Recent trends developing between the big IT players, Google and Microsoft, are starting to paint a very interesting picture. At PDC, Microsoft recent developer conference, they have announced Azure. What is Azure? Well, it is Microsoft answer to Google and the future business model to carry Microsoft forward in a future where operating systems and developer tools are free and abundant. Vista doesn’t matter any more.
To help explain my point of view, lets look at some trends we have direct experience with.
Google Apps; this is hurting Microsoft more then they are willing to admit. My company, and many I know, have stopped using their Exchange servers, and opened up a free Google Apps account. They couldn’t be more happy. They may be loosing some functionality, but in real terms those features are not in common use, and other free online services exist to fill in some of the gaps. Google Apps also needs far less CPU power (less $$) and is inherently mobile as it works on any web terminal. The need for a Windows PC to run Outlook is removed. Users are free to use the operating system of choice, be it XP, Vista, MacOSX or linux.
Google appears to have the future vision of online services in good focus. Chrome Browser is Google’s attempt to speed up the “Browser as an OS” future. Chrome was a direct shot over Microsoft bow. Azure, is Microsoft’s volley, and it is not a warning shot like Chrome was.
Microsoft realises that dominance of the OS market is going to be a short term future. End users have realised that they do not need to purchase the bigger and faster system every few years. Computers are fast enough to do what they need, and have been for years now. The push of more complex operating systems and eye catching graphics does little for productivity. Linux is really starting to evolve into a reasonable desktop OS, while XP is all users really need. OSX is showing its superiority as sale indicate. XP is being sold for a fraction of its original price just to complete on the netbook PC market and the growing Linux base. Microsoft needs to keep this base small, otherwise it will reach critical mass, and hard ware makers will see a reason to spend some money developing it to XP feature set. Then its all over for XP/Microsoft in many ways.
The open source movement just keeps moving on slowly, as such, it will eventually break Microsoft and other commercial Operating systems as the dominant OS for general use (Web, Email, IM). It is simply inevitable. As such, Microsoft needs to start positioning itself now for that future.
And what is that future?
Online services. Look out if you are a small data centre. Microsoft is heading into your business space. Data centres are big users of Microsoft product and the yearly maintenance, Microsoft needs to build in value and take over this market to replace that which is going away.
This is an important time as Linux has been kicking huge goals in the Application server market. Google is completely based on it. So is Yahoo. If IT services is one of the last profitable areas, then Microsoft will want to own it. They really need to establish a fantastic developer platform and cloud computing service. If anyone can, Microsoft can.
This new platform means developers will be developing software to run on cloud computing systems. Defiantly the future. Microsoft wants developers to make these tools as so they run on their cloud technology, and as such, keep Microsoft receiving yearly fees from every business.
It comes down to.. If you cannot make money on the sale of the development tools and the software, make the money on something they have to pay for, even if they are using free/open source software. The cloud infrastructure it will live on. Services are immune to free software and development tools.
Finally, lets look at the offering. The killer app here from Microsoft is going to be Silverlight. Google, Yahoo are pushing javascript based interface engines, however, neither of them have a platform that is as advanced and capable as Silverlight. Adobe Flex/Flash is out there, but does not appear to have traction with the big players as a future Cloud development platform.
Lets get this straight. Javascript based internet applications are NEVER going to be as capable as, for example, Native Microsoft Word. However, Silverlight will get it much closer then any other technology available now or on the road maps of other technologies. Flex/Flash a close second. Javascript/AJAX frame works will probably archive very functional applications, but the polish and user interface speed will never match.
Many developers I know seem to downplay these issues. I see this as short sightedness as natural evolution dictates end user will gravitate toards what is fast, nicer to look at when availble under the same conditions.
UPDATE: Last night Microsoft announced Silverlight based version of its Office suite including Outlook. Major signs of the roadmap as descripbed above. Google watch out.. However, early reports are that the web version of Office apps will not be free, and you will need to have purchased the future Office release for access to online versions. Obviously these apps will also become free as in google apps, but with limited features. Google’s vision of online apps is simply to get control of the eyeballs and in general, the ads which they see. This is why Yahoo was such an important purchase for Microsoft. You need a effective way to monetise these eyeballs. The purchase is probably still very much on the cards if we do not see Microsoft building that infrastructure themselves. They will eventually purchase it. And yahoo is still the best option and now a very good buy at $12 down from the high $27 offer.
The Canon 5DMK2 is making big news in the Film and TV world. The example video by Vincent Laforet looks quite amazing as a web file. But to fully assess the quality of the images we need to examine the raw files coming from the camera. Canon made these files available on their website but has since removed them due to high demand (bandwidth costs?).
