The increase in the rates paid by streaming services to copyright holders was just too much for Live365. They abruptly closed down recently leaving we broadcasters in a bit of a tizzy.
I'm working to find a replacement and should have something up in a day or so. Please stay tuned here for updates.
Thanks for your patience.
T.
The increase in the rates paid by streaming services to copyright holders was just too much for Live365. They abruptly closed down recently leaving we broadcasters in a bit of a tizzy.
I'm working to find a replacement and should have something up in a day or so. Please stay tuned here for updates.
Thanks for your patience.
T.
Netflix have posted an outline of their video encoding workflow. It’s very light on details but it is an interesting read.
http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/12/high-quality-video-encoding-at-scale.html
I’ve been noodling on the problem of how to get photos on frames. FrameAlbum fills the need for folks with internet capable frames (and a little tech knowledge). What about all the folks without internet capable frames, or, don’t have the skills to adjust their frame (or Grandma’s frame 1,200 miles away) to use the FrameAlbum service?
Replace the internet connection with a memory card
Any digital photo frame will have at least one memory card slot. What if you could setup Grandma’s frame with your Flickr/Picasa/other photos on FrameAlbum and then have a memory card sent directly to Grandma! If your Grandma is anything like mine was she has mad cookie baking skillz but was stumped by pretty much anything with more than one knob. This method would not require internet,, wifi, or any other wizardry beyond pushing a memory card into a slot.
Time to pay the piper
This would not be a free service. There would be a fee to cover the cost of the memory card, shipping and a little something for the gnomes that will fill the cards with your photos. This could work as a subscription with a regular update card sent out monthly/quarterly, or a one-shot deal.
Thoughts?
I haven’t built any of this yet. Before I go down this road I’d like to see if there is any interest in such a service. Please share your thoughts in the comments below, or contact me directly.
Thanks for your support of FrameAlbum!
TechCrunch published a piece yesterday about the backlash to Netflix’s recent pricing changes. This chart really brought it home for me.
With that single act, Netfix’s management brought the public’s perception of their company from rating higher than the next two competitors combined down to parity with the lowest sludge filled sub-basement level occupied by DirecTV. DirecTV was formally owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation; <cough> a model of management efficiency and ethics if ever there was one <cough>.
Personally, Netflix is hanging by a thread in our household. Their support for Windows Media Center, tenuous as it may be, is enough for me to keep the service for now. If they should ever drop support for MCE I would drop Netflix quicker than you can say ‘cracked DVD’.
The oft delayed release of the first round of beta registrations is in progress now! It’s a small set and it’s based on first-come, first-served method. If all goes well with this group I’ll release a larger group on the next round.
You will receive an email from ‘framealbum@gmail.com’ that contains a link that will take you to a registration page. You will be prompted for a password and your home ZIP code. You may also change your username if you wish. The ZIP code information will be used on future features such as weather updates, local news, traffic, etc. None of this information is shared with third parties.
Once you are logged into the service you will be presented with options to ‘Add a Frame’ or ‘Add a Channel’. You may have multiple frames and multiple channels. A frame may have multiple channels and a channel may be assigned to multiple frames.
Your first step should be to Add a Frame. You will be asked for a nickname, a Frame ID and to select the model of your frame. The FrameID is a unique identifier assigned to your frame by it’s manufacturer. You may leave it blank if you do now know it. If your frame model is not listed, or you simply don’t know it just choose the ‘Unknown’ option.
You should make note of the ‘Feed URL’ of your frame. For now this will be the primary method of getting the feed onto your frame. I’ll try to put together some documentation on the various frames but for now please review your frame’s user manual. It is commonly referred to as a ‘Custom RSS’ or ‘Custom Photo’ feed.
Once your frame is created, you can add channels. Channels are what contain the content that is displayed on your frame. At present only Flickr feeds are supported. More are under development.
When creating a new Flickr channel it will prompt you for a nickname and the Flickr username of the photostream to view. Only ‘public’ photostream photos are supported at present.
As always, questions are invited.