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                <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged multimedia</title>
                <description>Entries tagged multimedia</description>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>

        
        <item>
                <title>The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
notes are available on
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia&quot;&gt;the
Debian wiki&lt;/a&gt;.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn&#39;t supported by the
totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
be the only one fitting our needs. :/&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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        <item>
                <title>When web browser developers make a video player...</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;As part of the work we do in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no&quot;&gt;NUUG&lt;/a&gt;
to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
will become easier when the &amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag is implemented in all
browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
&amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag, the &amp;lt;object&amp;gt; tag, the &amp;lt;embed&amp;gt; tag and
the &amp;lt;applet&amp;gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
finding the best options is a major challenge.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from &lt;a
href=&quot;http://labs.opera.com&quot;&gt;labs.opera.com&lt;/a&gt;, to see how it handled
a &amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
discover that I have to add the controls=&quot;true&quot; attribute to be able
to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
autoplay=&quot;true&quot; did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
&amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
playing when the download is done.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/&quot;&gt;available
from the nuug site&lt;/a&gt;.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
too.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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        <item>
                <title>Microsofts misvisende argumentasjon rundt multimediaformater</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Microsofts_misvisende_argumentasjon_rundt_multimediaformater.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Microsofts_misvisende_argumentasjon_rundt_multimediaformater.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;I
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/Hoeringer/Refkat_V2/MicrosoftNorge.pdf&quot;&gt;Microsoft
sin høringsuttalelse&lt;/a&gt; til
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-2.html?id=549422&quot;&gt;forslag
til versjon 2 av statens referansekatalog over standarder&lt;/a&gt;, lirer
de av seg følgende FUD-perle:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&quot;Vorbis, OGG, Theora og FLAC er alle tekniske
  spesifikasjoner overordnet styrt av xiph.org, som er en
  ikke-kommersiell organisasjon.  Etablerte og anerkjente
  standardiseringsorganisasjoner, som Oasis, W3C og Ecma, har en godt
  innarbeidet vedlikeholds- og forvaltningsprosess av en standard.
  Det er derimot helt opp til hver enkelt organisasjon å bestemme
  hvordan tekniske spesifikasjoner videreutvikles og endres, og disse
  spesifikasjonene bør derfor ikke defineres som åpne
  standarder.&quot;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;De vokter seg vel for å nevne den anerkjente
standardiseringsorganisasjonen IETF, som er organisasjonen bak HTTP,
IP og det meste av protokoller på Internet, og RFC-standardene som
IETF står bak.  Ogg er spesifisert i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc3533.txt&quot;&gt;RFC 3533&lt;/a&gt;, og er uten
tvil å anse som en åpen standard.  Vorbis er
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc5215.txt&quot;&gt;RFC 5215&lt;/a&gt;.  Theora er