Firstly, let’s discuss what format the 5DMK2 uses for recording its video files. It is a H.264 codec with audio giving a 40mbit stream in a standard MP4 container. The H.264 profile is highly compatible with Quicktime and as such can be imported into Final Cut Pro or Premiere on Mac and PC without too much fuss. This is great news but there are issues one should be aware of.
The profile used can only compress at 4:2:0 colour space. This isn’t great, especially if you want to do any intensive colour correction. It is also likely that the encoder is not using some of the more advanced encoding features available in H.264, especially as it is a real-time encoder.
H.264 has a lot of potential, however this implementation is far from pristine. I will use a comparison to better explain this dilemma. Software encoded Quicktime movie trailers such as those posted on apple.com (a very similar file type) have an average bitrate of 9mbit but in my opinion, are producing far superior images than the 5D is at 36.5mbit (the video portion of 40mbit). One would expect a significant increase in quality when comparing the 5DMK2 with Quicktime trailers given the math of 36.5 over 9. However, this does not appear to be the case. I am not that surprised as I haven’t seen any real-time H.264 encoders that hold up very well. I expect that over time, the quality achievable for H.264 real-time encoders will improve to near software (non real-time) encoders. Just look at the evolution of the DV and HDV codecs for a sign of things to come.
That said, the quality of the 5DMK2 raw files are disappointing when considered in the light of serious colour correction. Macro-blocking (visible square areas) are evident in the dark regions of the video. All said, 5D still does deserve a lot of attention. The codec performance may be letting it down at the moment, but that could change. The real issue here is that we have a 35mm sensor in $3500 camera body that can take common hi-quality lenses. Getting the image of the sensor in a quality that a film maker wants will happen sooner or later.
To help with examining these raw files, I have both cropped a sequence and isolated an image to demonstrate some of the observed issues with the raw files produced by the 5D..
The above SWF file shows a section of the sky from the “bridge shot”. I have extracted frames from this shot, converted them to uncompressed PNG and placed them in a SWF file. You’re looking at the raw, uncompressed footage playing back in the Flash window. Total of 25 frames. Note the noise and visible macro blocks.
5D example
I took the above section from a frame of a predominantly bright image. As to be expected, a well lit image looks clean and devoid of “blocking”. But on closer inspection we can see something passing in front of the lens creating the darker to lighter gradient. As you can easily see, noticeable “blocks” are evident, especially in the blue portion.
Recently Canon released a new camera called the EOS 5D MkII. This camera can shoot video as well as being a 22mega pixel stills camera. I was on the Photogeek.tv podcast last week talking about it. You can find some amazing videos and behind the scenes information on Vincent Laforet ’s blog.
Otherwise following is my brief outline and reasoning for this being a revolution in Film acquisition.
As a Still camera, the 5D is a resonable upgrade to compete with Nikon’s new range. However, the Nikon range does still appear to have an advantage in over all still quality.
In the Video area, the 5D looks better then the RED-scarlet (3k imager with bayer filter = less quality then 5D) RED has withdrawn the current Scarlet specs. Becuse of the 5D or not, the general still camera industry has surpased the scarlet product and currently I would expect a RED-1 type feature set in the Scarlet body if they plan to still “blow us away” as it is put.
The 5D, from my understanding, can function as a video capture device while at the same time capturing 22mega pixel stills. This indicates that it is doing a real time sample from 22mega pixel for 35mm sized imager, to 1920×1080. As such we are geting a large over sampling of the captured image down to 1920×1080 HD resolutions, we will be getting an amazingly clean image. The 5D also has a new sensor that is more sensitive to light giving you images that look amazing in low light. This also lets the film maker get away with less lighting (Saves costs) and also get a look usualy only available in much more expensive kit.
The big question is the video codec used and effective quality obtained. 36.5mbit H.264, at double the effective quality as MPEG2, will no dough give us amazing images. H.264 has also been extended to be able to do 4:2:2, 4:4:4 10bit, 12bit colour and up to 4K image sizes. Will the camera be able to take advantage of this? Does it now? Strangely I have not bee able to find any details on the Internet as yet. Even is the camera does not support these standards yet.. future versions are likely to.
The limitation to 30p (30 frames per second) is most likely more of a marketing issue then a technical one. After all, this camera is not ideal for a film maker. The form factor is for a still photographer, not a film/video maker. I personally expect to see a new Canon XL-video camera in the future that has 5D core technology in the centre with the film makers form factor around it. Add all the different frame rates and other film/video centric options. (And double the costs of the 5D most likely) and we have the future of Canon Video product line.
If nothing else, this camera indicates that a 35mm sized imager should now be standard for any PRO video camera. Raw 4k imagers are also old hat. We now expect over sized images giving us a over sampled result down to 2 or 4k sizes. These are ideas RED is even struggling with.
