The Freedom Box updates

In recent months, several European broadcasters have undertaken initiatives to implement Over-The-Top (OTT) TV services. e-Media Institute has devoted a new research product (Web-TV Intelligence & Strategies Weekly Brief) to tracking and analysing such operations.

The research has identified more than 20 projects in the pipeline throughout Europe, with major UK and French broadcasters leading the way in the larger European TV markets. Research has also highlighted two parallel trends. The first is the development of distribution agreements between rights holders and hardware providers, including manufacturers of game consoles, set-top-boxes, TV sets, broadband consumer equipment and media centres (e.g., Five-Sony; Sky-Microsoft; TF1-Apple).

The second trend is the direct involvement of broadcasters in projects aimed at developing an open technical standard for the implementation of shared OTT TV services, including the Canvas Project in the UK and the pan-European Hybrid Broadband Broadcast TV Project (HbbTV).

For more information on the report and how to purchase, please write to info@e-mediainstitute.com.

In July we have sponsored a paper to describe the XMBC Architecture. We needed it to use in a grant proposal so why not paying the XBMC Community to have it?

During the time we were writing the proposal and working on the paper, we noticed that many other people were looking for something similar. Of course all information you will find in this paper is available somewhere on the XBMC wiki, support pages, foruns and trac... What we intended to have was one summary document that can serve as a base for new developers and companies when researching or planning to get involved in the project.

Hope it could be useful to you, or anyone you know that might be interested.

XBMC Summary Architecture
Download PDF

 

In a recent message that has come as a shock to many, Microsoft endorsed the use of <video> and <audio> tags. Adrian Bateman, the Program Manager for Internet Explorer, posted about this a few weeks ago.

The new HTML5 specification includes these <video> and <audio> tags to allow for both video and audio to be played from the browser without the use of a plugin, like Flash or QuickTime.  This allows for open, royalty-free codecs like Ogg Theora to be widely utilized. It also frees video and audio from its current, largely proprietary grasp, which reduces the legal and technological costs of entry, allowing for more participatory media. Many new browsers support these HTML5 elements, such as Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome, and Opera 10. Internet Explorer, which holds the largest market share for browsers, was conspicuously missing from this list. By announcing its support, IE has potentially allowed for a much larger base upon which this new HTML5 framework can be built—though what will actually happen remains to be seen.

Source: Open Video Alliance

Since the first publication in September 2008 and the last 2 revisions, our study on FLOSS Media Centers State of the Art was downloaded over 35,000 times.

It is now time for a third revision, and we found no better place to present it than the Open Video Conference in New York City from 19-20 June.



With 60 different features under comparison in the 10 most prominent media centers in the free/open source community, we consider all the aspects that matter to you - the end user - to pick your preferred system. Whether it runs on a HTPC or in a set-top box, you have all the parameters to ensure the right choice spending little or nothing. Oh, did I mention this work is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license?

So stay tuned, we see you at the OVC.

We launched the first version of our FLOSS Media Center Comparison Chart last year, on September 18. Four months later, we are pleased to announce that we just passed 20.000 downloads.

This is an impressive number for a niche used to see fragmented, disconnected initiatives here and there. Some flourishing, some dead. Free/Open Source Media Centers suffered for a long time from the lack of dedicated (and compatible) hardware to run on, and we are glad to see that 2008 brought us new players (like Boxee) and new products (like Neuros LINK), aiming to increase awareness and use of such home entertainment applications.

We bet 2009 will bring FLOSS Media Centers to a next level. From Home-Theater PC's to set-top boxes, we hope they reach the consumer mass-market pretty soon, and help users to discover new media, enjoy high quality content and connect even more using the internet.

So, thank you for your interest in our work. Thank you specially for those who are constantly telling us about the new features within your community. We'll be compiling the next paper update pretty soon, and we'll let you know through this blog. Subscribe to the RSS feed.