under standardisering via IETF, med
&lt;a href=&quot;http://svn.xiph.org/trunk/theora/doc/draft-ietf-avt-rtp-theora-00.txt&quot;&gt;siste
utkast publisert 2006-07-21&lt;/a&gt; (riktignok er dermed teksten ikke
skrevet i stein ennå, men det blir neppe endringer som ikke er
bakoverkompatibel).  De kan være inne på noe når det gjelder FLAC da
jeg ikke finner tegn til at &lt;a
href=&quot;http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html&quot;&gt;spesifikasjonen
tilgjengelig på web&lt;/a&gt; er på tur via noen
standardiseringsorganisasjon, men i og med at folkene bak Ogg, Theora
og Vorbis også har involvert seg i Flac siden 2003, så ser jeg ikke
bort fra at også den organiseres via IETF.  Jeg kjenner personlig lite
til FLAC.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Uredelig argumentasjon bør en holde seg for god til å komme med,
spesielt når det er så enkelt i dagens Internet-hverdag å gå
misvisende påstander etter i sømmene.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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        <item>
                <title>Regjerningen forlater prinsippet om ingen royalty-betaling i standardkatalogen versjon 2</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningen_forlater_prinsippet_om_ingen_royalty_betaling_i_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningen_forlater_prinsippet_om_ingen_royalty_betaling_i_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 6 Jul 2009 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;Jeg ble glad da regjeringen
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digi.no/817635/her-er-statens-nye-it-standarder&quot;&gt;annonserte&lt;/a&gt;
versjon 2 av
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/IKT-politikk/Referansekatalogen_versjon2.pdf&quot;&gt;statens
referansekatalog over standarder&lt;/a&gt;, men trist da jeg leste hva som
faktisk var vedtatt etter
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-2.html&quot;&gt;høringen&lt;/a&gt;.
De fleste av de valgte åpne standardene er gode og vil bidra til at
alle kan delta på like vilkår i å lage løsninger for staten, men
noen av dem blokkerer for de som ikke har anledning til å benytte
spesifikasjoner som krever betaling for bruk (såkalt
royalty-betaling).  Det gjelder spesifikt for H.264 for video og MP3
for lyd.  Så lenge bruk av disse var valgfritt mens Ogg Theora og Ogg
Vorbis var påkrevd, kunne alle som ønsket å spille av video og lyd
fra statens websider gjøre dette uten å måtte bruke programmer der
betaling for bruk var nødvendig.  Når det nå er gjort valgfritt for
de statlige etatene å bruke enten H.264 eller Theora (og MP3 eler
Vorbis), så vil en bli tvunget til å forholde seg til
royalty-belastede standarder for å få tilgang til videoen og
lyden.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det gjør meg veldig trist at regjeringen har forlatt prinsippet om
at alle standarder som ble valgt til å være påkrevd i katalogen skulle
være uten royalty-betaling.  Jeg håper det ikke betyr at en har mistet
all forståelse for hvilke prinsipper som må følges for å oppnå
likeverdig konkurranse mellom aktørene i IT-bransjen.  NUUG advarte
mot dette i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2&quot;&gt;sin
høringsuttalelse&lt;/a&gt;, men ser ut til å ha blitt ignorert.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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        <item>
                <title>Regjerningens oppsummering av høringen om standardkatalogen versjon 2</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningens_oppsummering_av_h__ringen_om_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningens_oppsummering_av_h__ringen_om_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;For å forstå mer om hvorfor standardkatalogens versjon 2 ble som
den ble, har jeg bedt om kopi fra FAD av dokumentene som ble lagt frem
for regjeringen da de tok sin avgjørelse.  De er nå lagt ut på NUUGs
wiki, direkte tilgjengelig via &quot;&lt;a
href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile&amp;do=get&amp;target=kongelig-resolusjon.pdf&quot;&gt;Referansekatalogen
v2.0 - Oppsummering av høring&lt;/a&gt;&quot; og &quot;&lt;a
href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile&amp;do=get&amp;target=kongelig-resolusjon-katalogutkast.pdf&quot;&gt;Referansekatalog
for IT-standarder i offentlig sektor Versjon 2.0, dd.mm.åååå -
UTKAST&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det er tre ting jeg merker meg i oppsummeringen fra
høringsuttalelsen da jeg skummet igjennom den.  Det første er at
forståelsen av hvordan programvarepatenter påvirker fri
programvareutvikling også i Norge når en argumenterer med at
royalty-betaling ikke er et relevant problem i Norge.  Det andre er at
FAD ikke har en prinsipiell forståelse av verdien av en enkelt
standard innenfor hvert område.  Det siste er at påstander i
høringsuttalelsene ikke blir etterprøvd (f.eks. påstanden fra
Microsoft om hvordan Ogg blir standardisert og påstanden fra
politidirektoratet om patentproblemer i Theora).&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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        <item>
                <title>Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 4 Sep 2010 10:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote&quot;&gt;Debian
popularity-contest numbers&lt;/a&gt;, the adobe-flashplugin package the
second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
installed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
(«&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&amp;do=view&amp;target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf&quot;&gt;Skolelinux
i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs&lt;/a&gt;»), one of the most important problems
schools experienced with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
good reason to stay with Windows.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
pages they want to visit.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
accept the new package into Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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        <item>
                <title>Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS 130 digital camera</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 9 Sep 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
without asking for permissions that is at risk.

&lt;p&gt;On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
written:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This product is licensed under AT&amp;T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
AT&amp;T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
standard.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
(MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
read
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA&quot;&gt;Why
Our Civilization&#39;s Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
MPEG-LA&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/&quot;&gt;H.264 Is Not
The Sort Of Free That Matters&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Simon Phipps to learn more about
the issue.  The solution is to support the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition&quot;&gt;free and
open standards&lt;/a&gt; for video, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theora.org/&quot;&gt;Ogg
Theora&lt;/a&gt;, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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