RED may have started from scratch with nothing to loose by making a film/video camera taking full advantage of current technology. However, once Canon and Sony also take this position, canabalising the current product ranges, RED is unlikely to match the experience and knowledge of either of these two companies.
Canon are at those cross roads now. Sony are likely to get their last as they are the leaders in the top end.
This will be an amazingly popular camera as armature film makers can really justify its costs as it is inexpensive and can also be used as a very good stills camera, which is also an item any Film/video maker should have in his bad.
In a recent post called “A fly in Steve’s soup (Apple’s path to online video)” I wrote about how Apple is bringing together a digital media ecosystem that could become a total end to end solution for playing all you media. Buy once and play everywhere, but with a DRM systems. Apple’s DRM system of course.
As mentioned, in the previous post, the obvious disregard for Flash technology, even in some obvious areas, shows more then stated reasons behind Apple propaganda engine to have it banished from every browser.
Philip Hodgetts, a good friend of which I argue these points daily, is very good with numbers. (It is part of his job) He recently Emailed me with a very telling analysis of how Apple is changing the way the web producer builds his websites. Anyway, I’ll let him do the talking here..
Let’s assume Apple keeps them (Flash, Silverlight) off the iPhone for the moment
So,
if a site has to be compatible with iPhone simply because there are too
many to ignore, and iPhone does not support Flash or Silverlight but
has great support for Canvas, Video, Audio and html 5 vector object the
iPhone ecosystem start driving the development of web standards over
“proprietary, but useful” standards.
(I’m not making an argument, just raising some interesting thinking).
Currently there are (both models) over 10 million iPhones in service and by
year’s end it’s expected to be 18 million worldwide, but let’s say 15
million by end 2008. By end 2009 that’ll be in the range of 20 - 25
million, with a couple of million iPod Touch running the same browser.
That’s getting close to the entire existing OS X market share and most
people can’t afford to throw out that entire demographic for their
website. Even most banks (at least in the US where there’s real
competition between banks and real choice - Westpac and St George!!!)
have redesigned Mac compatibility into their website.
Do I think this is likely? Balance of probability, not really. Could it
happen? It definitely is within the realm of believability and such
sudden disruptions of entrenched players has happened in the past.
Real who?
Interesting thought.
Yes very. Philip is great with statistics to make a point.
The point Philip makes here follows on exactly from my previous post in that. Having the technology to make a end to end digital media system that (Apple believes, I don’t, but the producers may) can be the answer to the buy once and play everywhere needs of the consumer.
This is an extremely hot topic within the majors corporations as many start to move the importance of proprietary DRM’s in which complete control (And the plunders that would have followed) is simply not going to fly. See my post “The industry is growing up. DRM is Dead. Long Live DRM.” which points our how Sony, Best buy, CISOC, Comcast, HP are looking at a industry based DRM system. Another example of this is Microsoft’s Silverlight going H.264. Microsoft will no longer force Silverlight technology developers to use Microsoft VC-1. Ie, Microsoft has given up on VC-1 becoming the “One Codec To rule them All”. That’s H.264, lets get on with it. (Microsoft is changing some what)
Still, Apple is doing an amazing job, and out of those corporations who have tried for DRM dominance, Apple is probably going to get the closest to this goal. Unfortunately, I consider this goal unobtainable.
The alternative, and what I consider to be the real objective by Apple, is not to actually reach the un-reachable, but to keep the producers distracted long enough to overcome the resistance as seen currently with Apple and the music industry. For example, Apple became to dominent to fast. To hinder this, the music industry have given the right to sell DRM free content to most other online stores except Apple. The Video industry is very aware of this as well. If Apple can distract them for long enough. Game over.
No matter what technology does eventually get traction and become the future of our digital media future, advertising is still going to be a big part of it. Advertising is why we have “Free-to-air” TV. It’s not really free, as you have to endure the ads. This does, however, give us a window into what we are likely to see with the future of Internet sources TV. For example, free to watch TV coming over the Internet with ads.
This idea has been around for a long time. It is an easy idea to understand. Ads for a free-to-watch internet viewer can be much better targeted. Can be customised exactly for the viewer so it is more appearling and effective to the viewer. Its is completely trackable. This is all a dream come true for the advertisers.
However, tho this idea is easy to understand, by no means is it easy to accomplish. So much so, one wonders exactly how archevable it really is. Injecting custom ads into every stream is no mean task. The infrastructure is excessive and really only possible, currently, based on cable TV infrastructure. I currently cannot see this being effective on global Internet size.
Unfortunately, it is these older advertising models that pay for most of our favourite shows we freely watch every week. Utilising the power that digital gives us, to skip all the ads, at the same time kills what we enjoy so much. The hi-quality shows that take a lot of money to make.
