadline for all browsers to disable it definitely, and wiping it from the face of the Internet. Unfortunately, that’s simply the death certificate of something which happened long ago. People just forget to tell Adobe about it, and Adobe has since refused to bow to reality. No one can tell exactly when Flash died, but the conclusion that it is dead is unavoidable. Just looking at today’s internet describes how low it has reached. As it is obvious on the chart below: Until 2015 we …

Codec wars – Apple drops the hammer on VP9, chooses H.265 and takes a decision for the industry

Consumer Electronic DevicesLeave a comment

It seems funny, but this year’s Apple’s WWDC was one of the most import yet, but not due to something said during the 2017’s Keynote. Instead, this low profile presentation will have far reaching implications over the next 8 to 10 years on the video delivery industry, from Google to Netflix. As Apple decided to use H.265 and WebVTT, the whole industry will be forced to follow suit. The story started back in May 2010 when Google acquired On2 technologies, and specifically all the related IP to the VP8 video codec. Google was not happy with having to rely on …

USB3 Gigabit Ethernet performance on MacOS

MacOS / Networking / sysadminLeave a comment

This is the second part of the USB3 Gigabit on MacOS series. On the first post we discussed on how to choose an USB3 Gigabit adapter. On this post we try to answer to the following question: Does USB3 on MacOS supports gigabit speeds ? Read below to find out. To start with, let’s remember why it might be important for some users how does USB3 allows for gigabit ethernet performance: most recent MacBooks lack ethernet jacks. This means that, for power users, there are only a limited set of alternatives: Thunderbolt Gigabit adapters, for those laptops which support still …

USB3 Gigabit Ethernet adapters on MacOS: Orico Vs KY-688

Consumer Electronic Devices / MacOS / sysadminLeave a comment

Edit: This is the first half of a 2 part port regarding USB3 ethernet adaptors running on MacOS. The second part looks at actual performance. There aren’t a lot of good reasons why one would care about getting an USB3 Gigabit Ethernet adapter, and all start with “I need an extra wired gigabit connection”. And this may not be as weird as it seems as most MacBooks lack a single embedded wired gigabit interface. As an alternative you get the Thunderbolt adapter (in it’s native Thunderbolt port, or using the new USB-C connectors), USB3 adapter or 802.11 WiFi connection. Current state …

Netac P500 UHS-I U3 128GB Micro SD card

Consumer Electronic Devices / SD Cards BenchmarkLeave a comment

On our previous MicroSD shootout, Netac’s offering was deemed as the best MicroSD card for smartphones and compact cameras due to it’s low cost per MiB and very decent read performance. However, write performance was underwhelming, landing on the middle of the pack. It was with great surprise an high capacity, high performance MicroSD card from Netac landed on my desk: the Netac P500 Smart Card UHS-I U3 128GB MicroSD card (brands need to try to shorten the MicroSD product names, this is getting ridiculous….). This card corresponds to the fastest and highest capacity offer from Netac, supporting UHS-1 U3 speed …

HDR wars, battle 2: UHD Alliance Vs Ultra HD Forum – Maybe some sanity arrives at the TV Industry

Consumer Electronic Devices / MediaLeave a comment

There are currently two industry groups fight for market standardisation what regards to HDR: UHD Alliance and Ultra HD Forum. Every time this happens is usually due to a fight over consumer awareness on something that doesn’t make sense. We’ve already seen what UHD Alliance brings (or doesn’t….), but know there is a new group trying to make your mind: Ultra HD Forum. A lot has happened for last couple of years in the TV industry due to fuss around Ultra HD, always surrounded by confusion, mishaps and all around caos and damnation. How we got here Starting with the availability of …

iPhone 6s video decoding capabilities – Sometimes Apple underrates it’s products

Consumer Electronic Devices / Media / Video encodingLeave a comment

Although I’ve been an Apple heavy user for a number of years now, it always bugs me when companies misrepresent their products, event if the misrepresentation is a underrating of the actual product. For me, specifications must be as accurate as possible, no matter if it comes from Apple, and understating it’s video decoding capabilities it not on my list of expected weird things, but it does seem to happen.

MicroSD UHS-1 32GB cards shootout – Comparing MicroSD cards from a number of different perspectives

Consumer Electronic Devices / SD Cards BenchmarkLeave a comment

After having reviewed a number of different microSD cards, the next step could only be compare then over a number of perspectives, each of them making sense to a significant number of users. Now, I believe it is quite obvious for everyone that there isn’t probably a best microSD card but it really depends on which parameters, or ratios between parameters are relevant for each one. Each of them will then represent an important benchmark by itself, so let’s detail each of them: Read Performance – The basic SD card benchmark, and targeted by most manufacturers. Although overlooked in some reviews, …

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