Leslie Ellis's blog

Dynamic Ad Insertion And the Upfronts

By: Leslie Ellis May 20 2013 - 12:49am

It’s “upfront” season, which is as good a reason as any to revisit what’s going on at that vital intersection between video advertising and technology.
 

May Your Buffer Never Bloat

By: Leslie Ellis May 13 2013 - 11:49am
Guess what: The Internet is getting bloated. “Buffer-bloated,” specifically.

Buffer bloat is a big thing in the lives of the people who work on network protocols and big-iron router stuff . Some even smoosh it into one word: Bufferbloat.

Observer’s Notebook: Robots And USFIRST

By: Leslie Ellis May 6 2013 - 10:44am

ST. LOUIS — Every once in a while, technology translation sways human. This is one of those times. I’m just back from my first USFIRST championship, held here April 26-28.

What a scene! Picture the Edward Jones Dome teeming with 10,000 high-energy teenagers, in tutus and capes and crazy hats. And their robots (2,500-plus of them). And another 15,000 or so deafening fans.

What the Charter Waiver Means to Cable

By: Leslie Ellis Apr 29 2013 - 10:05am

Once upon a time, consumer-electronics companies wanted to sell digital TVs that were “cable ready.” That means one attaches the TV to power and cable, and it works. No set-top required.

Federal regulation ensued, which brought us the “CableCard” — an expensive, removable form of security that could ostensibly be slipped into TV sets, thus making them “cable ready.”

UStream, I Stream, We’ll All Stream … Upstream

By: Leslie Ellis Apr 15 2013 - 2:35pm

Here’s one to keep a close eye on: “Ustream,” the online service that streams live video from any of the webcams in your life.

For instance: Sara, who runs our over-the-top video lab, raises chickens. Sometime next week, she’ll assemble an incubator to keep the eggs warm and cozy.

A webcam, fed by Wi-Fi, will peer into the incubator. Ustream will livestream from the “hatch cam” to the tablets, phones and PCs of anyone who wants to watch the progression from eggs to little fluffy chicks.

We Can’t Really Call Cable A ‘Dinosaur’ Anymore

By: Leslie Ellis Apr 8 2013 - 9:18am

The who’s who of the over-the-top (OTT) video community met in San Jose, Calif., a few weeks ago, at a trade show called OTTCON. Missed it? Me too. But I dispatched Sara Dirkse, who runs our OTT video lab. Luckily for us, she takes great notes. Here are the highlights:

• Backhanded compliment of the year: Cable companies were described as “dinosaurs with lasers.” Jeremy Toeman, CEO of Digit Media, said: “The dinosaurs are getting more advanced, so we can’t really call them that anymore,” .

A Brief History of Video Storage

By: Leslie Ellis Apr 1 2013 - 8:01am

Among the list of barriers facing the next version of high-definition television — Ultra HD, or “4K” — is the matter of how to store it. Blu-ray Disc, so named for the color of the laser that pulls the images and sound off of the plastic disc, likely isn’t big enough for 4K.

There’s no real answer yet to the question of “then what,” but it’s safe to assume some kind of format scuffle is next. Why? Because this happens almost every time video gets better.

Dismiss UltraHD at Your Peril

By: Leslie Ellis Mar 25 2013 - 11:01am

By now, you’ve probably heard the long list of reasons why UltraHD television is hobbled, even as it dazzles its way to the starting line. Some already liken it to 3DTV, in terms of nonstarters.

This week’s translation examines why it’s a bad idea to dismiss UltraHDTV so soon. Why? Because we’ve seen this movie before. Think back to when HDTV began — very similar obstacles.

Intro to ‘Search and Rec’

By: Leslie Ellis Mar 11 2013 - 2:31pm
In the world of over-the-top video, it was a big deal when hardware provider Roku turned on a feature that lets consumers search across all available OTT services on that device — Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.

Getting to Know 'The IOT'

By: Leslie Ellis Mar 4 2013 - 12:53pm

 

Recently, while moderating a panel, I came across a CTO-type with 133 Internet-protocol- connected things — in one home.

Turns out he’s an early partaker in the worldwide movement that is the “Internet of Things” — which, as I learned during the research for this translation, is now abbreviated to “the IOT.”

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